Gramma's trivet

 

My Gramma taught me to crochet. My earliest memories of her have yarn and crochet hooks involved, and stacks and stacks of afghan squares.  She made each grandchild a uniquely colored afghan--mine was pink. She also crocheted dolls and towel toppers and slippers and potholders and trivets and all kinds of things to give away or sell at craft fairs. As she got older and her hands and eyesight failed her, she crocheted less and less, until Alzheimer's and dementia took away that part of her.

This past weekend at my mom's house, I ran across a trivet Gramma had made... probably more than 25 years ago. And my heart twinged a little bit. (Pardon poor quality of the first two pics--I took 'em with my phone).

I say 'ran across' as though it was an accident. Truthfully I went looking for it, so I could re-create it. I wanted to figure it out and write down the pattern. Even though she probably didn't make up the design herself, it's still a sentimental connection to the Gramma I remember. So while I was there at my mom's, I did my best to duplicate the trivet.  Mine turned out bigger, but it's likely a difference in size of crochet hook. My hook of choice is I/9, and Gramma always used an F or G. 

Here's my trivet nearly finished, beside Gramma's trivet.

This morning I picked up the pattern I had scrawled on the back of a choir program, and worked it again, looking only at my notes, to make sure I had it right.  Also got a little creative on the color scheme.

And then I went a different direction, making multicolor rosettes for an as-yet-to-be-determined project (afghan? shawl? table runner? bag?).  Pattern for both the trivet and rosette are below.

I used worsted weight acrylic yarn and a 5.5mm (I/9) hook. These are US terms.

Cluster = 2 dc together into same stitch.  (YO, insert hook, YO, draw up loop, YO, draw through 2 lps. ^YO, insert hook, YO, draw up loop, YO, draw through 2 lps, YO, draw through all 3 lps on hook.)

Ch 4, join into ring with sl.st. in 1st ch.
Rnd 1: Ch 2 (counts as 1st dc). 11 dc in ring. Join with sl.st. to top of ch2. (12 st)
Rnd 2: Ch 2 (counts as 1st dc), dc in same stitch, chain 1; *2dc, ch 1* in each remaining stitch. Join with sl.st. to top of ch2.
Rnd 3: Ch 2  (counts and 1st half of cluster), complete cluster from ^, ch 1, cluster in 1st chain space.  *Cluster, ch 1, cluster* in each remaining chain space. Join with sl.st. to top of 1st cluster.
Rnd 4: Ch 2  (counts and 1st half of cluster), complete cluster from ^, ch 3, cluster in 1st chain space. *Cluster, ch 3, cluster* in each remaining chain space. Join with sl.st. to top of 1st cluster.
Rnd 5: *6dc in chain space, sc in top of cluster* 12 times around. Join with sl.st.

FOR TRIVET: Make 2, put back to back, then sc the edges together to join them.
FOR ROSETTE: Work Rounds 1-3. For Round 4: hdc, dc, tc, dc, hdc in each chain space, sc in top of cluster. Join with sl.st.