When I was three my mother taught me how to crochet. I picked a pattern out of a magazine and we went to the store together to pick out the yarn. I remember that I felt a huge sense of accomplishment when the blanket was finished.
(photo circa 1974)
HA! Not really. I totally couldn't crochet at three. In fact, from the state of my face and the front of my shirt, it appears I still had issues eating. It looks like I lost a fight with a bowl of chocolate ice cream.
Anyhoo. My mother was making this blanket. As she tells the story, I was fascinated by her crocheting. One afternoon, while she wasn't looking, I climbed up into the chair and sat there poking the crochet hook into the granny square and sort of wiggling it around.
It's hard to tell, but I'm holding the hook-end of the hook in my left hand and the shaft of the hook is hanging down and is peeking out from under the granny square just below. It's red.
When I was discovered, I looked up and said earnestly (and probably with my eyebrows raised), "It doesn't work." Then I held the crochet out to her as if she should fix it. I've always loved this story and this photo.
I've started scanning in all my childhood photos because they don't look like they are going to last much longer. This is one of the Polaroids in good shape, and it still has some bad cracking (see top right hand corner of the curtains).
The other issue with the photos, besides their age, is that our house burned down when I was 10 and all the photos were stacked willy nilly in the living room, so all the edges have smoke damage, as you can see at the top of the photo.
Someday I might do a post with all the childhood pictures of me with handmade items in the shot. I have a slew of photos where I'm sitting on a crochet-blanket-draped couch or wearing clothes my mother made for me.
There's one photo I didn't manage to sneak into my stash that I wish I had. It's my sisters and me in matching overalls that Mom made for us. The bibs were a lion's head with a crazy loopy mane all around the edges. So epic.