Stained Glass Afghan

Grandma's Afghan circa 1935
Originally uploaded by Green Kitchen.


Mom's Afghan circa 1975
Originally uploaded by Green Kitchen.


Mom's Window circa 1980
Originally uploaded by Green Kitchen.


Corner with Carlo 2006
Originally uploaded by Green Kitchen.


Family History
Originally uploaded by Green Kitchen.

The idea for this post started when I asked my mom to get her old afghan out of storage — the one that defines my Partridge Family era childhood, the one that always covered the back of our huge vinyl couch. I thought that I would compare her afghan to my crazy stripy one. But, when she also pulled out her mom's crocheted afghan another story developed.

There is an afghan that has been waiting to be made by me. It's primarily black with bright colored accents, probably a granny-type square with a circle in the middle and black edges. I've been thinking about it for some time now, saving online photos for inspiration. What I didn't realize is that I will be continuing a craft tradition with this future afghan.

I didn't remember that my maternal grandma (the one I never met, not to be confused with the mean one) crocheted an afghan much like I want to make. She made it back in the 1930s or 40s. It's probably been twenty years or more since I've seen this afghan. My mom's 1970s afghan is a nice complement to her mom's and tells the tale of a generational shift. She made a design contemporary to the time with its brightly colored rectangles, mixed-and-matched like a crazy quilt. So, it seems in our family that every thirty or forty years a new afghan must be made of bright colors and black. I'm ready to keep up my end of the tradition, just waiting to get through the season of holiday crafts.

I picked this corner of our home to photograph these legacy afghans because it's full of family history and because I liked the light cast by the stained glass window. It took me awhile to realize that the afghans look a lot like stained glass. Duh. On the wall behind the baby hangs a genealogic map that is almost eight feet tall — it's a photographic chart of my children's ancestors. It's fun to have daily access to these photos. My older son likes to ask who the people are and how they are related to him. He gets to *see* the British grandma who was one of the first members of the Salvation Army, or the Native American grandma who was the mother of "the first white child" in their part of the Oklahoma Territory, as well as, the grandmas who made the afghans. Maybe someday he will fulfill this colorful legacy and make his own version of the stained glass afghan — Kaffe Fassett look out. A mother of sons can wish, right?