I decided to crochet a doily or two to relearn how to crochet.

Doily #1

25g

For my first ever doily I used the free Dawnglow pattern by Julia Hart. It was fun, but mine turned out much larger (13” before blocking -- it’s supposed to be 8.5” finished) and loosey goosey. I’m pretty sure the thread I’m using is size 10 (though I don’t have a label for it) and my hook is labeled 1.75mm just as recommended by the pattern.

After trying to figure out what was wrong with my technique to get such loose gauge I finally broke out the calipers and measured my cheapo crochet hooks. The “1.75mm” hook I was using measured 2.30mm! That explains a lot. I found that the “0.90mm” hook in my set measures 1.75mm, so I will use that for my second attempt. I’ll also probably buy a set a better steel hooks for the future.

Doily #2

34g

For my second doily I chose Marsha Glassner’s fun Boo! doily full of g-g-g-ghosts. I used the smaller ~1.75mm hook but my gauge was still a bit loose and the finished doily is almost 2” larger than the pattern calls for.

Doily #3

19g

I found an even smaller hook and did Dawnglow again in the same yarn. I made more mistakes this time (whenever I encountered a mistake on the previous round I just made it work with the current round rather than ripping back for this practice project… so there are a few extra chains in the pineapples but I don’t think they are very noticeable), but my gauge is much closer to the pattern’s recommendation! Still over 1” larger than the pattern calls for…

Doily #4

18g

For this one I tried a new hook (1.75mm from the Clover Amour steel hook set), new yarn (Nazli Gelin’s Garden 10), and a new pattern (Elise by Grace Fearon).

This yarn is much much softer than the rough thread I used for my first 3 doilies (which I think is Red Heart Classic 10). It seems like a soft yarn rather than mercerized cotton. Would definitely consider it for any garment or anything that wants drape.

This was my favorite pattern -- short, fun, nice texture thanks to the use of backpost and back-loop-only stitches. It took me a long time because I kept making mistakes but I think it would go by much quicker if I do it again. I am definitely going to explore more of Grace Fearon’s designs (https://gracefearon.com/).

The pattern calls for a 2mm hook, but my finished doily was still 1” larger with the 1.75.

Conclusion

This was a good introduction to thread crochet. I now have a nice set of steel hooks and still have some balls of thread so I’ll definitely try more projects. I think the biggest improvement I can make at this point is taking more care in blocking to get everything round and symmetrical. I’d like to give fillet crochet a try next.