Round Lace Tablecloth or Lightweight Throw

About 60" in Diameter

Also see picture of fellow Bonder Gene Ortloff's tablecloth made with 121 sts, 70" diameter.

A few weeks ago, someone on another list posted a picture of a 14" Lace Doily, knitted on a standard gauge machine. I thought it was simply gorgeous and it also seemed like a great challenge to see if I could duplicate it from the picture. I must have made 20 swatches and got very close, but something was still not right. I finally emailed the poster and sent her a copy of my chart just to see if I was on the right track. She was nice enough to send me the pattern which was demonstrated and given as a handout by Carole Thimidis at the Pine Ridge Knit & Sew Seminar on September 19, 1998.* To my surprise my chart was almost identical to Carole's written instructions - except - I had assumed one had to knit wedges putting all the needles in holding position before finally knitting across the entire row again and that's where my mistake was. Here only half the stitches are put into holding position, then the row is knitted again and the next wedge begins. Boy, one learns something new every day in this knitting machine world!!

*A doily almost exactly like this was written by Leslie Stephens and appeared in the 1986 May-June WKM guide and another one, called "Easy and Elegant Pinwheel Doilies," was written by Lezley Grzegorczyk in 1988. Leslie also published several other doily patterns and I am going to write her to see if they are still available. If they are anything like this one, I know I would like them!

 

My larger interpretation, like the smaller one, is made with 16 wedges using Red Heart 4-ply yarn and keyplate 3. It turned out nearly 60" inches across and I think would make a very nice tablecloth or even a lightweight throw. The nice thing is that it requires no finishing around the outer edges. I do think a cotton yarn would be better as I had to steam the yarn to get it to lay flat because halfway out from the center, there seemed to be some extra fullness. I used 85 stitches and 44 rows for the table cloth above but after further trying to figure out what the ratio is from one size to another, I've come to the conclusion that I should have used only 81 sts and 42 rows as shown below.

CHART:

Each wedge has 81 stitches and 42 rows. The black squares are the stitches that are to be transferred to the next needle and always to the right. A multi-prong tool set, the kind that Lea-Ann offers at her site, really speeds up the lace transfers for this pattern. When I first got a set a few years ago, I never thought I would use them much but now they often come in very handy. You can even clamp two of the 7-every-other tools next to one another to a ruler and transfer twice as many stitches at a time for allover eyelet lace.

In order to get a truly invisible seam at the end, begin with a few rows of waste yarn, then knit the first row, from right to left, with a spare length of yarn that is in contrast to the color you will be using. Now with COL, start your main yarn, transfer stitches as shown, knit to the right, then on the left side put two needles in holding position every two rows. Do not wrap needles for this pattern! Because the eyelets spiraling out from the center up to the triangular lace arrangement on the outside edges seemed to look flatter to me than the others, I transferred these stitches (beginning with stitch 6 on the left and up to and including stitch 58) and left the empty needles in nonworking position, then picked up the floats that had formed and put them on the empty needles after the row was knitted. In the original version, all transfers were knitted with empty needles in working position but my eyelets seemed too large and round when done that way. Stitches 2 and 4 and 60-80 I always transferred and knitted with empty needles in working position. Try it both ways and see what you think.

Be sure not to pull up any slack on the outside edges, otherwise they will pucker. When you have finished the last row of the 16th section, thread a piece of waste yarn with a blunt needle through the stitch loops, entering each stitch from back to front. Remove from machine and cut yarn, leaving a piece long enough to join the sections together.

Line up ends of both sections, right sides facing one another. You can see how the one row of contrasting yarn is linked to the row above it as well as the one below it. Using the spare length of yarn and the blunt needle, follow the path of the contrasting yarn. Run needle through the first stitch of the end section and join it to the first stitch of the first section right on top of the contrasting yarn. It will be removed later but right now it is very helpful in showing the direction in which your strand of yarn needs to travel in and out of the stitches as you are recreating this first row of the pattern and joining the sections at the same time. By using a blunt needle you avoid piercing the contrasting yarn so it will pull out easily. You can remove the spare length of waste yarn that is holding the live stitches of the end section once you get them safely joined to the other section. For me this worked really well, I hope it does for others too.

Last, run yarn through the centermost stitches and pull them together.

Below is the chart, based on Carole Thimidis' written instructions for the smaller doily pattern. I have not yet knitted this size so I'm not sure how large it is.

This pattern has 41 stitches and 22 rows. Otherwise it is knitted the same as the one above. If you try it, let me know how large it turned out!

Here is a chart that shows what the ratio should be from one size to the other. All sizes would require 16 sections. It seems it would take 8 more stitches and 4 more rows to get to the next larger size or that many less for the next smaller size. I just made one yesterday with 25 stitches and 14 rows per section to see if the theory holds water and was relieved to see it does! So if you have a Super Bond, you could make a HUGE round cloth/blanket!

Chart for the Smallest Version - 25 sts/14 rows

Using Peaches and Cream yarn, this turned out 16" across.

Partical Scan of this Size:

 

Chart for the largest size you can make on the regular 100-needle Bond

97 stitches and 50 rows

 

Back to Heidi's Knitting Room

Last Updated 20 - December -2000