My past life

I've mentioned before that in my past life, I crocheted rather than quilted. Since I have no exciting quilting projects to show you - I seem to be right, smack, boring, dab in the middle of everything I have going - I thought this might be a good time to show some of my favorite doilies. I crocheted other things as well, but my favorite was working with size 20 or 30 thread and getting as intricate as possible.

This one had you put multiple stitches in each chain to form swirls & twists. The kind of thing a person like me has to try once, but it's very impractical as you can neither iron it nor starch it to get it to lay flat.

The edging alone on this one took me a week. I briefly considered selling some of these on ETSY at one point, but I found some of these designs being sold for $15 - $25 dollars. I have months of work in each one - they can HAVE that market!

And you thought hexagons were limited to quilters:) This is a rare one for me as it was made with size 10 thread, but it's still only about 10" across, so it would have been nothing but a coaster if I'd gone with smaller thread. It's also a slight rose color - I usually stuck to white or ecru.

Yes, those are rows of popcorn stitches mid-way around and on the outer edge. And I wonder why I have carpal tunnel.

While not the hardest doily I've ever done, it probably is my very favorite. All of these are just stuffed in a drawer right now. When we remodeled, we went from a Queen Anne type decor to something more modern and I just don't have a place to adequately display these. My friend Mandy was fussing at me for this. I guess I should maybe frame some and hang them on the walls?

Those are the faves. That I still have anyway. A good number succumbed during the devastating bleaching experiment in '08, and the vast majority were given away. I hope the ones with new owners are being taken care of better than these!

I haven't crocheted in about 2 years now. The last time I made a doily, it was after we remodeled and I literally finished & walked straight to the drawer where I keep them. I decided that was about as silly as a hobby got. So I switched to something more useful for my current life, and I'm really glad I did. But just last week, my husband & I got some horribly stressful news & about an hour into my worrying I thought: "I need a crochet project." So, for whatever reason, I guess crochet is still more relaxing for me.