Pineapples

In the crochet world, there seems to be a love/hate relationship with “pineapples”.  Some people love them, others detest them to the Nth degree.  Up until now I hadn’t tried making anything with pineapples so I was ambivalent. I like the look of some pineapples (never on clothing!!), but sometimes how patterns look and whether or not I like working on them are two different stories.

I started a couple of doilies back before Christmas, thinking maybe I could have enough doilies made to give them to my girlfriends… it didn’t take long before I had a good laugh at my over-ambition.  These were completed shortly after the New Year, but it took me a long time to block them.

Both of these came from a single pattern called Pretty Pineapples.  It was a free pattern from Annie’s Attic, so it might be available at Free-Crochet.com.  This doily is the “Yellow” pattern.  After seeing this picture it appears I have some more blocking to do – the pineapple points are a little wonky-looking.  It was difficult to block to begin with - the doily was curled up onto itself almost in a bowl shape, so I had to stretch it flat as I was pinning.  Now that it’s flat it might be easier to block a second time into a better shape.

 

The second pattern is the “Aqua” doily.  This one turned out much better.  There is a third pattern, “Lavender” that I have not tried yet, but hope to eventually.

 

 

 

So how do I feel about pineapples now that I’ve made some?  I’m still not sure.  This set of patterns was nice because they make “small” doilies – no bigger than 10-12”, so they work up relatively quickly.  However, I felt that once you got on the pattern of the pineapples – decreasing to make the pineapple / increasing for the surrounding pattern, it can get a little boring.  Sometimes that’s a good thing.  It means I don’t have to concentrate as much … or rip out my mistakes later.

I’ll definitely try more pineapple patterns later.  I have entered the “Aqua” doily into a contest at the ThreadAddicts Yahoo group.  They decided to have a Spring Fling contest.  Each person submitted a photo of their entry.  In the next couple of weeks, the doilies will be voted on by the group members.  Everyone will then mail their doilies to the winner.  I don’t expect to win.  But sometimes it’s fun to match your work against others in a competition – even if it is just for fun.