Keeping Warm, Old-School Style

A few months ago, my mom visited one of her cousins.   She showed my mother a bedspread she had inherited from their grandmother (my great-grandmother).  And, knowing my love of anything fiber arts, especially anything related to fiber arts with a sentimental back story, Mom sent me a picture:

Zimmer Counterpane

It’s a beautiful crocheted counterpane.  Counterpanes are traditionally knit or crocheted bed spreads, worked in white or off-white cotton yarn.  They usually are comprised of separately-worked pieces (squares, octagons, etc.) which include textural elements that work together  to make a bigger pattern once sewn together.

See how this blanket is made of large squares, sewn together?

Zimmer Counterpane large squaresBut, when the big squares line up, smaller squares appear?

Zimmer Counterpane small squaresMy great-grandmother was a prolific knitter and crocheter, but through the years, most of her projects have been lost to moths, given away, or otherwise misplaced.  I always get excited to see a piece of her work that has been kept safe over the years, especially as beautiful and well-preserved as this blanket.

6 thoughts on “Keeping Warm, Old-School Style

  1. madeye2

    Also as an FYI, the creator, my grandma, had twelve children and 80+ grandchildren. I can’t imagine how she found the time. I think fiber arts were her outlet for sanity. She made me and several other girl cousins my age a set of crocheted Barbie doll clothes. I some how lost the clothes. (I probably traded them for a fudgsicle.) I do have her old Barbie Doll patterns however. She would be happy to know that other appreciated her work.

    Reply
  2. Pingback: Whoops! A Counterpane Follow-up | On the Needles

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s