Gorgeous Gift!

A box from Hawaii was delivered here yesterday. I have a friend who has made her home there for 14 years. She is the daughter of my lifelong best friend who died in 2011. I remember this woman the day she was born about 52 years ago, and have watched her grow and become successful in her life as a wife, mother of two and school principal. She is very special to me. Very special. Through the years she has sent me gifts from her beautiful home in Hawaii and this one really tops them all, as it is hand-made. It was made with love just for me! How wonderful is that!! She knows how much I love color and her extraordinary creativity in mixing multiple patterns and colors is special. My lap cover is a treasure. (It measures 3 feet by 41/2 feet!)

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Monkey See - Monkey Do

Almost 40 years ago, in 1977, I made two crocheted blankets for my two youngest kids, entered them in the Harford Fair and won blue ribbons. Each was different. It took 32 different colors to make them. Each stripe is a different color. I must have gotten the idea to hang them on the clothesline and take a photo, from my mother! She and my grandmother taught me how to crochet. My own three girls never showed an interest in learning this art.

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Crochet Mania

I'm in the middle of the photo project and came across some pictures my mother took of her crocheted afghans. So far I have 4 albums repaired and restored to the best of my ability. It is extremely difficult because she GLUED or PASTED almost all of them on the vintage type black construction paper both sides, and cannot remove them. Even when they are pasted, she has attached the black corners! Where the corners have come loose I replaced them as the photos were becoming dog eared.  Well I'm rambling but think you get the idea.

If you have never scanned photos in 12" x 18" albums on a 8 1/2" x 11 1/2" scanning bed you would run into the same difficulty.

Yes, I know the old albums are not acid free, but I do what I can. I had to take them all apart to repair the holes in the back of the pages that were torn from use. I used black electrical tape on both sides of the page and repunched the holes. That should last for a few more years.

I found instructions for removing photos from paper backing BUT would have to tear every page apart. Not going there!

The next thing I have to do is mount all of the many MANY loose photos of ancestors in the vintage books I was able to locate at e-bay. Fun ahead!

To get to the point now, I have scanned 21 of Mother's afghans. She would be totally embarrassed to know that she spelled it wrong. Chuckle.....Can't imagine the difficulty she had to hang each one on her clothesline, take a picture, and do it over and over and over! By the way, there were more that I remember but no photos.

This one is mine!

They all were scanned in the order they were in the albums scattererd throughout.

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