{Hey Everybody! We’ve got a guest blogger here on Everyday Life at Leisure for today! Welcome Susan Wiles, Leisure Arts Special Projects Director, as she shares her Mother’s Day tale of a crocheted bedspread and some creative women!}
In these days of super bulky yarn and jumbo stitches, the sight of an entire bedspread crocheted in size 10 cotton thread recently made me stop and stare. But it wasn’t just the beauty of the bedspread that was so amazing—it was also the fact that this tremendous piece of handwork was being used on a daily basis!
The discovery came during an impromptu tour after a dinner party at the home of my friend Jane Thompson. As you can see in the photo, the detail work in the bedspread is outstanding. Each hexagonal motif is densely stitched and accented with a center ruffle, rounds of lacework, and dozens of tiny bobbles.
This is the kind of crochet that my grandmother used to do, so it stirred a special place in my heart. Granny’s work was so beautiful, with smooth, even tension in every stitch, and she continued doing it (although switching from thread to yarn) until the very end of her life at age 93. Our family is large, but I think just about everyone was given some of her crochet (or quilts) at some point in time. Such keepsakes are a comfort to have when the loved one who made them is no longer with us.
I still miss my Granny, but I’m so glad she taught me how to crochet while I was sitting there at her elbow so many times. Her birthday was April 30, so I was thinking of her the other day, and thinking about all the women everywhere in the world who are just like her, investing their time making beautiful creations for their homes and their families.
Happy Mother’s Day to all of you, and I hope you get to spend some time doing something you love, whether it’s knitting or crochet or just hugging the kids.
When I told Jane that I wanted to write about her bedspread for the Leisure Arts blog, she graciously shared what she knew about it:
“Here’s the story of Zdenka Vasek Thompson and her amazing bedspreads. Yes, plural. I believe there are three in existence.
“To some extent, if you’ve read Willa Cather’s My Antonia, you already know some of Zdenka’s story. The Czechs are to Nebraska what the Swedes are to Minnesota. Multitudinous. My grandmother was born in Prague and arrived with her parents in the new wave of immigration in the late 1880s.
“Zdenka’s father was a baker in Omaha, and that’s about all I know about that. She married James Thompson, who worked for the post office and with whom she raised three boys. There is a lively Czech community in Omaha, but I think the trend at that point in time was to assimilate quickly and seamlessly. I’m not aware that Zdenka continued any Czech traditions, at least with her own family, other than to produce kolaches once a year or so.”
One thing Jane knows for sure is that Zdenka basically crocheted endlessly, requiring the family to make frequent visits to a little yarn shop to keep her supplied with crochet thread.
“Three bedspreads exist, as I’ve mentioned above—both my sister Elizabeth and I have one and our cousin Jim has the other. Jim’s mother had her bedspread appraised in the 1960s, and I think that it was valued then in the $800 range. Somehow I have a feeling that by 2012, it would be valued less rather than more. Anyway, my mother was inclined to keep the two bedspreads at our house ‘put up’ for best, so of course they lived a long while packed in boxes in the basement.
“When I set out for Minneapolis in 1973, I took one bedspread with me, and it lived in its box for a couple of years. At some point in a mode of transformation, I looked at all the stuff around me and thought—‘Why on earth is this living in a box? In fifty years someone will open the box and think—How nice. Here’s a rotten old bedspread.’ So, at that point, I made the decision to begin to use my bedspread (and good dishes and silverware) with the thought that if I ruin it, so be it. My sister has her bedspread on the bed in her guest room (formerly her daughter’s bedroom, and the bed being one of our childhood beds. I really like the continuity there.)
“Back to 1975—the bedspread was kind of smelly and had a slight bit of discoloration, so I threw caution to the winds and put it in the washing machine on a very gentle cycle. Perfection. It turned out beautifully, and it’s been my primary bedspread now for forty years.
“Interestingly, an old friend from college visited me five years ago, took one look at the bedspread, and began to jump up and down. Her grandmother Cora made the same bedspread as well, although not with the ‘popcorn’ embellishments. So it must have been a common pattern in the 1950s.”
Jane went on to explain that she has many other crochet keepsakes that her grandmother made, such as potholders, place mats, tablecloths, doll clothes, and lengths of lace, and that she has enjoyed using them in her daily life through the years.
“I think that Zdenka would be glad that my sister and I are using her handwork and are engaged with it,” she said. “In speaking with people who make things—print makers and bookbinders mostly—there’s such a feeling of disappointment when they make something for someone who then in turn declares it ‘too nice to use,’ so it’s put up on a shelf to look at. Artists and artisans make things to be used, and it was clearly Zdenka’s intent that her handwork be used. I’d like to think that this is one way to honor her memory. The other way is to manage to produce a decent batch of authentic prune kolaches; I continue to fail miserably at this but I keep trying.”
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