Camp Colegate Chronicles: A Return to Crochet

Our Mother, Ruth Jones, could do anything she set her mind to. She never took a class, but could purchase a guide and run with it. Her first challenge came from her country cousins who told her that city girls could never learn to quilt. Nothing like throwing down the gauntlet. Ruth proceeded to create lovely, durable quilts, that we girls used, unfortunately, and have only survival scraps to remind us of her triumph. She made all our clothes, her curtains and drapes (then ours as we moved out and started our own families), and even Dad's boxer shorts from our discarded/outgrown skirts. That was during her down time. She washed our clothes in her wringer washer and hung them up to dry. All our food came from the garden or butchered livestock. During the winter we feasted from her canning and frozen foods.

When I was in high school, I loved those gorgeous Villager cabled sweaters, which were beyond our budget. Mother took one look at them and returned, "We could make those." She made notes of the basic cable pattern, so wide, so tall, and then we went to craft store and purchased a basic sweater pattern. Mother was left-handed, and I was right-handed, so instead of sitting next to her, I'd sit opposite, and somehow, we figured it out. I remember that I hand knit seven sweaters my senior year (and worked at Davidson's Photo Shop and engaged in all the extracurricular activities that I loved). I'd stay up until midnight knitting, then get up at 6AM for school. Ah, those were the days. Mother branched out into caning chairs with her sister, Harriet Halderman, and just about anything that caught her eye. She never enjoyed the design or beauty of the end product, but derived her personal satisfaction from creating technically perfect product.

When I lived down South I dabbled into crochet, which I enjoyed more. For the most part, one pretty much created a product as a whole, rather than pieces of a product that were later sewn/woven together. I made two elaborate afghans, one of which is perfect, the other one has a flaw in it. Not my Mother's daughter. I started this in Toccoa, GA, and would visit a woman who had a studio in a log cabin at the back of her house. I distinctly remember her telling me that children were not appreciated, looking deliberately at my Chris and Julia. Oh, dear. I never went back. I would pack up my work and ask Mother for help when we visited in Ohio.

How I ramble. Focus. After Bonfire this year, Julia mentioned to her cousin, Valerie Timmerman, that she loved Val's daughters' hats. Mother's words popped into my mouth, and I remarked, "I can make that." So I went onto the internet and found a darling pattern for three hats (two boys and a girl - how perfect!), and began a darling hat for Anna Kate. The pattern should pop up at this link from Crochet World: http://www.crochetmagazine.com/newsletters.php?mode=article&article_id=515. I was a little rusty, but how great to have the internet as a resource for your questions and problems. I've so enjoyed working on this, a perfect project for winter evenings. My challenge is having six grandchildren, mostly boys, to find projects for. The older boys may just roll their eyes, but I'll see what happens. Returning to crochet has brought back so many memories.