Crochet

After seeing Jane’s beautiful doily, I started thinking about the different things people have used over the years to make their knitted/crocheted doilies nice and crisp . Many people use starch. I know that some of my aunts used sugar and still others have used wax. I really wonder how these stiffeners affect the fibers over time.



This doily was inherited from my mother. I have no idea where/who she got it from or how old it is, but the cotton thread feels very strange. It’s brittle and rough, and there are several areas where the thread seems to be crumbling.



The doily actually feels as if it will crumble to dust. I’m not sure what was used to stiffen it, but whatever it was, it has done a great deal of damage to the thread. I really don’t think it can be saved so I plan to crochet a new one. I’m not sure though what, if anything, I’ll use to stiffen it.

Also, Queer Joe has started making a crocheted tablecloth. The pattern looked very familiar and here’s why.



I made this very same tablecloth back in the eighties while I was in high school. It was a present for my mother. Normally, you would crochet, then join each motif to the previous ones. However I wanted it to be portable, so I crocheted all the required motifs and then joined them. At that time only little old ladies crocheted but I would work on the motifs during my lunch breaks. Trust me, no one knitted of crocheted in public, so just imagine the looks I got in the cafeteria. Luckily I went to a school where people were allowed to be themselves and no one teased or picked on me. My mother used that tablecloth every Christmas. She would proudly tell everyone that her daughter made it for her. Even though she crocheted, she never had the patients to make anything larger than doilies.

Here are some more doily pictures.



These were not starched and the cotton is still soft and supple.

I haven’t touched the Wedding Ring shawl or Spider Queen. I’ve mostly been working on some design ideas that were rattling around in my head and screaming to get out.

Have a wonderful weekend and happy knitting.

Wedding Ring Shawl

After much swatching and far too many on-line purchases. Finally picked a yarn and have started the Wedding Ring Shawl. The yarn is Halcyon Yarns 70/2 silk. Sharon Miller describes a suitable gossamer yarn as “120 wpi, 17000 yards per pound”. At 17000 yards/lb and 110 wpi, I think it’s close enough. At first I was going to use the gossamer silk from Heirloom Knitting. Normally, I love all things silk but for some reason I just didn’t feel very comfortable with this yarn. I decided to go with the Halcyon silk and I’m so glad I did! It’s slightly thicker than the Heirloom Knitting silk. It still has that sewing thread like quality of most non-wool gossamer yarns, but I’m enjoying working with it.

From the first time I saw this pattern I knew I had to make it in red. Unfortunately the yarn comes in only two colours; white or Tussah. I tried to find dyes locally but ended up ordering from G&S Dye. They’re located in Ontario and even though shipping is a bit pricey; it’s really fast. I got my order the next day! I used Fire Red with a tiny bit of black, and ended up with this shade of red.

Work on all other projects has been halted while I work on it. I’ve complete 100 of the 362 rows required for the center. I'm leaving for Toronto, tomorrow, to visit family so I don't think there will be much lace knitting for a while.

Happy knitting!