Crafts

Crafts Creative with cards

Connie McEvoy creates a project from old greeting cards

While amusing myself during some long cold/lonely winter nights of mid- January 2020 I found my collection of old Christmas greeting cards again, some of which I have admired and used as inspiration while designing and constructing various handcrafts for years.

This one attracted my attention as my Mother was born on August 22nd 1920 and was looking forward to celebrating her 80th birthday then as well as having made it to the new millennium. She never was in favour of birthday parties but had made it clear during new millennium celebrations in January that an exception was to be made for her 80th when she hoped to celebrate on the double. Sometimes when she spent holidays here she liked to pass the time (if it was raining) browsing through the cards also and let it be known that this 1892 card was her favourite because the handshake was a symbol of great friendship/ affection and peace to her way of thinking, as due to the fear of another scourge consumption in her childhood days hugs were very seldom given.

Having finished my embroidered section of the McEvoy/Kelly family tree that she had commissioned me to work by March 2000 I decided to design, work and construct a keepsake for her 80th birthday incorporating the handshake of her favourite old card and roses her favourite flowers on the front cover of the project. Inside this cover I have worked a double pocket for envelopes on the left side and on the right side a stay for a writing pad and a stamp book pocket. When the outside cover was finished to my satisfaction work was started on the construction of a cover for the photo album that would be set into the worked front/outside cover. The album cover was constructed from the same materials and the colour scheme was continued throughout the entire project, four photographs of some of us in childhood years representing the four seasons and four tiny appropriate floral motifs adorn the covers. Spring and Summer on the front section and Autumn and Winter on the back section. She was delighted with her keepsake gift, kept it for a while then gave it back to me for safe keeping in case anything might happen to it!

Mam passed away on May 31st 2010 having lived life to the full-in fact she drove her car Betsy to Clonegal and Bunclody regularly and sang in the choir at the vigil Mass each Saturday evening right up to her last days with us. I wonder how she would have felt about being cocooned, no sign of peace/handshake, wearing a mask and having to adhere to social distance rules? The fabrics used in this project include brocade, calico, silk and satin, some lightweight wadding was used in order to enhance the quilted area.