A Family Tribute to the Dying Arts.

Hello again,  

I hope that everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving, with all of the food and company.  My family tends to have 2 Thanksgivings, both of which were good.  One of these Thanksgiving was dubbed a "Redneck" Thanksgiving by a former girlfriend of my brother.  It is.  After everyone eats as a family, the men go out shooting targets and the women stay inside with the little ones and chit-chat.  Thanks to my cousin Kaitlin, the chit-chat session this year turned into a trip into our heritage and the dying arts.  It also became a teasing session on how much of a blogger I am by my cousins.  Joke is on you Kaitlin, you're the star of this episode.  Hahaha.  For those of you out there, my family teases each other out of love.  So all is good.

My creative crafty heritage is found on both my mother and father's side of the family.  Papa (paternal grandfather) saw the diamonds in the rough.  He would rehab old homes into the Victorian/ Edwardian style that they may have been originally.  My Father is into leather crafting and tinkering with toy trains and cars.  My Grandpa (maternal grandfather) was into wood working.  We still have the growing height ruler that he made with both my brother's and my name on it.  My Grandma (maternal grandmother) was very crafty when my brother and I stayed with her.  We made bead necklaces, new crayons and coasters.  My Mother has a crafty history of embroidery cross stitching, crocheting and some sewing.  Some of my female relations on my mother's side are also crafty.  Many of them are into Creative Memories, which I only get the urge to do when they are all purchasing supplies from my Aunt Betsy.  So as can be seen, being a creative crafty person is in my blood.

Now onto my cousin Kaitlin and the "Redneck" Thanksgiving...

Apparently with the removal of Home Economics classes from american schools, my cousin Kaitlin has become more interested in continuing the dying arts.  Her current focus is primarily of cross-stitch and crochet.  I think this makes my Mother a little giddy, because those are the crafty things that she enjoys the most that I never quite took to those.  So for the "Redneck" Thanksgiving my Mother brought along things to show and share.

She brought along her 3 different crochet hook sets and 3 crocheted afghans done with different patterns.

Granny Square

Corner to Corner

Ripple

Kaitlin's current crochet project is creating a bedspread of various colored strips since the yarn that she began with is no longer being made.  I also took this time to play around some more with the Pantone app.  I'm slowly getting the hang of it.

My Mother also brought along some of her bread cloths that she embroidered with cross stitch.  According to her, these are a simple but nice way to jazz up the presentation of food for gatherings.  My mother has embroidered other things as well.  She cross-stitched and had framed a Giving Tree for both my friend Kesha and myself.  Kaitlin has also cross-stitched and framed a picture as well.  During the baby shower for her first nephew, she had done a bird that I originally thought was done by my Mother.

With this show and tell tribute to the dying arts, more items from the past came out into the light.

One of which were doilies, which in short were essentially "coasters" for everything.  This included doilies for the lamps, perfume bottles and the fancy grooming tray of mirror, hairbrush and comb kept on top of the dresser...



To doilies for coasters, other lamps and items.
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The final dying art that was shared were handkerchiefs.  

Before kleenex, this is what was used.  Everyone was always armed with a super starched up handkerchief in their pocket or purse.
There were Painted Handkerchiefs,
Crochet Edged Handkerchiefs,

Tatting Edged Handkerchiefs 
and Hairpin Lace Edged Handkerchiefs

My main thoughts when I saw these were...

1. That amount of starch would hurt my nose during cold season
2. They were extremely pretty, I wouldn't want to blow my nose in them.  At the same time it makes me wonder that if my older relations actually used theirs, then perhaps I could use my Japanese painted handkerchiefs as handkerchiefs as well

With that, the Show and Tell chit-chat portion of my "Redneck" Thanksgiving ended. 

Personally, I thought that it was rather interesting hearing about the past and the type of detailing done.  Makes me a little sad that it is becoming lost and forgotten.  I will be upfront and admit to not expect me to replicate any of this soon, but who knows what the future will bring.

That does it for this week, until the next time we meet...