As I've mentioned before, my mom is in decluttering mode, after years of having to assist my dad (and so: having no time) (and before that, he didn't want to declutter: now I know who the packrat is)
Periodically she will call me up to ask me about something, if I "still want" it (today I told her to recycle the bits left from a poster I gave over my Master's Thesis research somewhere; the paper came out 25 years ago, I don't need it any more) or she sends me random things (I have my childhood vaccine records now, for example).
She offered me a few things (and one I found) while I was up over Christmas:
One year, my dad bought a bunch of little Sesame Street character needlepoint kits somewhere on a huge closeout. I think the idea is they might serve (when completed) as baby gifts for future family babies, but I think I was the only one ever to make one of them up; either on a break from college or when I was in grad school and bored:
Grover was always my favorite of the exclusively-Sesame Street Muppets.
I never did anything with the canvas (it's SMALL - like maybe about 7" on a side) but I remember it took a lot of work so I don't want to just discard it. I might eventually turn it into a tiny cushion? Or put it in a frame and put it up in my sewing room? I don't know. But I wanted to keep it.
She had also put this aside for me, saying "you're the only one in the younger generation who would care about it" which is true if a little sad. Her grandfather (her mother's father) carved a crochet hook for my grandmother - she used to do thread crochet for "artwork" (she knitted and sewed for necessity; she had a lot of filet crochet items and bits of lace I assume she made for enjoyment).
I *think* it's hickory but I'm really just guessing - it doesn't feel like pine, and the grain doesn't look like pine, and I think they had hickories on their farm. It's roughly the size of a modern F hook. I may never use it for anything but it is nice to have, and to think of my grandmother using it
And then the last item is something I actually found when we were going through a box in the basement. When I was a kid (in the early-mid 70s), Sears had the Winnie-the-Pooh license through Disney. They had kids' clothing and I seem to remember bedsheets and they may have even sold stuffed animals too.
I had a pair of Winnie-the-Pooh print overalls. I was probably five or six - the size tag is still in this, it's 6x, which I think is about five or six years old (maybe even up to 7? Like my niece, I was a tallish but skinny child - it was after puberty I chunked up). I loved those things and when I outgrew them my mom kept them and turned them into a tote bag for me. (She grew up in a family that made-over clothes: she talks about how when her older brother was discharged from the Navy after WWII, her mother took his dress blues and remade them into a skirt suit for my mother, who would have been about 10)
I know I carried it to school for a short while - my name is written on the inside. I'm going to use it as a knitting bag now
The back pockets are still there, and the straps are still there (one of the buttons had to be replaced). inside there's a little top with a drawstring so things won't fall out.
No comments:
Post a Comment