Create Doily Stretching Board

by Carey

1 Material

I am assuming that most of you do not have a board like this to stretch your doily on. I would go to the Dollar store and purchase 2 pieces of foam board. Glue them together that will give better stability than just one would.

Use a black permanent marker, fine point and yard stick, Measure the narrowest side of your foam board. Draw to draw a straight line from corner to corner. This identifies the exact center. It helps if your board is a perfect square. If you have a carpenters square it will help you make if perfectly square. I would also advise using a metal ruler or yardstick. I made the unfortunate discovery that my cheap yardstick was not really straight. : )

Unfortunately this is not letting me show the entire board, but the lines go corner to corner on a square board.

Measure center of each side and be sure that the yardstick goes from each mark on the sides through the center to the other side.

You are creating the marks that will help you stretch your doily evenly.

Measure the center of each section between the lines already drawn. Mark it. Then using your yardstick and permanent pen, draw lines through center to each opposite mark creating a design as shown.

Using a Compass, and red Permanent pen make circles approximately one Inch apart. Each circle is marked A, B, C...etc.

My board has a half inch grid and the sides are marked numerically. 0 at center side on each of the four sides. and numbered on each line of the grid to the corner from that center.

This is the board that I am describing. The circles make it much easier to stretch evenly and the grid lines make it also more evenly spaced. By the time you have stretched using the lines across the board, it isn't real hard to stretch between evenly if you have the circles. But there are times when those grid lines are very helpful.