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“Constance leaned over the parchment and ostensibly studied in detail all the complex symbols worked into the design: the compass with four needles, each needle a scepter; the red poppies worked into the gold-embellished borders; the mythical figures, each veiled face a woman’s.”
― The Seamstress of New Orleans
― The Seamstress of New Orleans
“She picked up the wide sleeve and studied the beading: imitation pearls and small rhinestones interspersed with a few of glistening colors: watery blue and aqua, palest rose and coral.”
― The Seamstress of New Orleans
― The Seamstress of New Orleans
“If nothing else, Alice, you will have sight of one of the grandest buildings in the city, one of the grandest ever built, in fact. That florid thing cost three hundred eighty thousand dollars to erect! It is as ornate as a cathedral. But, oh so mixed up. A bit of everything thrown in---Second Empire, Renaissance, Italian, with Corinthian columns, no less. Gold ceiling medallions, frescoes, murals, sculptures--- even a fountain, where the futures are sold. Well, not in the fountain.” Constance laughed uncertainly. “And an ornate steam elevator… Well, just don’t bid on the cotton futures.”
― The Seamstress of New Orleans
― The Seamstress of New Orleans
“Beauty had emerged from her mother’s fingertips, her nimble use of needle and bright-colored thread. Beauty had lain in what sort of stitch could marry two scraps on a quilt and what other stitch mirrored a rose or a thorn or the seeded center of a sunflower.”
― The Seamstress of New Orleans
― The Seamstress of New Orleans
“Two glistening fish appeared on each side of the beaded rectangle, symbolic of the Gothic arched tower of the Brooklyn Bridge, just as they had mutually planned the design. But above that rectangle there was now a third shimmering, pointed oval, shaped the same as the fish but minus the tail. This pointed oval glimmered with delicate iridescence as the fabric moved. Visually, the shape was a subtle repetition of the Gothic arch and finished off the rectangular shape so that the impression became that of a lighted flame at the center of the design, a light reminiscent of Liberty’s torch. At a deeper, hidden level in Alice’s mind, the shape completed an allusion to Constance’s three children. This she had done for both of them, for their dead sons, regardless of whether Constance ever fathomed that aspect of Alice’s addition to the design. Every stitch in that simple shape had given Alice comfort.”
― The Seamstress of New Orleans
― The Seamstress of New Orleans
Nicole’s 2025 Year in Books
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