A fragment of patchwork, a delicate doily, and piece of filet crochet hint at three of the stories in this neatly-kept house. No matter how many floors they may have, all the homes in the places we live, have many stories.
In Mirra Bank’s book, Anonymous was a Woman, she quotes Margaret Ickis’ great-grandmother:
My whole life is in that quilt. All my joys and all my sorrows are stitched into those little pieces. I tremble sometimes when I remember what that quilt knows about me.
What joys and sorrows are stitched into this quilt?
The Making of Three Stories
Starting with a vintage quilt top, mostly hand-pieced, I added the vintage crocheted house panel* in the middle. The corner decorations are one crocheted doily, cut into quarters. We don’t know, can’t know, anything about the three people who created the artifacts. We don’t know their stories, but the title of the finished piece acknowledges them.
After quilting and binding were finished, Three Stories seemed a little plain to me.
To fancy it up, I crocheted the Sweetheart Rose from my own book Crochet Bouquet, and the Twirl Center Rose and Paired Leaf Frond from Crochet Garden, and arranged them in a sort of old-fashioned looking garland. I sewed them in place, and embellished with mother-of-pearl buttons.
Three Stories has traveled with the Celebrate Doilies art, poetry, and Texas Crochet Heritage doily exhibits since 2017.
*A quick doily culture note: the crocheted house panel was probably meant to protect the back of an upholstered chair from hair oil. It’s called an antimacassar, because a popular hair product of the time was Rowland’s Macassar Oil.