Hardanger Doily Class — Laureen

A second hardanger piece, taught in a class by Laureen — a step up in complexity from my Beginner Hardanger Quaker Box class with Julie Norton earlier in the spring. This one’s a small doily-style finish in classic monochrome cream-on-cream hardanger — the way the technique was traditionally worked in Norway before colour got involved.

The construction is most of the lesson. Working outward from the centre:

• A central diamond field of dense openwork — kloster blocks marking out the perimeter, the fabric threads inside withdrawn, and the surviving bars needlewoven and wrapped with dove’s-eye filling stitches in the squares between bars. This is the technical centrepiece.
• Four smaller cross-shaped openwork medallions — one in each “petal” of the surrounding diamond — each its own little kloster-and-cut motif so the doily reads as a quincunx (centre + four).
• A stepped saw-tooth perimeter — the classic hardanger finishing trick: the kloster blocks around the edge let you cut the surrounding fabric away in a controlled crenellated zigzag instead of needing a hem, so the piece’s outline becomes the design rather than fighting it.
• Eyelets and four-sided openwork stitches scattered as small filler motifs in the negative space between the medallions.

Sitting on a tablet in the photo just for size reference — the actual piece is small, maybe a coaster or doily scale.

Finished June 7, 2024.