(This post has been languishing in "draft" mode for months. I forgot it existed-- but since I don't believe I've addressed these topics in more recent posts, here it is, now. And because I finally got around to blocking the doily, I can add a few photos, too!)
I finished the Vintage Roses doily!
That pattern generates so many loose ends, and I left them all until the end. I really and truly hate weaving thread ends. If there are only a few, that's fine, but fiddling with that tiny needle hurts my hands, so I was dreading the tidying up phase of this doily.
Amazingly, though, it turned out to be not so bad, after all. It still took some time, and I'm glad it's done, but most of the ends were right near very roomy, convenient hiding places, and that makes all the difference in the world.
Then it was time for blocking.
Some doilies are a breeze to block. Others are an absolute nightmare. This one fell somewhere in between, but closer to the "ugh, please go away" end of the scale. I'm not thrilled with my blocking job, but it's satisfactory.
Plop that puppy under a bowl or something and no-one will ever think twice about sub-par blocking. ;o)
After snipping the last thread, I was on a "finished object high", so I went looking for something else I could do for another quick shot of accomplishment...
Aha!
There was that straw hat with the chin-tie ribbons I'd been meaning to sew into the hat-band for... never mind how long. (My current straw hat is wearing out after more than a decade of gardening use.) A few minutes with needle and thread, and now that's done, too.
In the process of finding the hat, I came across a basket full of crochet and knitting projects waiting for blocking. Many things look so much better with blocking, but it's so hard to make myself do it!
Then there was the Rhubarb Scarf Wannabe. When I came to the point where I needed to join the two ends to make it into a cowl, I set it aside. I think I was feeling indecisive (who, me? but that's so out of character!!) about whether or not to make it a cowl, and if so, whether or not to add a twist to make it an infinity cowl. Clearly, this was a major decision requiring the weighing of pros and cons-- and probably hours of painstaking research. So of course all these months later I just cavalierly picked it up, twisted it once (to infinity and beyond!), and slip-stitched it without a second thought. (Why couldn't I just have done that, back then?)
The join is visible, and I'm trying to decide whether to leave it as is or add flowers to cover the join. The flowers would surely attract even more attention to that part of the cowl, but since they'd be a design element, I guess that would be ok. I could add flowers to one or two other places around the cowl... I'm still considering it.
I weaved in the handful of loose ends and added the border. I think it's so neat that when you add a border to an infinity cowl/scarf/loop, you just keep going around and around until you meet up with your starting stitch. Both edges (or what looks like two edges) get a border, just like that. It feels like a magic trick.
No photos of the cowl yet. Sometime soon!
I finished the Vintage Roses doily!
That pattern generates so many loose ends, and I left them all until the end. I really and truly hate weaving thread ends. If there are only a few, that's fine, but fiddling with that tiny needle hurts my hands, so I was dreading the tidying up phase of this doily.
Amazingly, though, it turned out to be not so bad, after all. It still took some time, and I'm glad it's done, but most of the ends were right near very roomy, convenient hiding places, and that makes all the difference in the world.
Then it was time for blocking.
Some doilies are a breeze to block. Others are an absolute nightmare. This one fell somewhere in between, but closer to the "ugh, please go away" end of the scale. I'm not thrilled with my blocking job, but it's satisfactory.
Plop that puppy under a bowl or something and no-one will ever think twice about sub-par blocking. ;o)
- - - - - - -
After snipping the last thread, I was on a "finished object high", so I went looking for something else I could do for another quick shot of accomplishment...
Aha!
There was that straw hat with the chin-tie ribbons I'd been meaning to sew into the hat-band for... never mind how long. (My current straw hat is wearing out after more than a decade of gardening use.) A few minutes with needle and thread, and now that's done, too.
In the process of finding the hat, I came across a basket full of crochet and knitting projects waiting for blocking. Many things look so much better with blocking, but it's so hard to make myself do it!
Then there was the Rhubarb Scarf Wannabe. When I came to the point where I needed to join the two ends to make it into a cowl, I set it aside. I think I was feeling indecisive (who, me? but that's so out of character!!) about whether or not to make it a cowl, and if so, whether or not to add a twist to make it an infinity cowl. Clearly, this was a major decision requiring the weighing of pros and cons-- and probably hours of painstaking research. So of course all these months later I just cavalierly picked it up, twisted it once (to infinity and beyond!), and slip-stitched it without a second thought. (Why couldn't I just have done that, back then?)
The join is visible, and I'm trying to decide whether to leave it as is or add flowers to cover the join. The flowers would surely attract even more attention to that part of the cowl, but since they'd be a design element, I guess that would be ok. I could add flowers to one or two other places around the cowl... I'm still considering it.
I weaved in the handful of loose ends and added the border. I think it's so neat that when you add a border to an infinity cowl/scarf/loop, you just keep going around and around until you meet up with your starting stitch. Both edges (or what looks like two edges) get a border, just like that. It feels like a magic trick.
No photos of the cowl yet. Sometime soon!