Cake plate doily

I get a bit of a sucker for vintage crochet patterns. I may not ever use or make them all but its my way of saving them from being thrown out in the rubbish. Their images capture something of their era - from the furniture they are shown with, to the ladies, their homes and their ways of life. They capture a small tiny glimpse of that 1940s-1970s crocheter. The patterns I mostly go for are the crocheted doily's and or table runners, they are mainly appealing and still versatile and usable today. My mam has said in passing one of the town's charity shops had a huge mass of old knitting and some crochet patterns so I thought it was worth a wander down. I was happily surprised by how many there were even along some of the hideous crochet patterns of plain dresses for children.

I left with this haul of eight patterns for a grand total of 50p! They all date between the 1950s and 1970s - mostly single pamphlets of tablet runners or doily's, some patterns for cushion covers and one booklet filled with endless pineapple designs to make towel edgings, bed covers, doily's and even a bag.  But there was loads more I could have taken away with me - including a collection of Crochet Monthly by the looks of it a one time monthly publication with some interesting looking patterns - I may have to return for the rest on my next day off.

I think a fair few of the pattens must have been owned by the same lady - a lot of them are annotated and changed by the same hand, stitches marked, added and taken away. Even this pattern for the Cake Plate Doily had an additional sheet of paper attached - I can't work out where or why she'd made these notes or what pattern she was changing, on the page's reverse she'd listed a random assortment of charity shops.

So this bank holiday weekend while hiding from the endless amounts of rainfall and lack of things to do I hunted out some shiny crochet yarn I managed to get while it was being sold off and attempted the Cake Plate Doily. I think it was the delightful ladies and their pearls in the above image that persuaded me. That and their cakes. 

Because its a doily designed to go over your plate, it was designed to be crocheted with an additional ring crocheted onto the rear of the pattern, thus allowing you to hook it snug over your plate! It is a sweet idea and would jazz any plate up for your afternoon tea - but just thinking of all the washing and reshaping every time you got a bit of jam from your Victoria Sponge would put me off slightly. Sadly I ran out of yarn to do the fancy adding too which is a shame but it sits fine without - joys of making your own art is artistic license I guess!

Oh and if anyone is sharp eyed yes that is a brand new compact but I'll get around to blogging about that within the next week hopefully