Wednesday, May 31, 2017

Lace Knitting and learned the hard way!

The photo below is through round 140 (of 238) for the 1940's Lace Knitted Doily that I had found at 1940 Coats Patons Doily and is not blocked! We will not talk about how many times I started this one over. I started (finally!) putting in life lines every ten rounds when I reached round 110. I had a difficult time with rounds 130 through 139 and I'm still not certain that the instructions and charts are exactly correct but I shall persevere and plod onward.  

Knitted Lace Doily from 1940's Coats 

Patons Crochet Doily Leaflet



The orange stitch markers seen in the photo on the lower left are the first stitch for each of the lifelines (I'm using pink size 10 for the purpose). I also learned to be very, very careful about color fastness of any thread/yarn that I use for a lifeline. I have a couple of retries that started out wonderfully white but became pinkish after using RED for a lifeline that was NOT colorfast.

I finally had to take the work off my 32" circular needles because the stitches were so crowded I was dropping stitches as I moved groups onto and off the needle areas and would have to tink back or frog back to a lifeline.

Without being blocked, the work measures more that 19" (~48 cm) and there are still 98 rows to go. I just hope the 47" circular needles I have on order will be enough. Otherwise, I'll be trying to find a 60" FIXED circular needle in size 0.

I am using Lizabeth size 20 in white; I had purchased the cone from DS9 Designs (thank you, Deb!) at one of our first CWTs at the Flathead Lutheran Bible Camp. This is also the same thread I am using for the tatted doily by Jan Stawasz. I finally finished round VI of that piece and will post a picture later. I'm not sure how long it will take me to use up a cone of size 20 (8,400 yards / ~ 7,700 meters). I also use this thread for tatted angels, snowflakes and will probably use some for some of the wonderful patterns (I have all her books with the new one on order) from Ineke Kuiperij of The Netherlands.

No comments: