Irishrose2, I totally agree with you. I use essential oils from a trusted company and diffuse in my sewing room and throughout my house. I am not breathing any toxins and everything smells so fresh. KarenG

I grew up many years ago on a rural farm. How did we survive with all the barnyard smells, the smells of canning, cooking and baking without chemical sprays and diffusers to mask the smells of living?

Nobody cans, cooks, or bakes anymore. :( I make pancakes from scratch and my kids' friends are amazed. They didn't know you could do that.

I went to several stores lately, looking for biscuit cutters. Couldn't find one anywhere. An employee workin nearby, an older woman, asked me if she could help me find anything, I said in frustration "Biscuit cutters! There's 7 different kinds of can openers but no biscuit cutters?!?!?!?" She replied "It's a sad statement about our culture today, isn't it?"

that's a generalization now isn't it?? I'm still raising my kids and all of them enjoy cooking from scratch and they LOVE to bake. The real trick is getting them to stop baking things, I can only eat so many delicious treats (to be a supportive parent you understand ;)) and I have to watch my weight :p. It's not just our family either, my two best friends (both raising kids too) are teaching all of their children to cook and bake. It's very frustrating to be trying to do my best to raise good productive independent future adults and all everyone can do is get on the "bashing younger people" bandwagon.

I'll give you the canning thing though, the closest we come to canning is making homemade freezer jam for the deep freeze. I also don't own a biscuit cutter because I use a glass (like my mother and grandmothers did) or make drop biscuits.

Me, too! :D

LOL. I had a similar experience a few years back, when I was looking for round metal cutters that could withstand prolonged heat so I could make my own english muffins. My recipe makes a loose batter, so it needs to be poured into a ring as it cooks to keep its shape. My local kitchen supply store only had plastic novelty cookie cutters and large silicone rounds made for cooking fried eggs, which would have worked if they hadn't leaked at the bottom. I ended up buying four multipacks of different sized metal cutters meant to be used to cut cakes just to have four circles of the size I wanted.

I would also advise against the use of air fresheners. I used to work in the flavors and fragrance industry (think Lemon Pledge, BBQ potato chips, various colognes) and perfumes are considered "hazardous waste" that must be disposed of safely. The natural odors of cooking and daily living can easily be dispersed by opening a window or two for a few minutes. Even in the dead of a Minnesota winter.

Excuse me, who said anything about "bashing younger people?" My only comment about youth was that my kids' friends were unaware that you could make pancakes from scratch. That is in no way bashing; it is stating a fact.

If you are referring to the clerk's comment about our culture, I still ask, who said anything about bashing younger people?? She said "our culture today" which includes members of every generation!

Good grief.

I think we are getting off topic. My original post was about what it does to our quilts.

Perhaps the topic has shifted a little, but the relevance is modern replacements for products of simple living. My original post on rural farm living without chemical sprays was somewhat tongue in cheek. We have been convinced by advertisers that we need chemical sprays to mask the smells of everyday life that we didn’t used to think were a problem. Your question about whether the air fresheners might harm quilts is a legitimate one. A broader and more vital question might be how they might affect our health and the health of our planet.