Honey & Daisy : sewing and other lovely things

Mi lady's handkerchief

Lace is fascinating. Lace is mysterious. Lace is femininity personified. And when I found out how easy it was to crochet a lacy edge to almost anything, I had a bit of a eureka moment.

There are 2 ways you can crochet a lace edging into a piece of fabric:
1) Machine-sew or hand-sew a blanket stitch onto the edges of the fabric, then crochet into the stitches. (Click here for a tutorial on the blanket stitch.)
2) Crochet directly into the fabric (this requires some elbow grease to get the crochet hook right through the cloth, though).

So, here is a quick little project that’s super satisfying, using the blanket-stitch method.

CROCHETED LACY-EDGE HANDKERCHIEF (a super-simple crochet how-to)

1. Make a handkerchief — all you need is a square piece of cloth. Cut it to the size you prefer, and hem all 4 edges.

2. Using sewing thread, blanket stitch all the 4 edges.

3. Using a small crochet hook, join the yarn at one edge. Sc in each blanket stitch. At the corners, sc twice into the same blanket stitch. Repeat till you’ve done all 4 edges. Sc into the very first blanket stitch (the one you started with, so that you now have 2 sc in that blanket stitch).

4. At this point you can switch to a larger crochet hook if you like. *Ch 5, sk 3 ch, sc into the 4th ch. Repeat from * all round your handkerchief. Fasten off and weave in the ends.

(Note: US crochet terms used in this pattern.)
Abbreviations:
sc – single crochet
ch – chain
sk – skip

I didn’t count stitches, so my four corners are not replicas of each other. If you’re fussy about that, go ahead and make sure you have an equal number of blanket stitches on each edge, and that the total of stitches is divisible by 4 (eek!).

I’d say just have fun with it!