Old Rose - A Doily Copycat Pattern

Doily Hunting

My grandmother loved making doilies and in her last couple of years alive she started complaining about the lack of doily patterns being produces in her magazines. Last Tuesday I met up with my Danish friend who likes buying doilies from second hand shops. I once copied a doily before I sent to her so I knew it wasn't a silly idea, as I knew she has a few at home I asked her if she could bring a few with her - she brought a whole box full! So there were were standing at the back of her car boot and going trough the whole box of doilies! These are the ones I came back home with... (sorry for rubbish photo, taken late at night)

The one I'll be showing you this time is the top left one. Doily patterns usually have descriptive names of their styles so the top left we are calling Old Rose. I didn't take masses of photos but I have written down each step.

Basic crochet abbreviations

I still forget what these letter combinations mean so if you are in doubt look them up on a search machine and any videos you can find are great to watch too :)

• Ch - Chain
• Sl st - Slip stitch
• sc - single crochet
• dc - double crochet
• ( ) - repeat from to 

Old Rose

Start off by ch 10, join with the 10th chain from the needle

Lap 1: 3 ch, 2dc 1ch (3dc 1ch)x4 join with sl st to 1st dc (the one made out of 3 chains)

Lap 2: 3 sl st to the middle of first chain gap, 3ch 1dc 2ch 2dc (2ds 2ch 2ds)x7 finish with sl st

Lap 3: 2 sl st 3ch 2dc 2ch 3dc (3dc 2ch 3dc)x7 finish with sl st

Lap 4: 3 sl st 3ch 2dc 7ch 3dc 4ch (3dc 7ch 3dc 4ch)x7 finish with sl st

Lap 5: 3 sl st 3ch 2dc 3ch 3dc 2ch 1sc (2ch 3dc 3ch 3dc 2ch 1sc)x7 finish with sl st

Lap 6: 3 sl st 3ch 2dc 3ch 3dc 4ch 1sc (4ch 3dc 3ch 3dc 4ch 1sc)x7 finish with sl st

Lap 7: 3 sl st 3ch 2dc 3ch 3dc 6ch 1sc (6ch 3dc 3ch 3dc 6ch 1sc)x7 finish with sl st

Lap 8: 3 sl st 3ch 2dc 3ch 3dc 8ch 1sc (8ch 3dc 3ch 3dc 8ch 1sc)x7 finish with sl st

Lap 9: sc all the way around. 1sc between the first two dc bars on previous row, 2 sc between the following two, 5 sc at the peak of each star, 2sc in next gap 1 sc in following, 9sc around each 8ch on previous row, join with sl st

Lap 10: start with chaining 5, join with a s st 4th chain from the hook, 1ch 1sl st into the previous round (make sure to skip two of the sc from previous round) each peak will get 9 little picots 4 down each side and one on each top.

Once fastening off your threads, press your finished doily lightly under a damp cloth and low temperature on iron.

Finished!

This is my finished doily compared to the original one. Mine is slightly smaller but there is a number of factors that play into this - the thread size, needle size and how loosely you crochet.

Happy crafting everyone :)


Ps I'd love to know which of the doilies you'd like to get the pattern of next.

The Thomas Tabard Tutorial

Fastelaun

There is the Brazilian carnival and there is the Danish fastelaun. This is where the kids dress up, hit a barrel with sweets in and go round knocking on house doors singing a song and ask for sweets or money. Well last year I was all new to this an had quite a surprise when the boys started singing a song to me - PANIC! What do I do?! I gave them 20 kr each, this I later found out was 10 times more than I should have given!

Dressing up for playgroup

Last week my son had a fastelaun party in his playgroup and so I had to sort out an outfit that he wouldn't refuse to wear. After a brief consultation with my husband he suggested a Thomas outfit or a aeroplane outfit. Well this is what I made!

I had planned to make you a tutorial but as a typical rookie mistake I forgot to take photos after my first  couple as I got quite into it. So hopefully you will still be able to follow.

What you need

1/2 metre of blue cotton and 1/2 metre of backing fabric or 1 metre of plain blue fabric

Grey felt

White felt

Black felt 

Red felt

yellow felt

Four sets of kam snaps

Lots of black thread

The tabard pattern

I used the pattern from this place. I didn't want the dangly ties in the side as it's got a bit of a girly look for it so rather than cutting four of the side ties I folded it double on the length and put kam snaps to attach to the front of the tabard. My mistake is that the side straps are slightly too long so I would suggest to you that you make them a bit shorter than I did.

The face

Once I had cut out the pieces for the tabard I got ahead and started on the face, to get the scaling of the face I used this picture.

