Crochet Week

Last week at Lee Mills was devoted to trying to sort and record as much of the crochet as possible in the Knitting & Crochet Guild's collection.  It was very successful - eleven additional volunteers spent one or two days at Lee Mills, some travelling from as far afield as the south coast.  In the event, everything proved to take a lot longer than planned (as it always does).  There are also a great many individual items to be sorted, including several boxes of doilies, edgings and other small items, not to mention the larger stuff.  By the end of the week, after a lot of work, the doilies and edgings and a few other things had been sorted,  but recording will be left until later.

I took some photos of the items being sorted, though I seem to have majored in doilies, and ignored the other things.  Doilies can be very pretty, I must admit, especially some of the coloured ones, though they don't have any place in my life that I have yet discovered.  There was speculation about what area the doilies would cover if they were all spread out, but I don't think anyone came up with a plausible estimate  (Wales?  A football pitch?) 

Filet crochet doilies

A multi-coloured pile of doilies

I also took some photos of some of the Irish crochet pieces in the collection - already catalogued, but brought out to show the volunteers. They represent an astonishing amount of work, especially the long dresses and other garments. But very beautiful.

A 3-d flower in Irish crochet

Part of a garment in Irish crochet

 Meanwhile, I stayed out of the way of all the crochet and carried on quietly sorting the pattern leaflets -  27,000 recorded so far.