Published: July 03, 2009 10:38 pm      

Hooks and needles

Woman has more than 800 ribbons

A local fair champion has won so many ribbons, she lost count of them all.

But recently, Loraine Martoglioof Oakwoodand her friend, Iota Hammon, took out Martoglio’s bag of ribbons and counted them all — about 40 years’ worth of crochet project honors from the Vermilion County Fair, Georgetown Fair, Eastern Illinois Exhibition and the Champaign County Fair.

Martoglio, 93, honed her skills with the crochet hook and needle over her lifetime — and she’s shown it.

The greatest number of ribbons for any category in her awards collection are the blue ones, which total 375. She has 260 second-place ribbons, 104 third-place ribbons, 65 fourth-place, 29 fifth-place and one sixth-place ribbon — that one was from Champaign. She also won six best in show ribbons.

The grand total number of ribbons is 840.

According to her daughter-in-law, Joan Martoglio, she’s pretty competitive with her projects.

“She’s a perfectionist,” Joan said. “If it’s not right, she’ll rip it up and do it all over again.”

Joan is married to Martoglio’s oldest son, Jerry. Martoglio has two other sons, six grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.

Martoglio, who was born in 1916 and grew up in Evansville, Ind., began crocheting — but not for competition — as a high school graduate.

She graduated high school in the midst of the Great Depression, a time when people made many of their household goods because store-bought goods cost more than they could afford.

Joan remembers her own grandmother talking about how they made rag rugs, using a melted down toothbrush that was fashioned into a hook and old clothes.

Martoglio clearly remembers her mother showing her how to make her first stitches when she was charged with babysitting her younger brothers while her mother was at work at a cigar factory.

She honed her talent and took it with her to Illinois.

She moved here shortly after meeting her husband, Charlie Martoglio, when she was in the area visiting an uncle.

He swept her off her feet, she said.

The two eloped, getting married in Covington, Ind. in 1936. She returned home and asked her mother weeks later if she’d like to see her wedding ring.

Surprised, her mother said she’d better get back to Illinois so she could live with her husband.

Charlie, a coal miner and carpenter, built the house Martoglio still lives in. She’s been there sixty years.

Many decades later, one of the legacies she leaves all of her family members is some of her handiwork. All the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren have a sweater and pair of Christmas socks she crocheted.

One of Joan’s favorite pieces is a tablecloth Martoglio crocheted for her. The delicate pattern, called the pineapple pattern, shows pineapple shapes linked in a intricate pattern.

She never thought to compete with others in the fair textile competitions until Hammon suggested it.

“My friend Iota is the one who got me started,” Martoglio said.

Martoglio’s projects are all over the house.

She showed off a few doilies, which look like delicate snowflakes of elaborate patterns — many of which came from books Hammon’s mother owned. She also showed several warm-looking sweaters and a baby cape she was working on.

“I’ve made about a million of them, I guess,” she said.

Martoglio is always working on something new, including a blanket. She has drawers full of yarn and other projects in the works. She works on them as she watches TV, she said.

When Martoglio was employed, she was a bookkeeper at Windbreaker. She’d check on the fair judging on her breaks.

“I’d run over there to see if I won anything, and then I’d go back to work,” she said.

Joan said it’s obvious she liked the competition, but she’d get upset with judges that didn’t recognize the level of difficulty in projects.

“I like to do it,” Martoglio said. “I always enjoyed going to the fair. A lot of those judges were good friends.”