FINISHED January 9. It’s ten inches in diameter, 50 rounds, in #100 thread on 00s. It took me 16 days to knit. There seem to be no errors in the chart but be warned it’s difficult.

I started this on Christmas morning, so I’m calling it Christmas doily. The actual name of the pattern as published means “round doily,” which is only to distinguish it from the same pattern blocked as a hexagon.

It’s a pattern-every-round design, that is, “lace knitting” for those who make that distinction. I’ve never done one of those before, so that will be a challenge.

When I settled on this as my next project and sat down and looked at it before beginning, I discovered that its center start has two or three rounds of crochet. The aqua-background photo shows the published center. (You can see a scan of the published photo at http://www.missplampwork.com/Nieblings.html, about halfway down the page.) I wanted to imitate the heavy spoked center with knitting (for one thing I don’t know the German crochet words).

First day: I’ve done the center and I think it looks respectable. Here’s what I did:

I used my standard center start (i.e., Ocker), crocheting 12 stitches onto a double loop of thread. First round: (k2tog through back loop, YO, YO) around. This gives 6 thick spokes and 6 big holes. Second round: (K1, (k1, P1 in double YO)) around. That takes me to the 3 sts per repeat I need for the knitting chart. Third round: purl (trying to get some heavy texture, didn’t work so well). Then adjust starting point (k2 onto the final needle) so that the “spoke” for each repeat is centered. Then, follow the chart!

DEC 27: Yikes, yikes, yikes! This one is really really hard! I’m upgrading my difficulty rating to “impossible” though I intend to slog on through and see if I can do it. More details later.

DEC 31: Yes I did manage to slog through, so obviously it’s not impossible. I’ve changed my rating to very difficult.

Difficulties come from having no plain rounds to stabilize the yarnovers before working into them in the next round, particularly around rounds 17 & 18, but there don’t seem to be any actual errors in the chart.

Also note: the chart on Rnd 24 is not lined up properly with Rnd 23 but is actually correct as charted, it only looks wrong.

Okay, here are some details on the German instructions on how to work the chart:

Every round is a pattern round. The chart is in 3 sections: Rnds 1-32 are the central motif, out to the ends of the points; Rnds 33-38 is a 10-stitch repeat of the background pattern. Then comes the stockinette band I can see in the photo. The third chart is numbered Rnds 1-6 and is the narrow outer border. I’m taking a photo at each of these intervals as I go.

Here’s the German (this from a post to a Niebling list; German speakers confirmed I had understood it correctly.):

Fürs Modell 418/42 pro Rd. 6 MS lt. Strickschrift bis zur 41. Rd. (39.bis 41. Rd. wie 33. bis 35. Rd), bei zunehmender M.-Ansahl mit 6 Nadeln str.

This means repeat rounds 33 to 35 and call them rounds 39-41. I am already on six needles, if that’s what the next part says.

Es folgen 4 Rd. rechts, in der 1. Rechts-Rd. nach der 2. und 5mal nach je 56 M. 1 M aus dem Querdraht rects verschränkt herasusstr. =342 M.

This is where the stockinette band is. Work 4 rounds knit, and on the second round fudge the stitch count by adding one stitch every 56 stitches (that is, per repeat) for a total of 342 stitches. Do this by picking up the bar between the second and third stitches and knit into the back for a twisted stitch.