Dainty Antique Treasures

My sister came to visit, and had on loan for the day some dainty bits of lace.  She thought they were tatting, but they are crochet, of course.  This is very tiny, delicate work, which I would estimate used a size 13 or 14 steel hook.

Here is a bit of rick-rack lace with a penny to show how tiny it is.  

These were made in the early 1900's by our great-grandfather's second wife.  These were her display samples for taking orders to sell lace.  the rick-rack edging above was 10 cents per yard, can you imagine!

I am glad I got to see them. I recognize some of the patterns from antique publications, but I don't know if I have them all.

Polar Bear Revisited

Some folks have reported having trouble understanding the directions for my crocheted polar bear from 2008. I've gone back to the original post and added some text and pictures for working the legs. Hope this helps!

I've Got A Swelled Head...And I Can't Read

I had an email recently from House of White Birches asking for my current address so they could send back some crochet models. I had practically forgotten that I had sold them two crochet patterns, back in 2008 (I think). That was nice to hear. In my experience selling patterns to various places, some times you get your models back and sometimes you don't. Sometimes it takes a long time.

Anyway, a few days later, I had a box at the post office, and it felt too heavy
for just some thread crochet. I was happy to find inside a copy of "Christmas in Crochet". It is so gratifying to see yourself in print. I guess I'm feeling pretty full of myself right now.




Maybe a little less full of myself when I noticed one of the models had lots of little tags attached, saying, extra stitch here, missing stitch here, etc. It looks like they proofed it against the written pattern real well.

One more thing... I guess I need to confess before I get caught out on this. I can't read. You may remember I was so mad at myself for missing the deadline for Piecework's crochet challenge. I sent them my picture anyway with a note saying that I was sorry to miss the deadline but wanted to let them know I really enjoyed figuring out the challenge pattern. After a bit, I got a quizzical email back, saying to the effect that, "but, dear, you didn't miss the deadline." So either I couldn't read the magazine or I couldn't read my calendar right. So I might get a mention in print there too, which would leave me feeling both happy and a bit foolish.