So over a year ago I made up this pattern on the filet crochet design program I have. I incorporated into it all of the elements of previous farm scene pieces I have made over the last 20 years or more. I wanted it to show a whole farm scene with lots of things going on. I knew it was going to be a big piece when it was finished and I knew I wanted to frame it so in order to do that I knew I was going to have to make it in tiny thread. I haven't used tiny thread in a long time so I had to get out my very strong reading glasses!!! The thread is size 80 DMC tatting thread and I used a size 14 crochet hook. I finally got to the point a few days before Thanksgiving where I could get to this project I had been wanting to make. So I started on it then and worked on it when I could in the evenings knowing it was going to take about two months to make. The pattern has 200 spaces on the long side and it is 158 rows wide so that's a whole lot of tiny stitches.....18 per inch to be exact!!! Well almost two months after starting on it I was getting close to the end. I was on row 147 with 9 rows left to go where more of the solid blocks were starting to get closer on the pattern when I noticed something wasn't coming out quite right. All thru the pattern there were so many spaces that instead of counting all of the open spaces when there were a lot of spaces between the design elements I would just start filling in the solid spaces where the designs were. When the open spaces started getting closer together along the edge with the trees I noticed in one spot I was always a space short. So I went back and counted and in the first row I had 200 spaces but in the row I was working on I had 199...... so I knew there had to be a mistake somewhere. I got to thinking since this was just going to be a project for me I wouldn't worry about it and I'd add enough stitches in the last row of solid blocks to make the end row come out to 200 spaces. But then I was worried where the mistake might be and how it would look. So I started studying the piece really close and finally found out what happened.....
..... can you see the mistake???? Took me a while but I finally did.....
....right here way back on row 44...... I wanted to cry!!!!!!!! Instead of putting the double crochet in the double crochet to finish the block I had put it in the middle of the next block!!! There was my missing block!!!..... So I got to thinking who will ever notice I'll just finish and deal with it. But then I got to thinking how it might look after it was blocked..... So I pulled and stretched at it to see how it might look and it definitely would stand out.
Soooooooo I spent over an hour ripping out and winding up all the thread from about 6 weeks of work thinking this is going to take another whole month to finish now and about all the projects I have waiting to start on that I'm looking forward to making. But I knew I wouldn't be happy with the finished project and that I would see that mistake every time I looked at it so this was the only thing that was going to make me happy with the end result. By now I had the hang of the pattern and the small thread so I made up for lost time!!
Another thing I learned along the way was to put a piece of masking tape on my finger to keep the tiny crochet hook from poking thru the skin on my finger. I know how bulky band aids are in this situation and it just occurred to me that a piece of masking tape might do the trick. I wish I had discovered back at the beginning of the piece before I had poked myself so many times and now have a hard spot on that finger!! So finally after THREE months of working on it I finished it the other day!!! Whooo hooooo!!!!!!!
Friday I put it on the blocking board....
I guess my tension wasn't quite even in the sections with the closed blocks on them it didn't block as flat as I would have liked it to but it was done that was all I cared about!!
So I went to JoAnn and bought some poster board, faux suede and a frame and went to work getting the piece ready to frame. I had to use two piece of poster board and cut them down on the edges and tape them together because the frame was 36" x 24" and the poster board wasn't long enough. Then I cut the fabric about 3" wider all the way around, folded it over the back and used masking tape to hold it to the poster board.
Then I laid the piece on the fabric side, measured around all the edges and put painters tape on the fabric to be a line to stitch the crochet piece to.
Now it was another long process to stitch each of the little shell points of the border around the piece to the lines on the fabric board. 79 points on each short end and 100 points on each long side!! That took about 3 hours!!
I'm happy to say that it is finally framed and complete and hanging in it's final place on the back of my front door!!!
After 3 months of stitching and 5 balls of DMC size 80 thread later I'm very happy with the end result. The crochet piece measures 30 1/4" tall by 20 1/2" wide. I think it could make a good bed spread or afghan in the right size yarn!!! or even heavier thread !!! Now I'm starting on a new project with size 10 thread and it feels like I'm crocheting with a piece of rope after all these months with the size 80 thread.
