Vintage inspired lace tablecloth

I started my next project, a tablecloth. This one involves an old passion of mine, knitted lace. For this project, I elected to use sport weight cotton yarn and size 7 needles, but the original intention of the pattern was for much more delicate work. I have done such delicate work in the past and am refinishing a doily as I write this, but I felt that chunkier yarn was right for this project.

What I have completed so far of the tablecloth. I am attaching the squares together and tucking away tails as I go so I don't have to do that all at once in the end.

This is work in progress and I am not sure how large I am going to make it. It's made up of squares so the size does not have to be planned ahead of time. I will stop when it's big enough. I pulled different design elements together. First the squares, actually knitted up in pairs then sewn together. The flowers come from this vintage pattern (Australia, 1949). The instructions use the British conventions and some translating is required. Mainly, dc stands for sc and m1 or "make 1" is a yarn over. Also, it should be noted that for best results, some k2tog should be ssk.

The flowers are knitted in the round, with some clever increases to turn the circles into squares. The heart is crocheted, then I switch to double point needles, and when further out, switch to two circular needles. The original pattern has the flowers sewn side by side. I decided to insert plain squares knitted in seed stitch between them so the flowers act as accents. That's partly laziness, but also because a full flower bed would be too busy for a large area (the original pattern is for doilies).

The original pattern.
Image credit: knitting-and-com

The beauty of the tablecloth is going to be in the finishing. I am taking great care to use the series of stitches on the border of the flowers that results from the binding off as accents on the table cloth.

One of the flower squares. Notice the neat row of stitches on the edge.

When finishing, the yarn ends up two thirds of the way across the top of the flower square. Before binding off, I take care to knit a few more stitches to bring the yarn at a corner of the square. That way it is available to use to knit an adjacent square in seed stitch. I do not cut the yearn but instead turn around and use the yarn and the stitches on the edge of the square to pick up a row of stitches (18 of them). In doing so I take care to have the bound off stitches show up in the front of the work.

In the process of picking up stitches along the edge of the flower square, in a way that shows off the bound off stitches.

Once the square of seed stitch is done, I cast off then sew the squares to what I have already completed, taking care to always have that one row of bound off stitches showing. It helps lining up the stitches for sewing to use technique 2 on this post when knitting the seed stitch squares. I work 34 rows total, giving me 18 loops on the edge which line up perfectly with the 18 loops on the edge of a flower square.

Once the tablecloth reaches the size I want, I plan on finishing with a crochet edge. I am not going to use the standard, original one, but instead found this one.

Planned edging for the tablecloth.
Image credit: the spruce.com

I think it will work perfectly for my tablecloth, with the seed stitch. It is also one of the few edgings I have found that rounds a corner. It should also keep my table cloth grounded and modern.