Using Vintage Crochet Today

Wonderful friend Dorothay sent me a HUGE box of vintage embroidery, crocheted collars, laces, hankies and table runners she had garnered from her late sister's priceless hand made needlework. Some pieces go back over 100 years to grandmothers and great-grandmothers on both sides of the family.

Talk about a pig in heaven ... I was thrilled!

Now what to do with this beautiful box of goodies. An internet search came up with over two million websites relating to vintage crochet. Here are a few I found especially interesting:

Craftown

vintage-crocheted-edgings

Anything with an edge is a candidate for adding some crochet to it. A nightdress with crochet edging at the Purl Bee showed this idea of using an I cord to attach a piece of crochet to fabric to create a shoulder strap. The original owner of the idea could not be tracked down (her name is Leah). So there is no website to visit for her idea, but what a cool way to create a feminine touch to any sleeveless blouse.

I am using this idea to add a unique touch to an existing ivory colored camisole. (pictures tomorrow if this works out!)

Thank you so much, Dorothy, for passing this needlework on to me.

Using Paper Doilies for Sachet Flowers

This time of year, lavender is in bloom. Gorgeous! I was fortunate enough to see fields of lavender in bloom in both the state of Hawaii and in Provence (France) while on vacations. The sight of those flowers was breathtaking with surreal colors of purple waving across cultivated fields.

One way to preserve the scent of lavender is to capture the petals between paper.
The picture of a doily sachet and information about making easy paper sachet packets was first published by All Freecrafts. Here is what you need to make the sachet from paper:

2 Round paper doilies [5 to 6 inches]
Rose pattern rubber stamp
Heart pattern rubber stamp
Gold stamping ink
Gold paint pen
Clear drying craft glue
Cotton balls
Red and green pencils

Making the sachet:

Rubber stamp images on each of the two round paper doily with gold ink. Allow the ink to dry. Using colouring pencils, colour the rose and leaf areas of the stamped images.

With wrong sides of the paper doily together, glue together around the outer edge, leaving an opening of approximately two inches. Allow the glue to dry completely. A glue stick will work for this as well as any clear drying craft glue.

Spray a few cotton balls with cologne or add a few drops of essential oil. Place the cotton balls inside the doily sachet and glue the opening closed.

Because I am now a pig in heaven with wonderfully scented Colorado lavender, courtesy of my friend Ronn, I added lavender to the sachets. They are tucked away ready to be used for little presents for friends, while currently bringing back memories of prior vistas of lavender fields.

This was a quick, easy project completed in less than an hour.

Knitting: The Magic Loop Method

Finishing up the week related to Scrabble: 1)National Scrabble Tournament 2009 First Place Winner in Division One: Congratulations to David Wiegand, 35 year old winner of a $10,000 cash prize. 2) Where did I place? Dead center, quite mediocre; but I had a ball in Dayton, Ohio and played 31 games in tournament play, many which were awful. Overall, the games I played were more fun than torture, and I did increase my Scrabble ranking by 25 points.

Now, back to crafts: what I learned from a knitting buddy there: investigate the Magic Loop method of constructing socks. This "Magic Loop" technique is a way to knit socks or small circumferences using one circular needle instead of five wooden needles. It is more portable, and the ends of the article in process will not slip off the needles. Go here for more detailed information.

This is a video on YouTube that explains the "magicality" of knitting in the round on a circular needle.



And this is a picture of the beginning of the Ty Dy sock started in Dayton a few days ago on a size 1, 32" circular needle, using hand painted, washable wool in the Evil Stepmother colorway yarn from Knit Picks:

The pattern for the sock is from Becca at A Hard Days Knit. She says:

No more socks that don’t fit! It took me years to perfect the best fitting socks. I love just plain stockinette socks in fun stripey yarn ( I think they fit the best and they are great for knitting while watching television and you can take them anywhere).

This is a very basic pattern and is intended as a guide for knitters who already have some sock knitting experience.

Can't wait to see how they turn out. Thank you for the Ty Dy Sock pattern, Becca.