Forty Years Later—Grandmother's Last Afghan

This green and gold afghan and matching pillow is the last one my grandmother made. I believe she finished it in early 1969 and died in December of that year. I recently found some Polaroids of the family home from the '60s and '70s. This was "my" bedroom whenever I stayed over. I originally had a much smaller room, but when I got be about thirteen I "graduated" to this Red Room. I still have most of the items from my room, but I wish I had the house, the Daniel and Charity Leete house. Polaroid at top dated 1972, the digital image at the bottom is from this morning, and the wallpaper is a shred leftover from that room. I really do keep as much from my past as I can.

Hooking, the Good Way? : )

This is another of the vintage hand-made items I've save through the years. I'm not sure of the technique, but I think it's called "hooking." It's not needlepoint, and I don't think it's really crewelwork either. It's a bit "plusher," almost like a rug. It's made on a round piece of muslin/canvas cloth, which is attached to a square piece of slightly lighter-weight fabric, and was eventually meant to become a pillow. Or perhaps a seat cover of sorts? I photographed it on a dark red pillow, but the piece itself is just loose and unattached to anything. I'm not sure why so many projects like this in my collection progressed so far and then weren't finished. They're all interesting though.

An Almost Lost Art, 1940s Tablecloth

Each corner of this 1940s cotton tablecloth is sewn with these decorative flowers and trailing vines. When you enlarge these images, check out the subtle yellow and orange threads of the smaller flowers.

M Y   C O L L E C T I O N — This is a plain white cotton tablecloth, 36 x 42 inches, with hand-sewn flowers and cool zipper-like vines leading to each group of flowers. The two groupings posted are representative of each corner, and in between these corner groups are smaller flowers. The flower colors vary from pink and lavender to orange and yellow and the leaves and stems are green and brown, with the "zipper" in navy blue. My grandmother made hundreds of pieces like this, including handkerchiefs, napkins, pillowcases and tableclothes. Most of them have been packed away since new and are in really good shape considering the youngest ones are now more than fifty years old. I'm not sure if this is technically crewel work or embroidery, but work like this must have taken a long time! But then, many of these were done before the age of TV, and the hundreds of "modern conveniences" that take up our time today.

What I grapple with though, is what to do with all of these hand-sewn pieces. They could be displayed in a frame, but I have literally hundreds of pieces and could never afford to do that. We've all seen my walls and there isn't room left at the inn for them, lol! So for now, they remain carefully packed away, waiting for a better day.