This is a first for me. A woman from our parish, knowing that I crochet, asked could I maybe help in repairing a cloth that her grandmother had made. There were many tears and breaks in the cloth.
I have never done such a thing before but agreed to take it home and look at it. The thread is very fine, I'm thinking maybe a tatting thread and a most tiny steel hook was used.
Well, I'm ashamed to say that I have had the cloth for probably 4 plus months now and after initially trying to find a similar pattern or figure out what to do it has sat on the shelf in my crochet cabinet until last night. Up till this point I had been focused on the fact that this is crochet and that the repair would be in crochet.
Last week I had picked up some very fine needles to do some quilting with and all of sudden decided to try sewing the cloth back together. Well, much to my amazement this seems to be working very well, with a single strand thread and these fine needles I am able to move the thread between the stitches and sew and repair the breaks and tears. So far I have reattached about 15 sections with many more to go. You can see the areas of repair still needed.
This cloth is an incredible piece of work, probably close to 100 years old. As I work on this I think of the skilled hands that made these many motifs. I think of the love that created this and the love that has been passed from one generation to another. This truly is a treasure, I am most honored to have a part in this.
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