A world of small Christmas tales: tatted hearts

1976, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA

My father once mentioned that as a small boy his mother had taught him to tat, a form of lace-making with bobbins and thread that is rarely seen now. I tried to imagine what it looked like. My mother quietly went to her basket of mending and sewing and scraps and pulled out a small strip of lace that her mother, Grandma Lonergan, had made, perhaps 75 years earlier.

It took me another year to think of what to do with it. I made a Christmas tree decoration for my mother, a silk heart trimmed with her mother's lace.