Kinzel's "Chrysanthemum"

This is Marianne Kinzel's "Chrysanthemum" from her first book of lace knitting. It was much easier to knit than spell! I used #30 DMC crochet thread on size 2 needles.

I always tell newish knitters not to tell me about the mistakes they made in their knitting (unless they want to know how to fix them), but I am about to do exactly that, in hopes that a more experienced knitter can tell me what might help.

First, it's kind of wonky, which I know can be fixed with better blocking, but it also does not lay completely flat. Maybe if I stretched it more in blocking it would be flat?

But what really annoys me is the crochet cast-off. The hook was too big to begin with, but I followed Kinzel's directions exactly, which might have been ok if the hook had been smaller. I don't know crochet well enough to match hook to thread. So the loops are too big and look sort of stupid, crowded and messy.

Don't get me wrong. I love this pattern, I love that it looks so complicated and difficult but it is so easy and fast. I will certainly do this one again as a tablecloth (for someone with a round table, which I don't have). This summer I was working on another Kinzel pattern, "Daffodil", which is quite a lot harder, mainly because the repeats get to be very long. I need to figure out the crochet bind off before I get to the end of that one.