Doily wall hanging

As promised, more information on the making of the doily wall hanging.

I did some digging to find information on the pineapple pattern that I wanted.  There were two crochet books in the library that had similar motifs, but used differently. I was able to track down an online pattern very similar to the pattern my  grandmother used, by doing an image search.

The pattern had eleven pineapples, while I wanted eight, so I had to do some math to estimate how far out from the center I should begin each pineapple.

Between the pineapples, I partly followed one of the book's patterns, and partly I improvised, based on what would help the doily stay flat. At one point, I had to unravel a considerable distance back, and redo several rounds.

Another complication was that I had a definite size that I wanted it to be, right around 24 inches in diameter. I used my homemade crochet hook to make a single pineapple swatch beforehand. It was too large, so I needed a smaller hook. I elected to whittle another one, this time from a chopstick, but I forgot the cardinal rule of crochet-hook-carving:  shape the top of the "head" first. So on the first attempt, I broke the head off as it was almost finished, and had to turn the hook around and carve a whole new head on on the other end.

The new crochet hook worked nicely, and at a nice stitch size.  The thread is cotton utility string.

When I got to the edge, after several experiments I elected to not make any scallops or frills.

The doily is stiffened and colored with latex paint; "Antique White" on clearance for $5 a quart at Walmart.  I put some paint in a bucket, added the doily, and gently kneaded it to get the paint through it evenly.  It took almost half the quart of paint, in the end. Then I laid it out on a flat surface covered with newspaper and waxed paper to dry.

The waxed paper worked nicely:  I was able to get the dried doily up without it sticking anywhere. The doily was stiff, yet still flexible. The paint color, however, turned out whiter and colder than I expected,  so I ended up doing a second coat, using the same paint but with some yellow artists' acrylic paint mixed in--yes, you can mix acrylic paint with latex paint; latex paint is really acrylic paint with some other stuff added.

I sponged this warmed-up paint over just the front of the doily, and let it dry again.

Then I had to figure out how to hang it; it was too heavy for the thin brass wire I have strung across the brick. I did, however, find some brass chain in our hardware hoard.

The next challenge was how to hang the doily on the chain. I elected to sew several D-rings, from my sewing notions hoard, on the back of the doily.

After that, I strung the chain through, and had a helper hold up the other end, to see how much the chain was going to sag, so I would know how high to hang the ends of the chain. I noticed that the doily tended to slide in toward the center, so I grabbed a short white tension curtain rod from the basement, and ran it through the D-rings as well--to keep the doily straight.

You can see the ends of the rod in the picture. I plan to replace this eventually with a wooden stick, which will blend in better with the brick.

To hang the chain, I drilled a couple of very small holes in the outside edges of the trim that runs up and down the edges of the brick, and inserted finishing nails, or brads.

Total cost was under $15:  three balls of string at not quite $3 each, and then half of the $5 quart of paint, plus a few bits of hardware that we already had (and that could easily be improvised).

I could have saved myself a lot of trouble with the crochet design, if I would have chosen a moderately-sized doily pattern, and stuck to it.