I didn’t realise I hadn’t blogged for the whole of December. I have become quite sloppy with my blogging and must be grateful to have any readers left!
So scrambling to fill the gaps, here are a couple of doilies I crocheted in that month.
First up is this one, an oval doily. Ravelry project page here.

I made this because someone on Ravelry was having a problem with some of the instructions and I had the pattern, so I decided to try and see where the problem might be. In the end, I had only two places where something was fishy. I do wish they’d convert patterns like this to charts, because trying to read and follow long written instructions makes me cross-eyed. Anyway, here goes.

Thread: Some of the Jyoti brand thread I got on my last visit to Hyderabad. Since it was white, there wasn’t a problem about whether the colour would run. About half a 50gm skein. Very good value.

Hook: 1.25mm

Pattern: Oval Doily #3 by Lucille LaFlamme from Leisure Arts #2791, Oval Doilies to Crochet. The Rav page for the pattern is here. I had the following points to note:

  1. In Rnd 3, I fell one stitch short, but I fudged that.
  2. In Rnd 13, the third Ch4 should read Ch5, but that is obvious when you come to that point.

Time: 4 days.

Size: 15.5″ x 10″ Despite using smaller thread and hook than recommended, I got the recommended size. Funny. I wouldn’t have thought I was a loose crocheter.

Extra #1 I hated the picots in the last row. I’m never happy with them. I try using beads in some cases.

Then Jaishree came visiting one weekend. We’d been talking when I visited her about which of us was a tighter or looser crocheter, because we found we use different size hooks for the same size thread. We’d even begun a doily to check how much bigger or smaller our final doilies would end up, but that pattern somehow got shelved. So this time, when I stumbled across some doily patterns at the non-English websites of Coats and Clark, we picked another, smaller pattern and began that. I picked up what remained of the Jyoti skein and she used a pink skein of Jyoti. Here’s mine. Ravelry project page here.

And here are the details.

Thread: Would you believe there is still some thread left from the Jyoti skein? If you believe the yardage requirements given in the patterns, this 50gm skein has amazing length…either the cardboard cores in the recommended thread account for a lot of the ball weight, or this thread is lighter, or something.

Hook: 1.25mm. I apparently have a death grip on my hooks, because towards the end of this doily I broke the handle on this one. It was quite upsetting because although I heard the crack, I foolishly believed it wouldn’t break completely immediately. But it did, and I finally resorted to reinforcing it with packing tape and pins to finish the doily. Very kindly, however, Jaishree brought me a spare for future use. I really love these hooks and haven’t used any others for thread since getting them.

Pattern: Tulpe (Tulips) from Coats and Clark GmbH (Germany). The Rav page for the pattern is here. I went looking for the non-English patterns, becuase I knew they’d have doilies. And I love the European doilies for several reasons, including the fact that they are charted, and they have unusual designs and motifs and shapes, plus it isn’t all pineapples. I found this one and a couple more, including one on the French site.

Time: 3 days.

Size: 15.25″ I still don’t know what size Jaishree’s ended up, but possibly it would be larger, since it was already larger at a comparative stage before she’d finished it.

Extra #1 Nothing much. Nice elegant pattern, quick results…

So. These two FOs of mine are not in the order they ought to have been (there’s a whole block missing after that shawl I blogged about last time) but these were handy to link to and write about.

Sometimes I just get an irresistible itch to make something with thread and hook. And then I can’t resist scratching.