Skulduggery Doily With DOA Pink Skellies

Tis the season to really snuggle in and work on crafts.  My garden is 99.99% put to bed so my creative impulses (and that's mostly all they are) must go somewhere else.

Red Heart Yarn, who makes the Aunt Lydia cotton crochet thread has this charming skellie pattern out:

http://www.redheart.com/free-patterns/skulduggery-doily


Most people would either do this coloring, because skulls are sort of ivory colored, and some might do it in Halloween Orange and Black or, in what looks like a variegated thread (I haven't seen the Lydia's in any variegated colors so where this clever person got this, I don't know, but very cool!)

I thought to use up some of my cotton thread stash from mom along with a bit of pink I'd gotten, though it was Aunt Lydia's 10.

I started with the pink, because what if I never got past the center bit, was I going to just work with boring white? Nooo.

Between the teeny crochet hook (I found a C hook that did not say it was size 2.75 but it seemed close) and the incredibly slippery cotton thread, I could barely chain five then make a circle, let alone start 15 double crochets in the circle.

Yow.  I really wanted to make this project so soon after Michael's opened this morning, I was in the door looking for some pink and white number 3 thread.   Michael's has a nice selection of Aunt Lydia's size 10 and size 3, it's the place to go.

I liked the softer pink of the size 10 thread, but the rose colored size 3 is pretty enough combined with some cream colored thread.  It is not all slippery, and I was able to immediately get a start.  I did also find a hook of the certain proper size for the pattern, a 2.75.   As mom would say, when in doubt, read the directions.

In case I never get far on this particular project (it happens) you have those nice inspirational pictures above and you may want to make your own adorable skellie doily, in colors not so Halloweenish, because skellie decorations are timeless and look appealing year round, do they not?

Update:  I have redone the tiny center bit five times, and it looks nothing like the picture!  Eek!  Then I boldly tried row 2 and again ended up pulling the entire thing apart.  Progress! Yanking from the second row :)

Round 2:

Ch 1, sc in same dc as join,

*sc in next dc, (sc, ch 3, sc) in next dc;

repeat from * to last dc, sc in last dc, sc

again in same dc as join; join with ch

1, hdc in first sc (join ch 1, hdc count as

ch-3 sp)—24 sc and 8 ch-3 spaces.

I am noting that the pattern rating is Intermediate.

10/23/16


Fuzzy, but I think I'm on Row 2!!!!

Ha!  It appears I need to yank out my tender pink center after all.  I want the skulls to be pink, and the route to that appears to be a white center, then all skull rows pink, with a white edge.  So what if it took me ten tries to get that weasly bit done?  I bet I can now do it in my sleep.

Here, from FB (note you can see Facebook public pages without having a FB account, you just search for the page
itself.   Here is a spectacular black and orange skulduggery doily, mine will (wink) look like this only in pink and white.  Tis to dream.   10/26/16