I'm not certain who stitched this doily, but I believe it was created by either my maternal grandmother, Bertha Steinbrecher, or by my maternal great grandmother. My best guess is that my grandmother stitched it, because I know that while her health was failing, she turned to thread crochet as a means of keeping herself occupied. My mom had stored this doily in her linen closet for years. She rarely displayed it.
I found a way to display it ... in fact, today, I gave it a new place of honor over the living room mantle.
I stitched the doily onto some red velvet. The velvet came from curtains that belonged to my parents. And even these curtains have an interesting history.
In the 1980s, my mom wanted to open a daycare center in Moscow, Idaho. She and Dad searched quite a while for a suitable building. They finally decided to buy the Old Grange building on Main Street. At the time, it was a huge, stinky, crusty, dark, smelly bar! But in it, they saw the bones of a strong building. With the help of a team of talented architects and builders, they transformed the bar into a daycare center, gymnastics studio, apartment, workshop and series of offices.
The heavy red velvet curtains from the original Grange stage were in the building when they bought it. They hung floor-to-ceiling before a full-sized stage. Being the thrifty people my parents were, Mom rescued the curtains and washed them. She used them for costumes for the kids — a robe for one of the three kings in the Christmas pageant. I somehow also inherited pieces of those curtains, and used them for years as curtains in my bedroom. Now they've gone through another transformation as the background for this doily.
So now I have a three-generation piece hanging in my living room:
* crocheted by a grandparent
* curtains from a piece of my parents' history
* framed by me
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