My Historic Doily Kick

Lately my obsession has been knitting a lot of fairly old doily patterns.

I downloaded a knitting chart font with characters like the charts my Niebling patterns use, and I've been making charts from things like the written instructions in my 1909 copy of de Dillmont's Encyclopedia of Needlework.

Although I know better, I loved this blue-shaded crochet cotton so much that I knitted the de Dillmont doily out of it.I hoped the soft blues would blend better - instead they settled stubbornly into same-color pools.

Another doily I recharted was this one, Duchrow 61.5.I used a ball of vintage thread that turned out to have both white and cream/ecru wound over the same ball. I want to tea-dye this thing to soften that white ring, and then I'll re-block it.

This week I've been working on pattern 72 from the knitted lace section of Das Stricken, as reprinted in Lacis' Knitted Lace II (Kunst-Stricken II).It's a very pretty little thing - the plate from the original hardly does it justice.

Unfortunately the chart in the Lacis book was cut vertically, and starting at Row 28, is missing three stitches from each row.

Fortunately, when I recharted this, I lined up motifs the way the Niebling charts do, and those missing stitches turned that section to instant static.

And after messing about with it a bit, I realized that also starting at Row 28, there were two repeats per row, so all I had to do was work out where the first one ended and knit it again.

We haven't had the severe weather much of the midwest has been suffering, but it's been raining plenty, so I've had lots of time indoors this week to knit!