The weather here is still most unfriendly to both man and beast, so I have been keeping myself occupied, or perhaps preoccupied is more appropriate, indoors with various creative endeavors. Quiet-time alone always sets my mind whirling in different directions, recollecting and reconstructing images and objects from the past. As a youngster, one of the "things" that most stands out in my remembrances of Aunt Virgie and Uncle Bart's house was the filet crocheted valance which graced the window of the front door. Worked in fine crochet cotton, it featured flower details and the words "HOME SWEET HOME". She conciously hung it so that it was correctly viewed from the cozy cavern of her enormous burgundy velvet club chair, which meant that visitors were treated to the wrong-side mirrored words; it was her home after all, not theirs. It always fascinated me, as did the other intricately stitched crochet pieces under lamps and atop dressers and tables throughout her home. There was almost always a piece-in-progress hanging by a thread on a tiny steel Boye hook stabbed into a ball of Coats & Clark cotton . I suppose her handed-down hooks beckoned me from amongst a collection of vintage bone and steel hooks in a walnut cup turned by my son-in-law David, pulling at my memory last evenening and sending me into my stash for yarn. While I didn't find the "right" kind of thread, I did uncover a ball of Tofutsies sock yarn. Choosing a suitably sized bone hook from the cup I began working, effortlessly conjuring up the movements Aunt Virgie taught me so many, many stitches ago. Without thought hands and mind worked in unison creating the simple open stitches that are the backbone of filet crochet. This bit will become a scarf I think, which shall appropriately be called the "Virgie Scarf" in honor of its inspiration. This particular colorway and the seredipitous location of the first stitch, has worked out in an interesting fashion with colors occuring in the same location on each row of stitching--Virgie would find this a wonderful thing.
I remember the valance but didn't realize she made it. I'm remembering now a doily under the red lamp and maybe one on the back bedroom dresser. I might have looked closer had I known she made them!
ReplyDeleteYou taught me to chain, long, long ago. But Becca was the one who pushed me into all the decorative stitches. Those last couple of years of highschool I made two afghans and lots of doilies and bookmarks. Do you remember the night Becca staid over and I had to wake her up because she was counting 1,2,3 picot, 1,2,3 picot... We were trying to finish things before Christmas.
I have a copy ot a table cloth pattern that belonged to Mama Wiliams. I'll have to scan it or take a digital of it - maybe you could use it in a project. It's large - unfolds like a sewing pattern.
More Virgie stories, please?
Amber