Year of Projects: Crochet Master Class – Hairpin Lace Coaster

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This post is part of my Year of ProjectsCrochet Master Class series. You can read the other posts in this series here.

Before I tell you all about my hairpin lace adventures, let me just show you my painted crochet trivet after I blocked it.

And now on to the hairpin lace.  You may recall that I’m not overly excited by the look of hairpin lace.  Nonetheless, hairpin lace is a chapter in Crochet Master Class and I have two hairpin lace looms at home.  When I left for my vacation on Monday, I packed my Clover Hair Pin Lace Tool, Learn to Do Hairpin Lace, the May/June 2012 issue of Crochet Today! (with a hairpin lace tutorial), and the Hairpin Lace Coaster tutorial and pattern by Ferosa Harold.

I tossed a partially used ball of Lily Sugar’n Cream in Faded Denim into my suitcase, intending to make yet another trivet.  And then… all of these things sat in my bag for my entire trip.  On Wednesday night, when I was packing to come home, I realized that I had to try the hairpin lace, if only because I had carried the supplies to Pennsylvania.

It might be because I was exhausted and it was late at night, but I found both Learn to Do Hairpin Lace and Marly Bird‘s tutorial in the May/June 2012 issue of Crochet Today! incomprehensible.  If you were outside of my room that night, you would have heard a lot of “Turn it how?”  “What the…??” “Flip it which way?” coming through the door.  I decided to give Ferosa Harold’s tutorial a try.  And suddenly, it all made sense.

Me trying to get 48 loops onto the loom. It was a snug fit.

I didn’t notice this on the package until the next day.

D’oh!

Here’s my hairpin lace “strip” joined into a circle.

My first hairpin lace coaster, partially completed.

At this point, the coaster was looking super ruffled.  I assume this is because I used yarn (intending to make a trivet) instead of thread (for a coaster).  Since it was now after midnight and I still had to pack, I decided to restart with half the number of loops after check out the next morning.

Why yes, those are my jeans in the background. By now I was in Swarthmore, waiting for the LYS to open so I could visit on my way back to New York.

This one seemed a more appropriate length.  But then, disaster struck.

I called this my Mobius coaster on Ravelry. You can see at the top where I twisted the strip when joining it.

(Project page here.)  At this point, it just seemed ridiculous to start again – I mean, it’s a trivet, not a fitted sweater.  The point of this exercise was to learn to do hairpin lace, which was definitely accomplished.  So I followed the pattern through to the end.

I would definitely recommend Ferosa Harold’s tutorial if you’d like to learn hairpin lace.  There are step-by-step photos (for right- and left-handers), it’s free, and you can make a small project in a very short time.

As for me, I’m not sure how I feel about hairpin lace.  I prefer the look in circular objects like this trivet, but I’m still not sure it is worth the effort.  It’s true that it is quite simple to do (once you figure out what the heck you’re doing!), but it is fairly monotonous and the loom is a bit cumbersome.  The idea of making a hairpin lace blanket like Yarn Berry is doing kind of makes me want to run screaming for the hills.  And yet, I’m sure I can find a good use for this skill now that I have it.

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