Repairing a vintage crochet dollie
 

Can anyone tell me how to repair a crocheted dollies? My grandmother made these dollies and I would like to repair them so I can give them to my little sister as a gift. There is very little left of things that belonged to my grandmother and I know she would value them greatly. I have figured out they have to be at least 65 to 75 years old. To have something that was handmade by her is very precious item. Any help would be greatly apprciated.

can you upload some photos grandmahoney? With raveling crochet there are fixes and then there is recrocheting :) It will help us boss, I mean advise, if we can see where you are starting from. Lovely idea, lucky sisters.

You might be able to find the crochet thread at Michaels or Joann's - color may be an issue. Do you crochet?
Please post a picture that will help a lot.

If you do not crochet yourself, maybe you can find someone in your area that does. They should be able to help you.

Photos would help. Do they really need to be repaired? I am concerned that the thread may have deteriorated. An option might be to frame the doilies instead.

I agree you'll probably need to re-crochet some of the eroded areas if you want to repair them. And you'll probably need steel crochet hooks vs wood/aluminum....sizes are totally different. Soak one or 2 in soapy water to clean and let dry before trying to match color.

You may want to consider putting them on fabric - with little stitches - to secure them. Pictures of your doilies will help.

From my experience it is extremely hard to restore a crochet doily if it gets a hole in it, especially if you do not have the pattern used to make it. (I have made quite a number of doilies in my day and use them, so some of mine do get holes.) I sometimes just stitch with a needle and thread catching any loops of the crocheting and pulling them gently together to keep them from pulling out further and hide the hole the best I can. Then I continue to use the doily by setting something over the mended area. If you frame it, you could put several things in the frame, overlapping and covering the frayed part.

I agree with MarthaT that you might just use a needle and thread to pull the areas together and knot securely. I just finished repairing an afghan that one of my late sisters made for a niece years ago. She did not knot the last row of the afghan and nearly every block had a hole in it. I could not math the yarn weight, so I used 6 strands of embroidery thread and pulled the raveled edges together and knotted them securely. One side looks good and the other shows where I pulled it together. She will be able to display it at any rate.

I tried to repair a dolly once, found out the person who made the dolly was right handed, I am left handed and it did not look right to me. So my sis-in-law did it for me, she is right handed. It then looked great.