A Life in Stitches

My mother in law passed away this morning.  I never appreciated how much I shared with her until it was too late.  I am not sure that she would have been comfortable knowing how much I admired her and her work. 

I knit her a scarf a long time ago or so it seems now and she loved it.  She was still wearing it when I saw her at Thanksgiving.  It was just a simple simple lace, out of a glittery yarn from back before the trend of glittery yarns.  It was the prettiest blue and complimented her alabaster skin and her snow white hair.  I was surprised and pleased to see it still worn and still appreciated.

 After she went into a home, I was asked to go through a few of her things, her craft things.  I found most of the yarn a new home but I kept these things.

  

The pink yarn above is a remnant of something very 1940's and is so slippery it is almost impossible to keep on the spool.  It is nylon and very vintage and I have never seen anything like it before.

Tucked in with the fibre was a hand written pattern, the Easter Bonnet, as the picture shows.

The white crochet cotton in the top picture is the last remnants from her table cloth, started in the 1940's and finished in the 1980's  with a couple of modern balls of cotton.  She worried that the white would be different but it was fine. That table cloth decorated her table under a sheet of plastic.  Yeah, many might see that as tacky, but would you willingly wash and block a 100 inch long table cloth made of small spiral motifs every time someone came for dinner?  See?  Plastic.

 I am not sure what these tiny motifs are for but it must have been a big project.  There are 10 or so small balls of size 30 cotton.  For a time I thought they were old, but then I realized the spool was plastic.

 These are tiny motifs and oh so delicately done.  When I crochet, things tend to be loosey goosey but Dorothy's are crisp and firm and tight.

 And tiny.  Did I mention that?  Tiny. Size 30 crochet cotton.  A .75 mm needle.  Tiny.

One of her granddaughters, above all the others, spent so much time with Grandma.  She lived in the same town and often was there after school and on weekends.  Without a doubt she was the first to note Dorothy's slow slide into dementia. I remember the sometimes very confused look of a teen who just really couldn't understand what the heck grandma was doing.  

I think this tiny strip of delicate work will be given to her. She doesn't crochet.  She doesn't knit, but I think she will understand it best of all.

God Speed Dorothy.  Heaven knows how much I wish I had made the time to know you better.