The grey felt circle is 15 cm across, the eye whites are 4 cm across and pupils are 1,5 cm across. I then started stitching around the eyes in a small zigzag stitch with black thread, with my machine I put the setting for stitch length at 0.5 and stitch width at 2. At this stage the face my husband kindly pointed out that it looked like the nightmare before Christmas. The mouth is 1,5 cm at it's thickest part and 8,5 cm wide and I placed it 2 cm from the bottom of the circle. A bit more stitching and this is what it looked like.

You can nearly start to tell that it is Thomas now! The triangular eyebrows are 2,5 cm at the base and the sides 1,5 cm.

And this is the finished face! The width of the nose is 4,5 cm, the dimples are 3,5 cm long and the line under the mouth is 3 cm long. Then it was time to stitch the face onto the tabard. I put the stitching on my machine to 0,5 length and 5 width.

The top of the tabard

 The yellow circles are 6,5 cm across and the black circles inside are 4,5 cm. sewn on with the narrower stitch. The two thicker lines are Thomas roof and they are both 8 cm long just at the top of the tabard. the funnel is 6 cm thick and 4,5 - 6,5 cm long. Each line of the side of the funnel is 7 cm long. the lines level with Thomas eyebrows are 8 cm long each.

Mid section of tabard

This section of lines are a bit more complicated so I made a bit of a drawing on all the lengths. There is a line which if you have a look at Thomas that are supposed to join up these two lines length wise but due to the shape of the tabard the whole thing couldn't go on. The bottom black felt piece is 10,5 cm wide and 5-6 cm tall.

Bottom half of tabard

The grey felt piece is 5 cm wide and 35 cm long. At the widest the red felt piece is 6 cm wide. The black felt felt circles are actually 3,5 cm across but when I had sewn them on I thought they were too small so I re-did the stitching on the bigger setting so now the measure 4,5 cm. The white lamp is a bit of a peculiar shape. the top part of it is 2 cm wide and 1 cm high, the circle part is 5 cm across, and the stand is 4,5 cm wide and the foot is 5,5 cm wide. The whole length of the lamp is 8,5 cm long. 

The finishing touches

Now it's time for the finishing touches and sew the tabard together following Maggie's instructions for sewing together the front and back pieces. At the top of the tabard I put two sets of kam snaps and one on each of the sides about 20 cm from the top. 

Hope you enjoyed my tutorial and enjoy crafting!

No pancakes

Been baking

This weekend I have been doing some baking in preparation for lent, in Sweden and Finland it is customary to eat some of these buns filled with marzipan and whipped cream. Here in Denmark they also do buns but they are slightly different and nothing is as nice as things you know from home. I have been struggling to find a good recipe as the buns in the past have turned out heavy rather than light and fluffy. I have found a lovely recipe in Swedish but will translate it for you underneath if you feel your mouth watering and a need to bake. 

Basic sweet wheat dough 

First the quick dough is made, it will make the yeast grow stringer and the dough will become lighter and airier. The friction during the long treatment of the quick dough (10 minutes in machine) is enough for the temperature in the dough to rise to 26-28 degrees Celsius. This is why the milk doesn't have to be heated up. The long treatment of the dough is important to make sure that the gluten strings will become strong, rise and keep the air that is created in the dough.

Quick dough

100 g fresh yeast

200 ml milk

50 g caster sugar

350 g plain flour

1. Add the yeast to the milk, mixing with a food processor.
2. Add the sugar and flour and work together and elastic dough 5 minutes in the food processor or 12 minutes kneading by hand.
3. Cover the quick dough and rise to twice it's size in a warm place for about 30 minutes.

Main dough

200 ml milk

150 g caster sugar

2 tsp salt

4 g ground cardamom

500 g plain flour

1 egg

1. When the quick dough has risen add the ingredients from the main dough and work until it is elastic. 10 minutes in the food processor or by hand. The dough is ready when you can pull it out thinly and it doesn't break.
2. Cover the dough with cling film and let rest for a further 30 minutes.
3. Bake out into rolls, I weighed mine in at 100 g each.
4. Leave to rest for a further 30 minutes, I put a layer of oil on mine and covered with cling film as well as a kitchen towel to prevent them buns from drying out.
5. Bake in the oven until golden brown about 10 minutes at 200 degrees Celsius.
6. Once the buns have cooled down, cut the bun in half but make the cut towards the top of the bun the "hat" is smaller than the body.
7. Fill with either marzipan or red jam and smother in whipped cream. Add the "hat" and sprinkle a bit of icing sugar on top.

Hope you will enjoy them :)