Learning to Crochet

My great grandmother (Mildred) taught me how to crochet in 1967 when I was 9 years old when we returned from Japan. She was a widow who spoiled me rotten. My great grandfather passed away the year before we returned stateside. They both had lived with us until we moved overseas. My father was in the Navy. By the time this picture was taken I was an old hand at it two years later when she came to visit. She never used a pattern to crochet with, she simply looked at an item and made it. Doilies, crochet edgings, scarves, potholders, mittens, slippers, vests. She didn't have names for the stitches she taught me I just knew there were certain ones you used for a look or the affect you wanted. I was somewhere in my late twenties when I ran across a magazine "Crochet World" that put a label on the stitches I knew.

 She also taught me how to embroider with needle and floss, also with paint pens. Do they even make embroidery pens any more? She taught me how to play rummy - she was one wicked woman when it came to rummy! She didn't drive and made great use of the mass transmit system of San Diego, California. When we lived in McAlester, Oklahoma she would come to visit she and I walked to town to a small used book store where I was in heaven browsing and reading all day while she would visit with gentleman who ran the place. When we would leave he would give me a book to take home to keep. It was the best. I was an only child and my granny was my best friend through out my childhood.

Above is the beginning of a crochet shopping bag that I'm making out of plastic grocery bags that have been discarded. I wanted to add some color to it, however most of the bags I get are white. Today however, AT&T delivered our new telephone books in a bright orange plastic bag! Yea, I get to add an orange stripe. If you are interested in this sort of thing you can get bags from Walmart grocery store recycle bin simply ask at the front desk. There are some wonderful items that is hard to believe are they once were plastic bags at cristencrochet.blogspot.com. Check it out. Oh, by the way, remember the guy with the used bookstore I mentioned? About five years into my marriage at my first family reunion for my hubby's family I ran into the guy again after 15 years- he was my hubby's uncle! How's that for a bit of the strange - oh, here's another one my hubby's birthday is on October 30th, so was his grandfather's and my great grandfather the one mentioned above.