One thing that will always keep pulling me back to Venice is not the mysterious beauty of the sinking fairytale-like city with the San Marco's square full of pigeons and tourists basking in the morning sun, and forming a huge water pool crossed only by boat in the evening. I do miss its narrow pavements and its magnificent monumental architectural masterpieces, but I must confess that an island outside Venice captured my attention and till I go visit it again, to me, each trip to Venice will be incomplete :Burano.

Searching back my family roots, I found out that from my mother's side, my loved grandma's who was living in Nafpaktos city side, roots can be tracked back to the Aristocracy of Venice. My grandma and her sisters were real beauties of their time, but their predecessors were women of epic charm and myths had been cultivated around their names. I was always fascinated by the details of my grandma's descriptions about those far away grand-grand-gradmas of mine that dominated my childish imaginary world like fairies from another cosmic dimension.

I liked to lay down on the wooden floor of my grandma's beautiful house, during hot Summer afternoons, next to her, both in our lingerie linen dresses, facing up to the floor, doors of the balkonies wide open to let the warm air circulate fooling us with the illusion of a cooling sense on the skin. Usually, while grandma was unfolding her colorful and scented stories, I enjoyed closing my eyes and beam my whole existence back in time to that world of finesse, excellence, subtle romances and delicate laces.

One of my favorite stories was the one about grandma's crocheted bridal gown which was passed to her through generations. She even had allowed me to touch the treasured masterpiece once, as it was carefully kept in a chest. I still remember the brilliance of its pearl like off whiteness, and how much I was surprised by the fineness of the thread it was crocheted with. I couldn't understand how was it ever possible for any human fingers to work such delicate thread and finish that masterpiece within a mere lifetime.

The amazing dress's story was mixed with myths and beliefs that were adding to it a feel of magic. Grandma said each stitch was representing a wish for hapiness and bliss and serenity to the bride. She explained that the wishes were only for the bride, because those times, marriages were meant to last and if the woman was happy the marriage would be a happy one. Girls of middle and upper social class were then getting married according to their fathers' or brothers' selections or preferences. So they had no say to their fate. They could only crochet, wish and hope for the miracle.

My personal choice was not to the liking of my family, and although I asked my parents to bring my grandma to my wedding, they presented a long list of excuses why she couldn't be there. I never found her handcrafts or the chest she had shown me when I was 8 years old, and her precious soul left her body when I was pregnant to my daughter. For me, she's always alive and present, a sweet angel in my life, talking to me through the tweets of little sparrows - they say they're heaven's messengers - and keeping me safe from all evil things.

Maybe my love for her has been one of the reasons why I feel so connected to the art of crochet, as if through this art I have discovered an absolute and pure code of a "love language", my grandma's dialect.

A couple of years before my grandma's departure, I had visited Burano, the beautiful island outside Venice. A living cart-postale with houses full of colors and flowers flooding out of their windows and balconies. But what enslaved me in this island, is that it is dedicated to the fine art of needlecrafts. Memories of my childhood were poping up infront of my eyes as I was walking down the streets. There is even a Museum of handcrafts there, little touristic stores that sell all kinds of artcrafts you can imagine, like lacey umbrellas, cardigans, tablecloths and a million other things, and you can see old women sitting outside their houses in the narrow streets, knitting , embroidering and crocheting ignoring the colorful flocks of the tourists who are passing by.

I believe Burano is the place where each and every crocheter should go and enjoy, and maybe you too discover a tiny part of yourself there which you were unaware of.