Crochet Hooks

All fiber-craft bits and bobs in our extended family eventually filter down to me. Fabric, yarn, knitting needles, quilt frame, embroidery hoops, tatting shuttles ... eventually someone decides that I am heir apparent to these collections.

My grandma was particularly fond of crochet. Now that she has passed away I have all of her hooks.



It doesn't look like such a huge collection in this little photo, but believe me, that's a lot of crochet hooks to have in one place.

Some of these are my hooks, particularly some of the large ones. The ones with tape around the bottom are ones I used to teach crochet at Girl Scouts (the tape identified them as loaners for the girls who didn't happen to have a hook).

But those little steel ones? Those are pretty much all Grandma's.

Crochet was the first fiber craft she loved. She used to carry her crochet with her everywhere, tucking it into her pocket. One day she was walking along the lane, crochet in pocket. A neighbor was driving by in his horse-and-wagon (this was when Grandma was a young girl, you know). The neighbor offered her a ride. She jumped up in the wagon. And the crochet hook went right into her leg, digging right into the flesh, hook-end first. Years later she was fairly succinct about the incident -- it hurt a lot and was very hard to pull back out.

I find myself looking at these hooks and wondering if one of them is the actual hook in the story.

I think that would've been enough to put me right off of crochet. But she kept with it. And, towards the end she gave up quilting and knitting, but she stuck with the crochet.

Grandma died 2 years ago. But her legacy remains.