Easter - April 4, 2010

I hope all of you who celebrate Easter are having a pleasant holiday weekend with family and friends.

Some Easter Tatting

I'm sure you recognize Mary Konior's cross pattern from her Visual Patterns book. I have often made this cross as a keepsake gift, and it always receives compliments. She was such a wonderful designer.







This is a cross I made several years ago, and stiffened (to hang in a window); however, I've decided to put it in a frame, so I’ve added a gold metal embellishment, plus a small crystal in the center. The diagonal gold 'ribbon' stickers add an interesting effect.

Now I have to find the right frame for it!

Below is my small 'Egg Tree" which is several years old. It is part of my demonstration display, and, of course, is a decoration for my home during the Easter holidays.

On the tree are several of my 3-D eggs (all the same design), which I created back in 1992.

The other eggs on the tree are pastel flocked eggs or metallic ones, with tatted motifs on them.

I'll go into more detail about the 3-D egg design in a future post.

Memories of Easter holidays in the '50s-'60s

Easter memories of my childhood always come flooding back to me at this time of year, and I recall how my friends and I were SO excited to get dressed up in our pretty new dresses and new shoes (usually white leather or black patent leather), plus, of course, the obligatory new hat and gloves - which we LOVED to wear back then!

We kept our Easter outfits on all day and 'paraded' around the neighborhood showing them off.

I always looked forward to getting my newest stuffed bunny rabbit or other animal. Believe it or not, I still have my big bunny (about 2' tall) from about 1953 (I was in pigtails at the time – 4th grade). Her name was ‘Carrots’ (as she was orange), and these days she’s a bit – well, ‘tattered’!!! Definitely not fit for a photo-op at present.

I also had a big teddy bear (sadly, long gone), named Christopher (for Christmas?), and I used to make clothes for Christopher and Carrots, which was considered a little strange by my friends! (I was way ahead of my time!) I kept the stuffed animals on my bed for a long time - through high school(!) and have a photo of them around here somewhere! Just remembered - there was also a floppy-eared dog named 'Cuddles'. Kind of embarrassing that I'm remembering all this, not to mention the fact that I continued to collect stuffed animals for a long time, even after I married! One of my prized possessions is "Larry Lion" (a gift from DH around 1968) who fared much better than Carrots, and still says his 11 phrases when you pull the cord under his chin. Wow, I'm really getting carried away!

As I recall those years in the 1950s, the weather always seemed to be warm on Easter (no matter the date between March and April), and flowers were always in bloom.

However on April 2, 1961 (I was a senior in H.S.), we actually had snow on Easter, and I was shocked! The year before, on April 2, 1960, I passed my driver's test (first time around!) and got my license at 16 years old - BIG DAY! It was 80 degrees that day, just as it was on April 2 this year - first time in a long time!

I simply can't believe I have been driving for 50 years!! (Yikes!) Little did I realize that a few months later in the summer of 1960 I would meet my DH-to-be at a local swimming pool (he was from another school and had graduated the year before. I was about to start my senior year (and it was a magical one!) Talk about being young, at 16 and 17!

Now here we are at 66 and 67, and we’ll be going to DH's 50th class reunion in September! We recall that when his parents went to THEIR 50th reunions, we thought they were SO old !!!!! (Can you tell I'm having trouble dealing with this?)
* * *

Two Beaver County, PA Events coming up:

- Maple Festival (Apr 10-11) AND (amazingly)
- Old Economy (Apr 17-18),
which has been re-opened (on a limited basis) by volunteers!
(More about this soon)