Fun with Doillies

I remember grandmothers house in the 1950's.  There were, doillies everywhere.

I love these little bits of lace.  They lay under vases, over the backs of chairs, centered on a round table.  Most of them were white, but ocassionally a right red or green or maybe a natural colored big of complex stitchery laid formally, drapying a table, or deocrating a tray. 

Tiny, intricate stitches;  designs confusingly charted.  Who makes these things anyways?

I've tried to make them before, but the tiny stitches and complex designs defeated me.

Then there's the space thing.  As in lack of it.  I have a very tiny living space and though I have a very big studio in which I pursue my art, it's, well, a studio.  No real places for doilies amidst the projects in the works, the art supplies, the stuff that may or may never be art someday.  So, I do admire the wonderful delicate and fancy stitching on the doilies, I just don't have anything or anyplace where they could be, or where they'd look ok.

So today, at this grandmother's home, there are none.

I guess I could make some as gifts, but there are doilies available, mass produced somewhere, that look pretty good.  Why go to all that trouble of making you're own?  Why bother gifting someone who just bought 10 at hobby lobby for a couple of bucks a piece?

I'm sure those of you who do a craft or an art struggle with this too.  Where to put it all, who to gift and will they appreciate it?  Well why do anything?

So, for whatever reason, I seem to be seeing doilies in my dreams and in my mind as I do other things.  I'm hesitant, at first, to be frustrated by the tiny.  Why, I'm thinking, do I have to use size 10 crochet thread and a size 7 steel crochet hook and make something that takes weeks and is 7" in circumference?  What kind of crazy person would do that?

Perhaps, what I should do, is morph these doilies into something else.

So I grabbed some worsted weight yarn, and an H hook and I'm off.  There is something very relaxing about crocheting around and around in ever changing stitch pattern as something grows bigger and bigger.   Maybe that's why they do it, the doily makers.

The traditional yarn is made with cotton crochet thread.  Maybe you've seen it?  Aunt Lydias, or the like, size 10, 400 yards in a ball no bigger than a mug of coffe. You use a small, steel crochet hook and at my age, you can hardly see the stitches.  You can make several doilies from one ball.

Use a bigger yarn, and you get, well, a bigger thing. 

My first attempt, in grey, I left some holes and I got sort of a vest. But, I don't actually like it, that is, I don't think, I'd like to wear it anywhere. Besides, I didn't have enough of one shade of gray worsted yarn to complete it.  Luckily I had enough of several grays and I was able to complete it.  Still, I like the idea of a doily as vest.  So maybe I'll try again.

And hey, maybe it was just too small for me.  On a child it looks great!

Too bad she moved.  Redo...

And, make one about 2x this and try it out again.

Then I found this group on Ravelry (www.ravelry.com, group search on rugs) , that is for rug makers and suddenly, it all makes sense.  That great big lacy thing I made would look great as a rug, if only it had a little more thickness. The ladies on the rug group say, a multitude of things might be good for making a rug out of a doily patternm.  Rope, upholstery piping, macrame cord, yarn.  But they say use 3 strands of yarn held together. 

Since yarn is what I have, well here goes. 

By the end of the weekend I almost have a rug, and I used only yarns from my stash, that is, yarns I've bought over the years, or had gifted to me, or picked up cheap or no cost from thrift shops or hobby swaps.  No, I didn't have enough of any one color to make the rug but I had multiple skeins or partial skeins of wine, dark purple, red varrigated and several shades of beige.  Here's where the real skill, and just maybe the art comes in.  I am using someone's doily pattern but I have to understand both the pattern and how to blend and present color in multiple crochet stitches in order to get an end result that transforms a stack of miscellaneous fiber into WOW!

One week later:   The result?  A beautiful rug.  Grandmother, I think, would be proud.  Is it art?  Who cares?  It looks good and will make a great rug , or even a lap rug on these cold winter days.

Learned a great lesson here.  I didn't have even enough to complete some rows of one color , but since I was holding 3 strands together I was able to blend 3 of this then 3 of that and get pretty close for the row.

And, I've made the doily also in size 10 thread.  I've found a new way to display doilies.  (Thanks to the Doily Heads group on Ravelry).  I've crocheted around a metal macrame hoop and stitched the doily to the hoop.  Now I can hang it in the window or on the wall.

So maybe that's who makes the intricate tiny stitches thingies, crazy people like me.