My First Swap

I just joined my first swap at Crochetville. It's the doily swap that just opened up. I filled out the survey and said I wanted to do a small doily then changed my mind about an hour later. I had been going through the magazines (that I could find) and found one that I really liked. It's much bigger than 8" so I edited my post to say to switch me to the large doily group. I found the pattern in a magazine a friend of mine gave me called Diana's Crochet Collection-Classic Crochet Number 1. The magazine is from April, 1986 and there's a doily in there that's really pretty but it uses #5 Pearl cotton which I don't even know if I can get. I think it would look better in the #10 thread anyway so I broke out a new ball of Aunt Lydia's in ecru I had bought a couple of weeks ago and started the doily with a #7 steel hook. It'll still be quite large since the original doily is supposed to be 19", I don't know how big mine will be but it's a safe bet to say that it will be bigger than 8".

I'm not saying what the pattern is or what the doily looks like since I don't know who my swap partner will be yet and I'd like to keep the doily a surprise, with maybe a teaser every now and then.

I haven't made a doily in years, the last one I made was a pineapple one I have in a magazine I can't find right now. It has basketweaves on the very outside and turned out really pretty. I gave it to my MIL that year for Christmas and she had it framed. I might have to go over there one day and take a picture of it since I didn't have a computer back then nor did I have the foresight to take a picture of it. Now that I have a computer and a sorta decent digicam I can get a picture of it to keep.

Anyway, I hope by starting the doily now I can get it finished in between the rose afghan and the 63 squares afghan that I also need to do.

You know what else I like about this pattern? It's charted, all the patterns in this mag are charted. I think all doilys should be charted because IMO you can work a doily faster from a chart than you can from a written pattern. That's just me, of course, someone else might think differently.