Asheville Crochet

In July, I took a quick trip to Asheville and while there I saw a lot of crochet. I found it in antique stores, in art sale booths, in the Wolfe Memorial house and even on a passenger on my flight home (no picture of that though). Because this is "Craft Across Time" we'll start with the more vintage crochet and end with some modern art.

Here are a few of the things I saw in antique stores.
​Several bedspreads that were in ok condition. They had broken threads and stains. Clearly used and loved.

A few tablecloths and runners in surprisingly good shape. They were probably only brought out for special occasions.

A few acrylic blankets that will never fall apart. I was a little surprised by the $39 price on the first one but, it would probably cost that to make it new even without including the labor involved. We have a similar chevron blanket in the same colors in the second photo. It's a classic.

The Thomas Wolfe Memorial house had crochet in almost every room. I was having trouble with my phone that day so I only ended up with two photos from the dining room.

There were several places that had a lot of different booths with art to buy and there was crochet in both of the ones I went to. In some cases the prices seemed right on. In others, I was skeptical that they sold anything. I've included the prices below so you can make your own judgement.

$35 Hat

$45 Bikini Tops - Essentially granny triangles with a chain for a tie. Made with acrylic yarn.

$45 Mushroom skirt - super cute!

$35 Hat

$55 Acrylic 70s style vest

$29 Child's cap

$35 scarf. I made some of these 15ish years ago. The "yarn" comes in sort of a ribbon and you just crochet the top of it to get the swirly pattern. Very simple to make.

The biggest and my favorite crochet surprise was the one I found at the Asheville Art Museum.

Caitlin has very interesting and cool fiber art sculptures and other artwork. Here is a quote from her website; "Caitlin McCormack (b. 1988) is a Philadelphia-based artist who utilizes textiles to explore queerness, isolation, loss, and existential dread through an uncanny, occasionally humorous lens. Their sculptures contemplate societal reluctance to view gendered craft as art and regard crochet as a behavioral response to apocalyptic conditions." The art on the specimens page of the website were my favorites. To see those and more here is the website: caitlinmccormack.com

Asheville has a lot of art and the fiber arts were definitely not left out of the mix. It was a fun trip!