The Celebrate Doilies exhibit of art, poetry, and crochet culture, opens in two short days! Yay!
But let’s dwell for a moment on the past.
My parents have raised cattle for a long time, and cows need hay from time to time. Mom and Dad buy big, round hay bales, which used to be tied up with yards of blue and white synthetic string called baling twine.
My dad can hardly stand to throw away anything that might be useful someday, and so he has a tub full of baling twine. “Suzie,” he has often said, “you could knit something out of that baling twine.”
Yes, I could knit something with baling twine, but as we say in my little family, “Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should.”
All that changed when I was looking for a good fiber to make a doily to yarn bomb the Cross Timbers Fine Arts Council gallery during the Celebrate Doilies exhibit. I tried crocheting the baling twine. It was kind of stiff and springy, but it could definitely be crocheted.
And here’s the baling twine doily at about row 13.
My mom offered a softer option: macramé cord that had been among her craft supplies for about 25 years.
I started with two 60-yard Kelly green hanks, and you can see how far those went. The 100 yards of white cord was a little heavier. I ended with 100 yards of the spring green, which was heavier still.
In this photo, my assistant and her assistants are stretching the doily on a length of PEX pipe. The doily measured about 4 feet across when stretched.