Remember Our Own Handcraft Artist. This month is the one year anniversary of my mother’s, Sandra MacFadden, passing. She was our main crochet artist. She taught one of her children, a couple of grandchildren and one great grandchild how to crochet. Sadly, she ran out of generations who wanted to learn how to continue the craft. We have a whole selection of the items she created on sale on our online store. (Amazon Handmade Store is not included). You will get 25% off every single thing we have listed in our store EXCEPT the Print on Demand Items. Our retail percentage on those items is too low to offer any discounts. The sale began on, November 20, 2022 and will run until December 15, 2022 when all sales will cease for the remainder of the month. We will be unable to mail out any items purchased after December 16th to be on-time for Christmas.
Our Great Adventure in a 1985 Class A RV Traveling the Roads, Visiting State Parks, Making and Selling Handcrafted Items along the way.
Some of the items Mom created just by figuring it out. Most of the time Mom tried to work from a pattern. She collected crocheted patterns from the bands around the yarn, in magazines and books. She even would have me set up a YouTube video on her iPad to watch a couple of times before she got the hang of the pattern. She would make her own embellishments. Some would work great and some would not. Those she just unraveled and tried again. The can or drink Koozies she created came in three different sizes. The Tall cans that my youngest daughter liked, the regular cans and the beer or baby bottle sizes. We just kept clean cans and a brand new baby bottle in the crafting supplies so that she could check to make sure what she crocheted would fit properly.
One year she saw a hooded scarf on one of her favorite shows so she set out how to learn how to create them. They have a nice wide middle that fits around your entire head to the front with long pieces on each side so you can wrap them around your throat and throw them to the back or criss-cross them in the front and just button you coat up over them. With those cozy layers you stayed quite warm. Those took quite a bit of yarn and she always made a matching pair of fingerless gloves to go with them. Most of her grandchildren got their own set one Christmas. We still have a few left on the store.
The year before this was a big craze and still is for fingerless gloves. She did not knit but she figured out how to make them with her crocheting. She could make this fairly quickly. The trick was always to make two of the same size and pattern. But she loved creating them in small sizes up to really big ones that fit my hands and in a vast array of colors. The brighter the better. She would get requests for University of Florida Gator’s Orange and Blue and University of Georgia Bulldogs Black and Red every year from her family. We are pretty much split down the middle in that rival football game every year.
She began her crocheting inventory for our craft story making beanie hats. She has made at least a hundreds over the last 12 years. Some were given away as Christmas presents, the grandkids would grab one or two at various times of the year and some have sold. She would experiment with different styles as well. One year she was tried to teach herself how to make berets and the rasta style hats. The ones she did make have already been sold except for one beret I believe but we still have a wide variety of color and sizes of the beanie hats.
A practical item that she created was the hand crocheted scrunchies. These she liked to make as well because they did not take a lot of yarn so she could use all those small balls she had left over from other projects. The trick was being able to find the right kind of elastic that the woven inside the piece and tied together. It had to be strong but skinny and shaped like a piece of string. The flat elastic bands just did not work as well. These were great because we all had long hair. You just throw them in the washer and wash them in cold water. They usually held together for a couple of years. In Fact, I still some of the first ones she made for us in a can.
There are many other items she made over the years and some are still available. The one that seems to sell the best around Christmas time was the Hand Crocheted Dragonscale Fingerless Arm Warmers. She experimented with that pattern for about a month and even looked at the YouTube videos several times that first year. We sold all that we had. The next year we got a request for dragonscales (scalloped stitch) to just be on the tops of the gloves because with them all the way around it was too thick. IT took her about a month to figure that out but she did it and made about 40 pair before the end of the year. Those sold out as well. Her pattern changed the next year. She was having trouble remembering how she created the ones from the year before but they still turned out nice. With her health failing and having so much trouble with her eyesight and arthritis in her hands she could not make any the following year. We are down to the last 15 pair.
Finally, I wanted to show you the lovely hand crocheted totes she created. While the Dragon Scales pattern was fresh in her mind one year she created totes. They started out as cellphone bags but then they got a little bigger to fit her iPad. The first year we sold a few but it was suggested that they were too stretchy and items would fall out the holes. So, I hand sewed in satin and cotton ribbon to the underside of every strap. Then I cut out satin lining in black or white and hand sewn those to the insides of each piece. I have not finished getting the satin sewn in to all of the totes she created yet, nor have it added them to the website. I will continue to do that because I hope that there are people out there that truly appreciate hand crocheted items and will remember my mother and her years of effort in creating them. All she ever wanted was for someone to appreciate them and use what she had created.
For those who would like to share a memory of my mother and her crocheting you can always leave a comment below or send it through using my CONTACT US form. Thank you and keep on crafting!
Now some good music to go along with all those pictures in the gallery above
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