While preparing collagraph plates for my last printmaking class with Bob Hainstock I had one piece of board left over. I scoured the house for knitted swatches with no luck, when I eyed a crocheted doily my mother had made. It was a bit worn, stained, and was under a clock so that the surface of the table wouldn’t get scratched.

After a moment of thinking my mother might be offended if I “ruined” her hard work, I realized that if successful, her doily would live on forever as a piece of visual art.

I was quite pleased with the resulting image, you can see the plies of the yarn. If you run your hand over the image you can feel the indentation of the doily, deep and textured. Success.

I would have preferred to use my own knitting, but in a pinch the project taught me a lot about the type of fibre that works best. Tightly spun, smooth cotton clearly shows the details. I have been using similar yarn since.