Doily question

[Jackmeister]

I’m still new to making doilys, this is my second one ever. I know most of the tension issues will be resolved in blocking, but it still looks weird.... Is it supposed to look this ruffled? 

[Granny Square]

Nice work!  Your ruffling looks quite mild to me.  I make short stitches, and end up with ruffling most of the time (depends on my tension, versus the designers').  This is really pretty flat compared to what I'm used to pre-blocking   😉 

[Jackmeister]

I’m just not used to the pre-blocked ruffles. That’s why I haven’t done doilys before.  Thank you 😊 

[Jackmeister]

It didn’t smooth out as much as I was hoping, but it still turned out pretty. ☺️

[Granny Square]

It looks great!  At first I didn't see a thing amiss, and then spotted some of the chains between the petals were a tiny bit loose.  Chains thwart me as well sometimes; my stitch gauge is a tad tight, but my chains are on the looser side.  And sometimes it's hard to spot a mild problem area until you go to block it.

I wouldn't have noticed if I hadn't looked a bit harder at it (because you mentioned there were issues). If it bothers you, you could pin the outer 1 or 2 loops into a ^ shape while it's still pinned and drying, and give it an extra spritz of spray starch.  Or not pin, put a bit of starch on your finger and push those chains into an arch shape.

[bgs]

Hey I think you did a great job.  I like working with thread but hate blocking.  I have a gallon ziploc bag maybe two of snowflakes I need to block.

[Jackmeister]

Gotta learn somewhere 😉 thank you for the tips, I’ll try the extra pins. Tension is a lot more finicky in lace, and mine isn’t that consistent. I have a few more doilies requested by family .... we’ll see how they turn out. ☺️

I found blocking to not be that bad. I threw the doily in the wash to clean and dampen it, then stretched it from the center out for an even stretch. The trick is to walk away when it looks good.

[bgs]

14 minutes ago, Jackmeister said:

 

The trick is to walk away when it looks good.

Thats the big problem for me.  I just keep noticing places that would look betterif I pinned them. I use glue to stiffen the snowflakes and its messy.  

[Granny Square]

Your doily looks better than I'm afraid my current project is going to end up, I'm on the last row of a rather big doily and as I've been going I've been aware it ruffles somewhat, but I wasn't too worried as I can usually block them into submission.

It's a repeat of 7 segments...I just laid it out and it's ruffled way more than I thought, I have to fold over one whole segment to make it flat, it's ruffled that bad.  Arggh.  I think this one is going to beat me, I'm sort of afraid to finish it.

Edit...I just  got brave and dry-pinned it.  By George, I got it flat, by yanking it from 16" to 19".  Whew!  

Edited April 25, 2019 by Granny Square