Doing it my way

There's a long tradition of crocheting in my family. My father's family came to Australia in the early 1850's, from the Harz mountains of Germany, where the women made crochet lace to earn extra income.The skill was passed down through the generations, and that is how I learned too.

 The woman who taught me was Louise Dahlenburg, my father's first cousin.

Here she is as a teenager, with her brothers Heinie and Ernie, probably around 1906. She was a lot older than Dad, and would have been in her fifties when she taught me to crochet.

Like Dad, Louise was of German descent, and she taught me to crochet the European way, which is why I work differently from most people I know. They hold the hook in their right hand, and the yarn in the left.

  I hold both hook and yarn in my right hand, and pass the yarn over the hook from the right forefinger, much as knitters do. When I occasionally meet someone who does it "my way" they always turn out to be of European origin,  Swiss, or Dutch, perhaps.

My mother, who was of Irish descent and convent educated, crocheted in the conventional way, but I could never manage it.

I learned to knit as a child too, but I always preferred crochet. I'm a slow knitter, but crochet is fast, and fun! 

Crochet wasn't particularly fashionable when I was growing up, being reserved for dainty lace doilies and trims, or baby jackets and shawls. Most women knitted, making woolen jumpers for themselves and their families; socks, hats and gloves were popular too.

When I married and had babies, I made my share of little jackets too, and as the girls grew they had the odd crochet vest or hat. This was the sixties, and crochet was popular - too popular, some might say, as enthusiasm often triumphed over taste and good sense. Thankfully I was busy with a young family, and not overly tempted. 

 

My daughters grew up, and had children of their own. I crocheted quite a few baby blankets - my eldest granddaughter Nina still has hers, and her brother's, carefully stored away.

Then I fell in love with quilting, and everyone in the family was well supplied with quilts. Four daughters, ten grandchildren, everyone had a quilt, (some people got more than one). And a few other people, too.

Now I'm pretty much done with quilting, and have returned to crochet as my main obsession creative outlet. 

When I made a rug for one daughter, then one for my sister, then a third... the family sensed a trend developing, and I heard "Where's mine Mum?"

Four daughters, ten grandchildren, four great grandchildren to date; am I up for the challenge?
I'm working on it...