On the way to playgroup yesterday, we dropped into a number of op shops (charity stores) looking for crochet hooks. I have volunteered to run a Learn to Crochet stall at Our Dear Boy’s school fete in a few weeks.  The idea is to show 11 and 12 year olds who are a bit too cool for the little kid rides enough crochet moves that they can make a friendship bracelet…and all for a gold coin donation…excellent value! Hence the crochet hook hunt. I am looking for about five 4.5mm or 5mm crochet hooks.

We tried four oppies. We found one hook! But we also found a great acid yellow pillow case for Our Dear Girl full of early eighties boys and girls in big hats doing cute things with laundry, pussy cats and watering cans that she paid for herself, a UNICEF 200 piece jigsaw puzzle that looked just like Cologne and a patchwork book of Australian house blocks.  I think that was the treasure.

The book is titled Australian Houses in Patchwork by Margaret Rolfe and Beryl Hodges, first published in 1991. The styling is super early nineties but still, there is something about this book that I really love.  There are blocks for Federation houses and Californian Style Bungalows and quintessential Carltonian terrace houses.

There is even a country town quilt where all the significant buildings have been turning into a block.  I love the enormous spaces in the streets and between the houses.  This is so Australian, especially in country towns…or Adelaide. There is a songline by the great Paul Kelly that says it all, ‘The streets are so wide everybody’s inside, sitting in the same chairs they were last year’.

Good on you Marg and Beryl!