It all started with the sisters. Here bedecked in seersucker shorts, a cotton jumpsuit and bobby socks, while savoring their summer playground of Swifts Beach near Cape Cod.

Irish Catholic schoolgirls who absorbed and endured the nuns teachings, Patty and Ginny were born to hard-working yet cosmopolitan parents that danced nights away in New York City. Often caring for their three little brothers, the sisters grew to be an accomplished teacher/businesswoman and a head nurse, and mothers of seven children between them.

Curly-haired Patty was my mother and sweet, freckled Ginny my Aunt.

Thanks to them, we offspring stepped out in our on-trend 60’s and 70’s pieces, memorably for me these matching pale-blue boucle Easter coats that Patty stitched up on her trusty Singer. 

Mom created all our birthday cakes too, often wowing with the sorcery where Barbie emerged from an intricately frosted, stainless-steel-bowl-molded cake skirt. 

There’s a vivid New Hampshire memory where Patty commandeered the screened porch picnic table to drill tiny holes into, wire and assemble a stockpile of pinecones, walnuts, Brazil nuts and fanciful seedpods, into a gargantuan wreath extravaganza. I really wish somebody had kept that thing.

And the knitting—who can forget the fairisle stocking hats—seemingly a yard of holiday detail each? That was the first time I witnessed the magic of pom-poms handmade by wrapping yarn around hand-cut cardboard donuts. Here is my grandson representing the third generation to don one of the stocking hats.

Aunt Ginny was a gifted fashion and home-decor seamstress, and an accomplished hand stitcher, pumping out vibrant needlepoint cushions, chair covers and ornaments every Christmas for all. Later she became a skilled quilter and a regular at guilds in New England and Monterey.

I didn’t realize it growing up, but now I know that my hands-on creativity came as a legacy of Patty's & Ginny's. Their talent and tenacity, color and fashion sense, their ability to decorate a beautiful room—all of it rubbed off. Without the foundation from the sisters, I wouldn’t be doing what I am now. I am grateful.

Where did your handcrafting legacy come from? Please share your story in the comments.