When I was a little girl, my grandmother knitted and/or crocheted all of the time. When she sat, she almost always had a piece of some kind of work in her hands. Her needles clicked as she madly knitted, faster than I’ve ever seen anyone knit. Crocheting was quieter, but she could produce an afghan in short order. One of the best gifts you could give my grandmother was yarn.

As she got older, she knitted less and crocheted more. I think that was because her eyesight started failing. I suspect it was easier to see crochet stitches than knitting stitches. Ultimately she had glaucoma, and I lived far away from her in her final days so I don’t know how she dealt with being unable to do handiwork. I would guess it made her sad.

My grandmother was generally a gifted artist when it came to crocheting and knitting. I have baby things in my cedar chest that I never took out when Court was born. While the knitting was beautiful, she was always a bit off on the sizing. So by time a child could fit into the booties she made, they were able to walk. And the sweater sleeves were always a bit long. Still, I’ve never been able to throw them away. I imagine they will be the first things to go when our poor children have to clean out our house after we’re gone. (That’s my final joke; we’re going to make them clean out our things!)

But I recall things my grandmother made me that were, well, not spectacular. Or at least I didn’t think so. She made what she called bed socks. Bed socks were basically adult-sized booties. They were too slippery to wear for slippers and too hot to wear to bed, so they generally went in the bottom of my drawer.

She also made all of us at one point or another a granny vest – a crocheted vest made out of granny squares. Please Grammie, don’t hate me from heaven above, but I detested the vests and never wore them. I clearly remember Jen wearing the vests, so Grammie will embrace her when we all meet again. Here is what it looked like, at least sort of……

Not awful, but when she began making them, I was entering junior high and wanted nothing more than to look fashionable. The vests, I believed, were not fashionable. I still believe that.

Now that I have opened up my Nanas Whimsies Shop on Etsy, I am madly crocheting all of the time. I work on afghans. I make dish cloths. I crochet place mats and grocery bags and baskets and coffee cup cozies. I recently solved a problem my sister had with her microwave handle getting too hot when she used her gas stove……

Ta da.

My fear, however, is that I am going to become so engrossed in my crochet projects that I will begin producing things like these pajamas……

Or a wedding dress such as this…..

Or, heaven forbid, this….

When you see Bill wearing crocheted shorts, please begin planning the intervention. I will crochet the chair covers on which we’ll sit.