Doilies and Grandmothers

Awhile ago my great grandmother passed away. She was an amazing lady. You name a handiwork - crocheting, knitting, tatting, painting, she could do it! And do it very well! She was my mom's grandmother, and she taught my mom to crochet, and my mom taught me. She made many many doilies. Neither my mom or me has learned to make doilies yet. That is on my goal list, and I am going to try and get it done this winter. Thread crochet takes a long time, and a lot of patience, but otherwise isn't that different from crocheting with yarn. It's just smaller and takes some getting used to. My friend Brianna makes doilies. I admire her for having the patience to do that, because that is one of the main things she makes. She sells them. You can see some of her doilies here and here. Another thing my great grandmother made were thread stars. She probably made hundreds of them in her lifetime. They were about 4 inches wide, and made of thread. She attached a tag to each of them that said "Hang this star in your window so that Jesus knows you love Him". We have several of those hanging in our house and they're very special to us. She crocheted me and the three middle kids in my family baby blankets when they were born, those are beautiful too! She crocheted mostly thread items, and knitted with thread as well as yarn. She also was an amazing painter! Art skills aren't something I inherited from her. :) My cousin got them instead. I am the only one of her descendants that crochets (besides my mom), so I got all of her crochet hooks. Most of them are thread hooks, but there is a really interesting one in there that's metal and it looks handmade. My great aunt Mona knits, so she got all of her knitting needles. I also received all of my grandmothers yarn (against my wishes, I have quite enough), because my aunt didn't want to fly back home with a huge tub of yarn! So I have a huge tub of yarn in my closet from her. The last thing I received when she passed was her book of patterns which is a treasure (or will be when I start thread crochet) even though she wasn't a very talented pattern writer. It has all of her doily patterns as well as the star pattern! Sadly, she passed away this past spring. She died at age 94, and was crocheting, knitting, painting, and doing everything else until the end when she couldn't see her work anymore! She was an amazing lady, and the greatest great grandmother ever, and without her I wouldn't be where I am as a crocheting right now. Thank you Grandma!! One of my other great grandmothers (my mom's other grandma) and her mother were also both excellent crocheters! I do not think crocheting would even be known to us today if it wasn't for our grandmothers and to pass it on through the generations. Grandmothers are definitely to credit for keeping crocheting alive!! Thank you to all the grandmothers on this earth and who have lived this earth for keeping this amazing hobby alive!! I know I will being passing this hobby on to my grandchildren (when I eventually have some!) and I hope you will too!

We think this doily is tatting. Does anyone know if this is tatting?

This doily beautiful doily was crocheted by my Grandma

This doily (also crocheted) is my favorite

This is a hanging in our living room that has one of my grandma's stars, a picture of her, and if you can't read it, a note from her that says "God loves you and so do I - Grandma D"

This is the blanket she made for me when I was born

This is one of the blankets that she made for the 3 middle children in our family

Some of the larger hooks I inherited from her

The smaller thread hooks I got from her (sorry the picture is a little blurry!)

One of her paintings - This one she painted for me and it's my favorite of all her paintings

One of the stars she made

 Thank you Grandma! You left a great heritage for our family (especially with your handiwork!)!!