How we cite our quotes: Paragraph
Quote #4
When [Dee] finished wrapping the dasher the handle stuck out. I took it for a moment in my hands. You didn't even have to look close to see where hands pushing the dasher up and down to make butter had left a kind of sink in the wood. In fact, there were a lot of small sinks; you could see where thumbs and fingers had sunk into the wood. (54)
It's pretty cool that the narrator notices evidence of her relatives's labor in the dasher itself where the little finger and thumb prints are. The work required to make butter isn't always something that's valued in mainstream culture—some might even dismiss it as "women's work"—but by valuing the object, the labor it represents is also acknowledged.
Quote #5
[The quilts] had been pieced by Grandma Dee and then Big Dee and me had hung them on the quilt frames on the front porch and quilted them. One was in the Lone Star pattern. The other was Walk Around the Mountain. In both of them were scraps of dresses Grandma Dee had worn fifty and more years ago. Bits and pieces of Grandpa Jarrell's Paisley shirts. And one teeny faded blue piece, about the size of a penny matchbox, that was from Great Grandpa Ezra's uniform that he wore in the Civil War. (55)
Okay, so we can totally see why Dee would want these quilts—they're ridiculously rich in family history, and history in general too. It's a great example of how material objects can sometimes capture the spirits of people and cultures we no longer have access to and stimulate our curiosity about them.
Quote #6
"No," said Wangero. "I don't want those [quilts]. They are stitched around the borders by machine."
"That'll make them last better," I said.
"That's not the point," said Wangero. "These are all pieces of dresses Grandma used to wear. She did all this stitching by hand. Imagine!" she held the quilts securely in her arms, stroking them (59-61).
Sure the hand-stitched quilts probably are a bit cooler than the ones that have been tainted by the machine at the borders. But Dee's rotten attitude, as she snaps That's not the point, undermines anything worthy she might have to tell us about the importance of appreciating her grandmother's handicraft.