A super sunny DIY for a scorcher of a day.
This sweet project is the brain child of Cassie and her blog You Go Girl. There is a wonderful tutorial there with clear and detailed photos on how to accomplish this crocheted edging.
I was smittened right away when I saw this and decided to try my hand at it. Coincidentally I had just inherited some cloth napkins from a friend that looked like they might appreciate a little reno. So I went to work and there were some discoveries along the way!
I began with a straight from the horses mouth approach except I changed the materials slightly choosing Valdani Perle Cotton over baby weight yarn and a 3mm hook instead of a 3.75mm.
Truthfully my first attempt was a failure. The blanket stitch I stitched was spaced too far apart for the tension of the crochet, leaving the trim pulled and the edges of the napkins curling in.
Backing up to the drawing board I resorted to the first rule of careful knitting/crocheting: check your gauge! I stitched some crocheted scallop edging all on its lonesome and then measured the distance between the midpoint of each scallop and the edge of each and found that I should have been spacing my blanket stitches .75 cm apart instead of the half inch the tutorial suggests. Oh you live and you learn!
The second attempt went swimmingly. I did make a few changes however:
1. I chose to make the length of my blanket stitches shorter (as well as closer together) so that the bars did not reach under the hem of the napkin but fell midway through. I felt the shorter stitches were more appropriate for the delicate perle cotton.
2. I did not double strand my cotton as I made may blanket stitches. Waste not /want not!
3. When blanket stitching I did not use a length of cotton 15 times the circumference of the napkin as the pattern suggests. Since my yarn was not double stranded I would not need so much. Also I found I preferred to add on a new length from time to time rather then pull a ridiculous length of yarn through every stitch and watch the resulting tangles ensue. Word to the wise – when blanket stitching pull your yarn through slowly and carefully, remember to breath, and eat some chocolate as the tutorial suggests.
4. When single crocheting through my blanket stitch I only made 2 single crochets in each space (not three). I compensated for this later when making my scallops skipping only one single crochet (instead of 2) in between each scallop.
With one wee ball of Valdani Perle Cotton I edged one full napkin and got 2 sides of the scallops finished on the second.
You could have fun trying out different kinds of edgings on all manner of whatnots. A skirt hem for example, or a pocket edge, a table cloth or a tea towel, or even some pillow cases. 
This is a page from one of my favorite crochet resources- Super Stitches Crochet. A glossy book with pretty pictures and easy to follows charts and written instructions for all sorts of crochet stitches, textures and edges too. Check it out next time you are in the Knit Cafe.
Happy stitching all!
Craftily Yours
Kristin
