My Grandmother's Chairs

All of my life, my parents have owned aone special chair that was petit-pointed by my grandmother. Grandma told me this summer that she chose to do the background of the chairs in maroon because she was doing them for her mother, and her mother had rose colored carpet in her dining room at the time. My grandmother's chairs have a carved wild rose at the top. The wild rose is the provincial flower of Alberta, so that always caught my eye. Grandma told me there were originally 6 of them, and then she had a rocker done in poppies in her bedroom.

These chairs were never around my grandmother's dining table. When I was young, she had a big dining table with high-caned-back chairs with white velvet seats and "shower cap" seat covers in a washable grey velveteen to protect them from us. No, the petit-pointed chairs weren't in the kitchen, either. They were scattered around the house, and we had one at our house. It was special; it was "untouchable."

Before I made the trip to Canada this summer, I saw "my grandmother's chairs!" somewhere. When I got to there, I couldn't remember where or when I saw "those" chairs. I knew they didn't have the petit-pointed seats. While I was describing how different the ones I'd seen were, Vivian was telling me about how she'd chosen the color, Barbara getting the rocker out of a junk box in an old garage.

When we got home last week, my neighbor invited me to her home to help her with a computer issue. She offered me at a seat at her computer, and there were the chairs!! I gasped and said I couldn't possible SIT on one of them, and she laughed and said she was getting rid of them as soon as possible. I was flabberghasted! Getting rid of these chairs?

So on my birthday, my neighbor Brenda brought them over to me. She had 4 of them, and they are now sitting in MY living room, just waiting to be petit-pointed (for those of you who have no idea how to pronounce it, it's "pet-ee-point").

They have a different top design. It's got a raised flower detail, not a carved wild rose. They haven't been refinished... so they have their original finish on them. We haven't decided if that's a positive or not. Certainly, we don't want them to look brand new.

I've chosen a couple of patterns for the seat... and I've done a whole lot of research. I have 4 chairs. I have 4 kids. Someday, their children will have their grandmother's chairs.