Motif #6 - Doily Motif from Apron of Victorian Doll

I’m interrupting my tatting story again because I want to update my August 14 post.

I found the pattern for the apron on the Victorian Doll !
You may recall that I couldn’t come up with the pattern last August when I posted the story of the doll. However, when I recently found the pattern, I also discovered a few more surprises!



MOTIF #6

“Tatted Lattice Doily”
by Darlene Polachic –

shown here with alterations
I didn’t realize I had made!

Here’s the path to my discovery:

Briefly, Connie (Crafty Rainbow Rose) http://www.craftyrainbowrose.blogspot.com/ started me on an internet ‘browsing’ journey, which then resulted in my accidentally coming across a photo of my doily, which then prompted me to go back to my own tatting books.

Connie’s post on October 24 showed a photo of a crocheted doily that mimicked tatting. She mentioned Annie’s Attic as the source, under their “Free Pattern of the Day”. I was too late to see that pattern, but I’m still intrigued by it

When I checked out the Annie’s Attic site, I also found another site: http://www.freepatterns.com/ .
At first glance it doesn’t look like a tatting site, but it’s a very cool site that has free daily patterns for knitting, sewing, etc. At the bottom of the page there is a Site Index – look under Crochet, click on Tatting, then Doilies.

While browsing the photos of the 12 tatted doilies at the above link, the very last pattern jumped out at me because it looked like my Victorian Doll’s apron! As soon as I saw the name of Darlene Polachic as the designer, I knew it had to be the pattern!

I recognized Darlene’s name, as she wrote “The Big Book of Tatting” and also contributed designs to Old Time Crochet magazine. This discovery led me right back to looking through my Old time Crochet magazines – one more time!!!. The pattern is free at the above link, but I was determined to find it in my own magazine!]

Sure enough, I found the doily in the Summer 1997 issue on page 15. It’s also featured on the Editor’s page inside the front cover! How did I miss this last August?!!

HOWEVER, MORE SURPRISES AWAITED ME!



I discovered that I altered Darlene’s original pattern – and never realized it!

In the first round, I put only three picots on the chains instead of four, which led to three connecting rings on the second round , instead of Darlene’s four.











I can only assume I simply didn’t pay close enough attention to the first round. I must not have looked at the magazine photo, either, although it doesn’t have a ‘closeup’ of the motif – just the finished doily. I don’t recall ever thinking “Oops, I did this incorrectly!” Somehow it worked out fine, and I actually saved myself some work by having fewer rings and chains, and also having to connect only two picots between motifs. I managed to make 20 motifs, instead of the 16 pictured; but, of course, you can make as many as you want.

1997 Diary mysteriously silent!
Now that I had the 1997 date of the magazine, I went back to my 1997 diary. I discovered that I purchased the magazine on May 17 and wrote that it had a tatted alphabet in it (which it does), but didn’t mention the doily. However, I fully expected to find entries about deciding to tat the doily and actually making the doily. But to my disbelief, I never write about making the doily! I remember that I found it tricky to keep adding motifs, and having to contend with having to keep the already connected motifs out of the way. But it certainly isn’t a difficult pattern, and I was an ‘experienced’ tatter by then (or so I thought!). After 20 motifs I just laid it aside, not knowing where to use it.

Buying the Doll in December 1997. The other surprise was finding out that I bought the doll only two days before the Old Economy Christmas festival, when I normally am quite busy gathering all my items and displays together. I wasn’t ‘searching’ for a doll; I was shopping for other things on December 4 when I saw the doll and liked the colors on her dress. Then on December 5, I wrote that I ‘added tatting’ to the doll. What a blasé and non-descriptive entry!

II did write that the doll looked “amazing” but didn’t describe why! I remember working on it most of the day, coming up with different ideas using ‘scrap’ pieces, and was particularly pleased with the headdress. I really was quite excited about it, so these lackluster comments are quite mystifying!
guess I was too tired to write more about it, since I had spent the day also packing the car and getting my costume ready!

The disappointing diary entries can possibly be attributed to the fact that 1997 was a difficult year for us ( job situations, major house repairs ), and I must have been distracted, although I did mention knitting some items and tatting some small items, plus I attended 6 festivals that year!

My ‘tatting frenzy’ years actually were 1990-94, then I cut way back when I went back to work for two years. I was home full time starting in 1996, but I still wasn’t doing a lot of tatting and started concentrating on another passion – learning to play the piano. I also do calligraphy and often made my own Christmas cards. But tatting was still very important to me.

Another interesting discovery in the 1997 diary is my first tentative use of the Internet at our Library! However, I don’t believe I looked up tatting sites until early in 1999. And it wasn’t until 2007 (!) that I finally got internet service at home! And in July 2008 I started this blog – and would never have believed back then that there would be an easy way for ‘ordinary folks’ – not computer geniuses – to create their own ‘web log’ site!

Wow! Quite a trip down Memory Lane!