Sylvia Hachey, 67, of Dixmont doesn’t keep track of how many balls of crochet cotton she goes through every year, but she estimates that it’s at least 25,000 yards – from which she creates 400 to 500 items, including doilies, tablecloths, table runners, pictures, coasters, snowflake ornaments, bookmarks, pillowslip edgings and window shade pulls. Multiply that yardage by the 50 years she has been crocheting and that’s 1.25 million yards, or the equivalent of 5,000 balls of crochet cotton – enough to wrap around the Earth 50 times.

“I like crocheting,” she said modestly. “It’s relaxing. I can’t just sit and look at the walls.”

At one point several years ago, when she was diagnosed with chronic pulmonary obstructive disease, Hachey thought sitting around and looking at the walls might, indeed, be her fate. She was required to use oxygen, but she refused to pull a tank on wheels behind her or carry one of the suitcase-size units.

“I put the tank in a backpack and did what I could do. And I never gave up crocheting. When I went back for a checkup, the doctor told me I had built up my chest muscles from carrying the oxygen in the backpack so I wouldn’t need to be on it all the time anymore.”

She said her mother, Mildred Ayer, taught her to crochet – sort of. Hachey is left-handed and her mother was right-handed.

“I was sixteen when I learned to crochet. I sat opposite my mother and watched what she was doing. Then after a while I tried it and I could do it left-handed and I haven’t stopped since,” she said.

Hachey also learned to sew from her mother, who was a seamstress for the Vogue Doll Co. and worked at home sewing doll clothes during World War II. As a teenager, Hachey worked for Edward Morris, a Bangor tailor, where she did bookkeeping and simple alterations, such as hems.

Hachey’s lacy creations are stacked on the bed and bureaus of a spare room in her home.

“I go to the craft fairs with three or four suitcases full of these,” she said, “and when I come home again all I have left is about one suitcase half full. The most popular color is ecru. Then white. And the Christmas things, I can’t make enough of those.” She can crochet 30 snowflake tree ornaments in a day. One of her crocheted pictures, such as The Last Supper or the Madonna, may take three or four months.

For the most part, Hachey uses #20, #30 and #40 crochet cotton, the finer weights, in her work. Her steel crochet hooks are very small – sizes 9, 10, and 11. She uses many different brands of crochet cotton, but likes that made by DMC Corp., which her supplier orders from France. “It’s the only way I can get the range of colors I want,” she said.

Hachey crochets in small increments of time, sitting in her recliner, when she’s not busy keeping house, going places with her husband or caught up in family activities with her six grown-up children and 12 grandchildren.

A few years ago, her son, Wayne, suggested she enter her crocheting in local fairs.

“I thought what I did wasn’t good enough for that,” Hachey said, “but he entered some anyway.” Now, several walls in her home are festooned with blue ribbons won at the Windsor, Common Ground, Skowhegan State, Blue Hill, Union and Bangor State fairs. “I was so surprised to win.”

Hachey’s pattern books and supplies fill a closet-size room.

“I’m still using pattern books I bought in the 1950s,” she said. The oldest book in her collection was published in 1903.

She credits Richard, her husband of 50 years and a retired U.S. Marine, with making it possible for her to sell her work each October and November at the Nokomis craft fair in Newport, the Shriners craft fair in Bangor, the Zonta craft fair in Brewer and the Children’s Miracle Network craft fair in Brewer.

“He does all the carrying and lifting,” she said.

Asked what tips she’d give beginning crocheters, she said, “Patience.”

Hachey will crochet to order and is willing to encourage left-handed crocheters. Call her at 234-2363 to learn more.

Snippets

At their April meeting, The Brewer Stitchers of the Bangor Area Chapter of the American Sewing Guild finished making quilts for the Linus Project, which provides handmade ‘security blankets’ for children who are undergoing medical or family crises. Call Dot Clark at 989-4130 to learn more about The Brewer Stitchers.