I'm pretty sure I'll be running out of thread. Apparently, 20g of #20 cotton (172m) is not sufficient for a 72-round doily. I probably did know that at some point, but it's been a while since I've done a lot of doily knitting with #20 thread, and when I do, I tend to use 50g balls and their much higher yardage (meterage?).
Again, I'm not loving this doily. I think I have some leftovers from other projects that will be sufficiently compatible, so I'll make do if and when the time comes. I've done more than half the rounds, but I'm probably not at the halfway point yet for the knitting.
This doily uses some unusual stitches that I've not seen in other doily patterns. I've already written about them -- ladders that alternate a round of double yarnovers with a round of crossed stitches, and a background motif that consists of double yarnovers separated by a 4-to-2 stitch decrease. (By the way, for the second set of ladder motifs, I'm doing k3tog on the left and sk2p on the right.)
OK, I'm slow on the uptake. Well, not too slow, because I knew this already, but trudging through the stitches gives me time to think about it. Both of these are hex-mesh alternatives. They both give the honeycomb-like structure of the more common hex-mesh that Niebling uses (\OO/ and O/\O)) but use different methods to create the network.
I've kind of gotten used to the ladders (and I'm almost done with them, yay!), but the background mesh is still fairly tedious. Slip 2 stitches, knit 2 stitches, pass the slipped stitches over the knitted stitches, double-yarnover. Hopefully I'll get better at them, and hopefully I won't drop anything too important while slipping stitches and passing them over the knitting stitches. Except for the stitches that are supposed to be dropped, of course. It's a lot slower than the more common \OO/ hex-mesh pattern and I have to work carefully and pay attention.
Why, though? Was this some kind of experiment? A joke? A variation on something else? I will have to look through my collection of patterns, but I don't know if I've seen these texture patterns in any other doily, by any other named designer. Is this a Herbert Niebling pattern, or was it by someone else who was riffing on some of his design characteristics?
Hopefully my kludges will be sufficiently unobtrusive by the time the doily is finished and blocked.
Because pics are fun, here's a pic of a different doily:
Way back when I last nattered on about doilies, I mentioned that I'd be doing Burda 418/33, and that there would be pictures. Well, here's the picture!
It's part of a set. I knit 418/31 and 418/32 (the square and the hexagon) earlier, and this is the octagon of the set. It's an attributed Herbert Niebling pattern. I knit it in 2014, yikes! Where does the time go?
I don't remember much about knitting it, except that it brings a smile to my face when I look at it along with a memory of "fun", whatever that might mean.
Here's a pic of 418/32:
and 418/31:
Wow, apparently I knit those in 2004. That's rather a while ago. Apparently there are a few more versions of this pattern that were published in Beyer 7014 (and perhaps elsewhere) -- a smaller octagon and a larger hexagon (that can be blocked as an oval). Maybe someday I'll crank those out, too.
If/when I get through Précieuse Dentelle, I'll try to choose something a whole lot less aggravating for my next doily. It doesn't need to be quite as straightforward as the Round Lace Mat I just did, not unless the pattern I choose just happens to be that simple. But it will be a pattern without any of those sl2, k2, p2sso maneuvers.
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