Baby’s First Capelet!

I mentioned in this post about my baby shower that my grandmother brought a blanket and capelet that my great-grandmother crocheted some time before she died. I had some requests for pictures, but I wasn’t sure how to capture the capelet. It has an adorable little hood, so putting it down flat didn’t seem like a good option. I’ve been using our cat as a baby model, but I don’t think that cat claws + crocheted family heirlooms is the best combination. Plus, she already wants to murder me in my sleep for her previous humiliations.

Good thing my Aunt Deborah gave us the most adorable little bear ever. With a body that was just made to model capelets.

So, without further ado, I present my Nana’s handiwork:

Having recently lost my beloved Grandfather, I’m hyper aware of just how precious and just how tenuous the connection with older relations can be.

Hilda Roth, aka Nana, was my Dad’s Dad’s Mother. She was born in 1909, eleven years before women were granted the right to vote. We had the same birthday. I would call her every year to wish us a happy birthday and she would cheerfully tell me exactly how many letters, cards, presents, phone calls and visitors she’d received. She told everyone. I’m pretty sure she kept a running tally on a yellow legal pad. If she told you she’d had 14 phone calls, you knew she’d be telling the next person who called her that she’d had 15.

Nana did the crossword puzzle every day and she was sharp right up until the last six months or so. She lived alone in her own condo up until then.

A visit to Nana was always fun, because she gave us butterscotch candies and cokes from tiny glass bottles. When we left, she’d slip a five dollar bill in our pocket.

Nana collected spoons and cardinal bric-a-brac. That is, until she got tired of everyone giving her spoons and cardinals and told us all to knock it off. Every year, I hang a cardinal ornament on our Christmas tree in her honor.

Nana was a proud woman. When we cleaned out her condo, we found a stash of wigs. If she didn’t have time to properly set her hair, she could put a wig on and nobody would be the wiser.

To our daughter, Nana will probably just be an old relative in a photograph. But, to me, she’ll always be my beloved great-grandmother. To have something from her to give to our baby means more than I have the words to explain.