Taadaaah!
Here they are. Big doily first:
The blocking was a bit overaggressive on one side – you can see the distortion around the 3:15 position. Still, I’m quite pleased, and I can redo the block to an exact circle the next time it’s washed. Here’s the thing installed in its new home:
Aside: The vase is by potter Joseph McCaffery at Narrow Land Pottery in Wellfleet on Cape Cod. There are several more of his pieces in the hutch behind the table.
Now the smaller doily. Remember, it’s about half the diameter of the one above:
Important lesson learned. Don’t count your doily measurements until after everything has been well-blocked. It turns out that my smaller one is just right for its intended use:
While this means that I didn’t need to go on and make a second larger cloth to satisfy my original fear-of-wine-drips doily emergency, I’m happy I did. Now I have something spectacular to put underneath my favorite vase on the dining room table.
Roundup of patterns and specs – The smaller doily was knit from FANDUGEN, a pattern appearing on Nurhanne’s Yarn Over site. The larger one was done from a pattern in Patterns for the Art of Lace Knitting: The Complete Works of Rachel Schnelling, compiled by Gloria Penning. I modified the smaller doily by adjusting the placement of the arrowhead shapes around the perimeter so that they lined up better with the points and valleys of the previous motifs. I messed with the larger one by introducing the dark knit-on edging (the original used a crochet loop finish similar to that on the smaller doily).
I worked both from a cone of a unnamed faux-silk lace-weight rayon flake weaving yarn, bought for a song from the back room of Webs. I also made my Alcazar from the same cone, and still have a ton more left over. For the record – yes, the dark burgundy rayon behaved exactly as one would expect when wet: it shed lots of dye. Since I don’t plan on washing this with my regular load, I don’t find this to be a problem, but if you are contemplating making a lace blouse from this stuff, you may want to factor ease of care into your equation. I used the same needles for both – size 3.0mm, a Euro size that some US makers label 2, some label 2.5, and others don’t make at all.
String-Or-Nothing 
They are both so lovely. I especially like your knitted-on border on the larger doily–it gives a really interesting contrast and sets off the delicate lace in the center.