By Nancy Nehring
Evdokia Sarecheff Yakovleff Gunn lived an amazing
life. Born in Russia in 1902, she fled to Shanghai following the
Russian Revolution in 1925 and gave birth to her daughter Helen
three days after she arrived. She thrived in Shanghai, knitting
and crocheting items for her family and for a Chinese textile
company, until 1941 when the Japanese sent all foreigners to internment
camps. Evdokia and Helen survived this ordeal and returned to
Shanghai when the war was over in 1945. After that, Helen married
an American and moved to the United States; Evdokia moved to England
in 1949 and continued to knit and crochet until her death in 1973.
For more on Evdokia, see "Evdokia Sarecheff Yakovleff Gunn: Making
a Life Wherever She Could" by Nancy Nehring and Ellen Becker in
the March/April 2004 issue of PieceWork.
This edging, taken from one of the swatches Evdokia
created for the Chinese textile company, is worked in lacet crochet,
a technique popular in the 1920s and 1930s that is closely related
to filet crochet. The edging is worked separately, then whipstitched
to a pillowcase, sheet, or laundry bag as shown here. About 400
yards (366 m) of thread will produce a 40-inch (101.6-cm) length
of edging.
Nancy Nehring's crocheted edging taken from one of Evdokia
Gunn's samples. Photograph by Joe Coca.