Whew this was quite an experience!!! A friend brought me this super large Doily....34” to be exact... she had gotten at an auction in a box lot and asked if I’d try to repair it. I’ve repaired tiny holes in thread work before that were passable but nothing like this..... so I told her I’d give it a try. I think the stitches where the threads had broken were Solomon’s Knott and I’d never worked that stitch before. I had a recent issue of Crochet World that had an article about the stitch but I wasn’t easy to try to do that on a damaged piece and it didn’t help that the the vintage Doily thread was so old it just kept falling apart more. First I soaked the Doily for 4 days in OxyClean to get it as white as possible. Thank goodness for Aunt Lydia’s Antique White thread that ended up matching perfectly!!! As for the stitches they really looked like long loops so I ended up joining the thread in the knots that were left and looping them to the next knot. They sort of match the others. I stretched it out carefully and starched it and from a distance it doesn’t look too bad!!! I hope she will be happy with it it’s far from perfect and one thing I learned is I sure don’t want to ever get into the job of repairing vintage crochet!!!! It’s a gorgeous pattern tho!!!
oh wow Joyce..nice job. You wouldn't know it was damaged. tedious huh? I have a granny square afgan that has a few squares like this I should really try to fix it. I am posting about your stacked pumpkin pattern on my blog. Posting a picture and credit to you. Just wanted to let you know.It will be my next posting.
ReplyDelete