Posts Written On January 2009

I made 66 of these reusable grocery bags which I gave as Christmas presents in 2007. The heavier fabric of an old tablecloth is perfect for these bags. If it has a small hole, you can cut around it, patch it, or just ignore it — it won’t matter. The pattern is one I found on Jan Andrea’s web site. The directions are very clear and the bags only take about 30 minutes to make, counting the time spent cutting them out. You can easily change the dimensions, which I think I might have done just to make better use of each tablecloth. Jan suggests using French seams, which makes the bag sturdy and it washes well — no exposed seams, so no raveling. The handles are securely attached by folding and stitching them twice. A couple of my tablecloths were a little thinner, so I put two pieces together to make one bag. I could get two bags out of the smaller cloths, and 3 from the larger ones.

Having used these bags for quite a while now and comparing them to other cloth bags, I would say that they work well, but they are a bit floppy and you have to sort of hold them open to load the groceries. They may not stand up on their own like some bags I’ve seen, but they’re a lot cuter.

In the photo below, they are hanging on a rack made by my niece, Jennifer, using her hand-made tiles. She is very artistic and makes beautiful tiles as well as many other crafty things.

First of all, I want to thank everyone who made such nice comments about Marjorie’s Quilt and the Anniversary Sampler. It makes me very happy when other quilters and crafters like my work.

In 2007 I purchased a lot of 50 cutter tablecloths for $50. A few of them were practically minty and I kept those whole to use as….well…tablecloths. Most had small issues — little holes or stains — but that didn’t matter for what I had planned. I cut up the rest of the cloths to make reusable grocery bags to give as Christmas presents (I will post some of these next with instructions). The leftover scraps I used to make this little table square. It’s a fun project and goes very quickly — it doesn’t need batting and I simply machine quilted the top to the backing (in the ditch). Normally I find a cute print for the back, but I happened to have a reproduction tablecloth that I thought would work well here. Instead of a separate binding, I turned the repro cloth over which made a cute wide binding because of the printed scallop on the edge — it’s reversible. I like to make these squares as opposed to rectangle runners because they work better on my tables, but you could do either. I guess you could make a whole tablecloth like this, but I kind of like the wood showing a little.

This doily was made by me for my mother in 1980 from a pattern in Magic Crochet magazine (Issue #4). I taught myself to crochet when I was in my twenties by checking out an instruction book from the library. My first projects were potholders — lots of potholders — each with a different pattern and color. I used Knit-Cro-Sheen cotton thread, which was the largest thread I could find, and sewed terrycloth to the backside to make them thicker. Everyone got potholders for Christmas that year. As I got better, I began using finer and finer threads. With enough practice, I thought I could make a lace tablecloth, which became my goal. For some reason, when I was finally good enough to make a tablecloth, I wasn’t interested anymore. Probably it was that old problem I have of getting bored with projects that are repetitive. I did make several filet crochet designs and this doily for my mother, which she framed. In return, she gave me the only doily she ever made.

Crocheted Doily
Martha Dellasega Gray, 1980
DMC crochet cotton #30
11″ x 11″

I made this book in 1985 for my daughter, Emily, when she was a baby. The pattern was complex, with about a million little pieces and lots of transfers. Each page has at least one (and sometimes four) colored fabric frames surrounding a letter and picture. It involves lots of machine applique — something I used to do a lot back then, but don’t anymore. The construction of the book is interesting — I actually had to follow the directions carefully, which I am generally not inclined to do. Many of the pages have little activities for toddlers (zipper, button, snap, tie, etc.) and some of these ideas work better than others. It’s a sturdy little book, and it has held up well over the years.

I have a new, uncut copy of this pattern. If someone would like to make this little book, just leave a message for me in Comments.

McCall’s 7524
Soft Book Craft with Blue Transfer
Published in 1981

This pattern was called “Rock Garden” because the instructions called for gray yarn between the granny-type flower motifs. I think the gray looks good in the magazine, and I’m not sure why I decided to use an off-white instead. Mine doesn’t really look much like a rock garden.

I made this in 1977 and I ended up spending a lot more money on yarn than I anticipated. The project began because I had some skeins of Persian wool tapestry yarn that I think someone gave me. I made a few motifs and liked the way they looked, so when I ran out of that yarn, I bought a few more skeins. Each little skein (which cost about $1.00) was just enough yarn to make one motif. Of course, I had to crochet 182 of those motifs to make the afghan, but it didn’t seem that bad since I would only buy a dozen or so at a time.  I had a lot of fun changing the colors around in the motifs — that’s why mine looks scrappier than the original.  After completing all of the flowers with tapestry yarn, I decided to use a more economical wool knitting worsted to crochet them together.

I like the way it looks, mainly because it has so many different colors of yarn.  Although the afghan is very warm, it’s not particularly soft and also it’s extremely heavy. Probably nobody has ever thought about making an afghan out of tapestry yarn, but I wouldn’t advise it.  A link to the instructions is provided below.

Rock Garden Afghan
Martha Dellasega Gray, 1977
crocheted – wool yarn
51″ x 63″

McCall’s Handcrafts
Volume II, Afghans
1975

Click to enlarge instructions, or right-click in the instruction image to save the file.

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