Still loving the potholders

My goal was 52 this year, one per week, but I’ve made over 40 already. They’re like the dessert of crochet!

The “western” ph

Have I been busy or what?

It’s raining potholders!

And more potholders….

Be prepared, I’m on a potholder binge. And until it runs it’s course, I’ll be “finding” potholders in all kinds of patterns. But first here are a few more that I’ve crocheted in the last few days. The rose is a vintage pattern and can be found in a lot of places, and the starburst is also vintage in lots of variations.

Where does the time go?

It’s been months since I posted, and the baby blanket is still nicely rolled up beside my Crochet Spot in the den! My husband has decided that I miss the interaction with my customers and that I need to start going to the craft shows again after 20 years, so we’ve been going to a little flea market about 20 miles from here. Papa D’s on Facebook, if you’re interested in that kind of thing.

That means that I need to start crocheting marketable things again, and that hasn’t been done for so long that my mind just goes in circles trying to think of things to sell. What sold the last couple of months was girly hats for little girls. And Christmas stuff. And the ever-popular baby blankets, the same pattern I came up with back in the 30-plus years ago. But what I’m in love with right now are thread potholders. You know, those things that are really not serviceable that your grandmother had hanging on her kitchen wall, and she threatened you if you dared try to use it. “Aunt So-and-so made that for me, and I love it – don’t use it!” Those potholders… Here are a couple that I’ve made since the New Year.

And here is the potholder pattern that I actually use, the only one I use in the kitchen because it is double thick but made in one piece.  No, it’s not “that” one, but this one:

http://web.archive.org/web/20040124114259/http://www.sarahanns.com/crochetworks/afgan.html

The potholder pattern is about 1/2 way down the page.  I bought the pattern set back in the very early 1980s, but Sally George’s daughter put the patterns up on her own web site free in memory of her mother.  The potholder is a little tricky to start, but once you get in the rhythm of it you’ll love it.  It’s my take-along project for road trips because I don’t need the pattern anymore!

Found – two more sampler pages.

More samples. The thread on these two seems smaller, so I’m assuming it was not the same crocheter as my other post. These use a lot of the commercial trims that were available in the early 1900s, like a picot strip that is _maybe_ 1/8″ wide as shown on the top right column of the partially finished page. You have to look really close (click on the picture to enlarge) to see that the “rims” of those wheels are actually not crocheted but strips of trim. To the left of that one, the lozenge-shaped areas are not crocheted, but commercial trim that is the base for the crochet work. Below that, tiny rick rack is used! I’m wondering if they came up with the designs themselves or used a commercial pattern. I’ve seen a couple of rick rack books but nothing that uses all the other trims so effectively.

Excuse My Interruption…..

I’m about finished with the “frame” for the baby blanket, but in trying to do some cleaning up in my office (aka the dining room with no table) I found this set of sampler pages that came from eBay years ago. There’s no date and no name, but some crocheter decades ago (maybe 100 years!) copied them from someone else’s work or possibly one of the scarce pattern books of that time. I can’t speak for other crocheters, but the old books and the old work pull at me in a way no modern work could. Modern is not bad, but it doesn’t tell me a story the way these pieces do. That could be because back in the 1960s my grandmother gave me a 1915 Royal Society crochet leaflet with her notes in it from when she crocheted the yokes to a couple of nightgowns for her sister-in-law, my great-aunt Argent who married in 1916. It never even occurred to me that there were avid crocheters and pattern books back then; my grandmother probably was more of a seamstress than a crocheter anyway.

As you can see, they are tacked to solid color fabric.  What you can’t see is that only 1/2 the fabric is used for the samples, and the other 1/2 doesn’t have anything on it.  They seem to be like large pages of a fabric book, so maybe the plan was to eventually sew them together for a sampler album which would have pages larger than standard book pages.  The fabric has been stamped with what looks like tapework patterns (Battenburg?) on one fabric and large flower patterns on the other.  Waste not, want not!  The thread is at least size 30, if not smaller, and many of the designs were crocheted onto commercial insertion laces.  Note the piece at the center bottom of the bottom left photo; that is tiny, tiny rick-rack that in arranged in circles and crocheted together!

I wish these were my grandmother’s work.  But I can still pretend.