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The Daisy Doily Blanket was inspired by… a doily! Who would’a thought?! It was one that Mum’s had for years, and way back in 2013 I decided to replicate it. At the time I’d never written a pattern and it didn’t occur to me that I should write the pattern down in any way, shape or form. I had a lovely time making my new version of the doily then carried on with life. You can see the original at the end of this blog post.
Many years later, I came across a photo of the doily I’d made. I’m not quite sure when or how it cropped up, but as I looked at it, I thought that it would make a beautiful centre for a blanket. By that point, I didn’t have either the original or my recreated doily on hand, so I set about figuring out the pattern from a few photos I had. There was a lot of fun, a lot of trial and error and a fair bit of frogging along the way, but I eventually had a blanket that looked like a doily. I then spent quite a lot of time working out how to turn a hexagon into a square, but eventually I got it looking pretty much how I wanted it.
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I hadn’t made the same mistake as before and had written down my pattern as I went along. But it’s one thing to scribble a few random letters and numbers on a piece of paper, and quite another thing to turn it into something that other people would understand! I’d been sharing my progress on Instagram and quickly gathered a few fabulous testers to try out my pattern. They were wonderfully helpful, suggesting tweaks and improvements as well as pointing out my mistakes.
I started my blanket on 19th August 2018 and my testers had their versions finished by 5th September 2018. It was such a quick process! I only needed to make a few final tweaks before I could release the pattern… And then there was a 10 month wait.
I have no idea quite what happened to the initial momentum, but somewhere I stalled, the pattern was put to one side and remained unpublished.
I think it was Ruth (@laboursoflovecrochet) who inspired me to finish the process. She was one of my original testers and is one of my biggest cheerleaders – she’s always so encouraging! She had taken the central part of the pattern and turned it into a base for a market bag. She very kindly allowed me to write up the bag pattern and include it as a bonus pattern with the blanket.
It took all of three hours to make the bag and not much longer to write up and get it tested. And so, almost a year later, the Daisy Doily patterns were published on 27th July 2019. It just goes to show that even the quickest makes can take a whole lot of time!
It’s always really exciting to see my patterns being made by other people. If you make the Daisy Doily blanket or bag (or both) I would love to see them! Tag me on Instagram @goslingandplumb or drop me a picture in an email laura[at]goslingandplumb[dot]com. Happy Making!