Oh Doily!



I've been practicing my doily knitting with two patterns from Marianne Kinzel. I definitely enjoy the process of knitting doilies. They are small and can be very intricate, but you don't have to invest a lot of time or money. I will say that knitting in cotton certainly does show off all of your imperfections.


Over the last two days I have tried to knit Azalea and Valentine from First Book of Modern Lace Knitting. Check out the mess I made of the center of Azalea.






Sloppy! I tried to fix it when sewing up the center, but it all looked so bad that I undid it. Now I don't know whether to finish the darn thing anyway. I used larger yarn than the pattern calls for (size 20) on the same size needles and I just don't like the way any of it looks.



Kinzel gives two methods for starting in the round. Cast on and join which I used for Azalea and pick up from crochet chain which I used for Valentine.






See how much better the crochet works for me. I still have to close the center, but the first few rows of knitting are so much neater. I still don't know if I like the doily over all. I have to order some size 60 crochet thread and see what I think. I've started the crochet bind off and it's a bit of a pain. I mucked up the beginning, because around midnight last night I decided to bind off and completely forgot how to double crochet for a little while. I think the first couple are half doubles. I didn't think it would make that much of a difference at the time, but now I know it is going to bug me until I frog back and fix it.