Doilies & Hankies....

 Of course I love textiles...of almost any kind....but especially pretty ones. This crocheted doily was probably made sometime between 1930 and the mid 1950's.  It was stuffed into a bag with a few other lacy things at a thrift store several years ago.  I have no idea if it was made for Kate R. or for a family named Kater.  If any of my readers know a crafty, textile-loving lady named Kate R or a family named Kater, I'd love to pass it on.  My mother never liked to do fillet crochet, but for years she made doilies and beautiful lace edgings.  I made a few but changed to tatting because every time our family got together one little kid or another would rip out my knitting or crocheting.  Tatting doesn't rip out without a lot of intentional untying of knots.

Besides, I was inspired by this.....

...That's a lovely linen handkerchief with an edging that must have been tatted in size 100 or 150 thread.  It's so delicate, I'm not sure you can even see much of it if you right click and open the picture in a new window or tab.  It's wrinkly; it's been in a drawer that had some other stuff tossed in too--including a picture of the Central Illinois farm where I grew up.  I've never known who made that lace-edged doily.  It arrived inside a congratulatory card mailed to me, addressed in beautiful handwriting but unsigned and with no return address way back when I graduated from eighth grade.  I've always treasured it.

Are you old enough to remember your mama tying a quarter or a nickle in the corner of a pretty hankie so you could place the money in the offering plate at church--or maybe tying money in a hankie so you could buy an ice cream cone when you went to town with your daddy or grandpa?

I've lost so many of those hankies over the last several decades--mostly because they've been stored in boxes and I've moved too many times and had too many distractions in my life to care for them properly.  I'd love ideas of things to do with them that would protect their fragile beauty.  I've seen them made into quilts and even a window valence, but I don't want them to wear out so I need a much more gentle use that would let them be displayed with minimal damage.  My dear friend Harriet made some into a bouquet in a lovely vase, but it's much too dusty in my part of the country for me to do that. I could just fold them up and stack them and take them out and look at them once or twice a year, but they are so beautiful, so delicate, and bring so much pleasure that I'd really like to find a workable way to display them.

If you love hankies and you're a quiltmaker, you might want to check out Denise Russart's "Granny's Hankie" BOM over at her blog: http://justquiltin.wordpress.com/ 
You'll find it over in the right hand column of her blog in the Block of the Month Projects.

Let me know if you have display idea...or if you know Kate R. or the Kater family....