Flower Doily

Using the video tutorial here, I crocheted this cute doily in about 40 minutes.  It was fun and I love how simple it is.  I used cotton yarn in a navy blue color with a size H or 5.0 mm hook.

Doily Patterns

   I had a 20% off your entire purchase at JoAnn's today and I found this fun booklet with beautiful doily patterns.  It's an Annie's Crochet Book and it has some beautiful designs in it.   I don't have any doily pattern books, so I bought this one. 

Tea Dyeing Doilies

   I made a couple of small doilies from this pattern which also comes with a lovely comprehensive video of how to make the entire doily that you can view on youtube.  The pattern is free and so is the video.

   I made two of these over the last couple of days.  It took me about 1.5 hours to finish each one, it's quicker for me to crochet if I just read the pattern, watching the video seems to take me longer.

 

   I crocheted these in white size 10 crochet cotton thread and I used a size 0 (3.25mm) steel crochet hook.  The hook was a little too big for the crochet cotton, but I was trying to make the doily a little bigger and I think the larger hook help.

   When I tea dyed them, I steeped 6 tea bags in about 1.5 quarts of boiling water in a large Pyrex mixing bowl in my kitchen sink.  I left the tea bags in the water for about 20 minutes.  I took the tea bags out of the water and put my doilies in and let them sit for 1 hour 20 minutes.  You are supposed to wet your item before you put it in the tea bath, but I forget to do that.

   This is my result.  They are a lovely beige/ecru color and I don't think I could ever find thread in this particular colorway so I'm very happy with these doilies.

 

Daydream Doily Finish

   I finished this late last night and blocked it overnight.  This is a picture of the pretty half.  The other half has a couple of boo boos on it and I'm not going to fix them.  This is a 16" doily.  It's too big for me to use on top of furniture because I know my cats would claw it to death if it were sitting out, so I'm displaying it on my quilt ladder with my quilts.

   I wish I could say that I loved this pattern but like most crochet patterns, there were times when I thought some instructions were missing and I would have appreciated a little more detail in the instructions.  I did refer back to the picture on the first page to figure out some of the rows instructions.

Crocheting A Doily.

   I forgot to post this picture of the beginning of the Daydream doily I started this doily a few days ago.  This is my progress after round 4.  The instructions for this doily are pretty straight forward and I'm not having any problems with it.  I wish I had made my center circle a little tighter, but I can fix that with the next one I make.  This is like a practice doily for this pattern.

Practice Sock Knitting And A Doily Update

   So I finally started my practice socks.  I'm making the practice socks from the Toe-Up 2-at-a-Time Sock book by Melissa Morgan-Oakes.

    Sock knitting fascinates me because knitters who make socks make it sound so super simple.  There are several ways to knit socks, you can make them cuff down one at a time or cuff down two at a time or toe up one at a time or toe up two at a time.  The possibilities seem endless to me.  When I found out you can knit them two at a time on one needle, I wanted to learn.

  The practice socks in this book are great because you get to practice all the different techniques you have to learn to knit socks.  This is my progress so far, this is the cast-on and where I start the increases for the toes.  I had to re-knit the cast-on several times to get it right.  I'm using Peaches and Creme cotton yarn with size 8 (5.0 mm) Knit Picks Harmony wood needles with a 40" cable for these practice socks.  I'm not in a hurry to get these done.  I may have to re-do them several times before I finally finish them.

    My crochet doily project that I started at Christmas has been frogged.  The pattern that I bought was not written very well and I had some trouble on round 5.  I tried to contact the designer to ask her about the directions in the pattern through several different channels but I never heard back from her.  I figured out the problem with round 5 and fixed it, then I got to round 12 and the instructions were really vague and I knew that I wouldn't be able to work around it, so I took my work apart to reuse the thread and I'm deleting the pattern from my library.  By the way, that pattern was the Gossamer Doily by Priscilla's Crochet (Priscilla Hewitt).  It was a really pretty doily.  I paid $1.00 for it but that was $1.00 wasted.

    So I bought a new doily pattern from the Leisure Arts website yesterday.  It's called Daydream Doily by Ocie Jordan.  I hope to start that pattern in a few days.

Mini Doily Earrings

    I crocheted these beautiful doily earrings in less than an hour.  I found this free doily earring pattern on Ravelry.  You have to be a member (it's free to join) on Ravelry to get the pattern.  The pattern was written by Emily Forrest and it's a fun pattern for a miniature doily to put on your ear wires.  I used #10 crochet thread in white and a 1.5 mm steel crochet hook.  These were fun to make and I can't wait to wear them.  I would love to make some more and tea dye the doily to make it a more natural color.  Fun.

    I wet block* these mini doilies after I finished them.  They dried overnight and were ready to wear the next day.

   I have the faux redwork quilt top sandwiched and ready to quilt.  I bought a Hobbs Heirloom 80/20 crib size (45" x 60') batt and it was the perfect size to use with this small quilt top. I want to free motion quilt this quilt on my Janome 7700 and the last time I tried to free motion quilt on this machine it was not working for me, so I'm determined to figure this machine out and get this quilt done the way I want.   We'll see.

*To wet block my doilies I wet the doily in cold water, gently squeeze out water, 

place in towel and gently squeeze some more to try to get as much moisture

 out as possible.  Place the doily on a dry towel and gently stretch it, pat it, and shape 

it until it looks even on all sides.  For these little mini doilies, I tried to make sure 

all my loops on the edges were pulled out and visible. Leave it to dry.  

I don't use any starch because I'm afraid of bugs.

I learned this method from lacycrochet blog.   The link to her page is here.

My First Proper Round Doily

   I used the videos by Crochet Jewel on Youtube, link here.  This was an easy project and it came out so pretty.  I love doilies.

Crochet, Crochet Thread, And A Doily Video Tutorial

   I think I love youtube.  I was browsing through youtube the other day and I found a tutorial on how to crochet a doily from start to finish.  I found this last week when I was making my braided ear warmers.

   I love crochet but I have never actually crocheted a doily because the instructions just seemed so complicated, but I think I can follow along with a video to get this done.

    Here is the link to the first part of the doily instruction video (there are three parts), the other two parts will show up on the right hand side of your screen for you to click when you are ready for them.

    I have a set of steel crochet hooks and I'll be using a size 1.65 mm hook to make the doily and I bought some crochet thread for this project.  I bought two 1,000 yard skeins of Aunt Lydia's Classic Crochet Thread Size 10 from Amazon.  Each skein was $6.40.

   Before I start the doily project I wanted to get used to using a small hook again so I started a granny square using the thread and a 2.25 mm hook.  I enjoy crocheting granny squares and this will make a nice doily when I get it to a decent size.