No. Bruns. is 'hooked' on crochet display Senior has 40 items showing at the municipal building BY JENNIFER AMATO Staff Writer Rosa Donnelly never took a class on how to crochet. Instead, at around 7 years old, her mother taught her how to weave the yarn in and out of the hook to form patterns. "It seems like almost all my life," she said of the numerous pieces she has crocheted throughout her 84-year life. "I never kept count." Donnelly, a North Brunswick Township resident all her life, has a display of her artwork at the North Brunswick municipal building throughout the month of March. She said she used to make afghans for sale, and in recent years she has made dresses for dolls, stuffed animals with cotton, mini baskets to hold candy, lace cradles, crayon holders, little pouches, a windmill, a decorative hanger for Christmas, a witch and other decorative designs. The majority of her work was done during her travels cross-country while her late husband John was with the 7th Air Force, stationed in Redding, Calif. He also spent 55 years as a road foreman for sheet metal. She said he used to draw women on the front of airplanes and would build model planes himself. While they drove she would crochet, stopping every so often at a hobby store, for him, or a craft store, for her, to pick up materials. "There was nothing to do while my husband was building planes," she laughed. "We went four times to California and I crocheted going out and crotched coming back." Donnelly, herself, worked as well. She started at the personal products factory at Johnson & Johnson on Route 1 for five years while holding a night job, and then decided to have a family. In the 1970s she returned to personal products and then worked for 18 years as a short order cook there. "My specialty was omelets," she said. Later in life, she took a needlecraft class at the North Brunswick high school, and then, as a Girl Scout troop leader and an assistant at her Sunday school, helped teach children how to crochet. She laughed when she said she used to teach the women in the launderette how to complete their crafts. She also subscribes to a series of crocheting magazines, which serve as inspiration, and used to receive a doll a month from "Annie's Attic." She said she would design dresses for the dolls for children, and she made blankets for her grandchildren. The general timeframe is one week per item. "If I see something in a magazine, I make it. Some things I can make without directions. I do a lot on my own," she said. Besides being just a hobby and a form of relaxation, Donnelly has also entered her pieces into the Middlesex County Fair every year for the past several years. She said that nine out of 10 times she receives a blue ribbon award. She also makes afghans to donate. She said she just finished a baby afghan she will give to the Highland Park Senior Center, which will in turn give it to a veterans hospital or a children's hospital. She said she has four more that need to be finished. "I use it, more or less, to keep busy, just to do something," she said. The municipal building is located at 710 Hermann Road. Donnelly's display is in the front lobby.