ALPHA BANDY
Alpha Bandy was born and raised on the Smith Branch of Slate Creek, in Buchanan County. She learned to crochet at the age of fourteen by watching her older sister, Agnes. In 1941, Agnes went to help care for a sick neighbor, and in turn, the woman taught her to crochet. Alpha, in turn, taught her younger sister, Lou Emma. Soon thereafter, Alpha’s mother purchased all three sisters a #8 crochet needle. Alpha still has that needle to this day and it continues to be the one she uses more than any of the others.
After over forty years, crochet remains Alpha’s favorite past time, and she says, “When I sit down to rest, I have to have something or another to do with my hands, else I’m up and gone.” Alpha finds crochet to be relaxing and she favors old timey patterns, as well as the challenge of beaded crochet which requires that the bead be threaded onto the crochet thread and woven into the pattern.
Alpha is one of the very few who still know the roll stitch, a stitch she taught herself in 1948 when a visiting cousin brought her an old crochet piece and asked if she could figure out the stitch to help repair the piece. After pondering it awhile, Alpha learned how to make the stitch and has used it ever since. A couple of years ago, Alpha found the roll stitch she had been making for all those years in a pattern book from 1914, the only book that she has ever found with that particular stitch in it.
All of Alpha Bandy’s doilies are made from high quality crochet thread. Alpha recommends that these pieces be hand washed, dipped in a small amount of liquid starch and blocked out with straight pins to reshape and dry. She does not iron the doilies out as she believes this practice ruins the pieces by flattening the tread and wearing them out over time.
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