Finished, finished, finished!

I finished three things last night! I know! I can't believe it myself.

The first thing I finished was my current temari. I loved stitching on this one, and since it didn't have a deadline, I just stitched away on it when I had a few moments. I figured out that I stitched 720 petals, on 122 flowers. The thread from Japan was a joy to stitch with, and it is nice and shiny. There may be a missing petal or two, last night I kept on finding partial flowers.



I'm planning my next multi-pole in my head (green, with white and periwinkle), but I have to make some mari and some ornaments before my next guild meeting, so that is next.

At the end of the night I finished (almost) this. I still have to add the velcro closure in the back, but that is all that is left. The proportion doesn't look quite right. It has a little bit of a dropped waist, so the skirt looks short, but it fits Isabella just right. This one is for an opportunity drawing for my guild, if you would like to buy tickets to win it, leave a comment, and I will get back to you. Isabella (and C) will get their own yellow dress in this pattern.



I learned so much making this dress! I had never made tucks, or piping, and both items turned out great on this dress. I also learned a quick, cute method for hemming, and for adding lace to the sleeve. The lace technique is almost magical! There's no hem, and you can't see the stitching. It looks like the lace just grew on the edge of the sleeve, very cool!

In the middle of the evening I did lesson 3 in my tatting book, and made these two butterflies. The big one is about 1 1/2 inches across, made with DMC pearl #5, and the little one is made of Cebelia, I want to say about a size 30. I couldn't believe the difference in size, using the same pattern. They both have the same failing too, my rings are not close enough together.



I don't think I will go back to tatting with size #5, I love the delicacy of the little one so much. I found some tiny spools of tatting thread in my sewing room.



You can't tell from the picture, but these balls are tiny, less than 1 inch across! I will have to take another picture including a regular Pearl cotton ball for scale.

My goal with this tatting is to copy a hankie lace edging from my grandmother. It's over 1 inch wide, but is all little rings with long, unworked thread connecting them. I will try to get a picture of it.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

I received a gift!

Yesterday, on their way from Iowa to Michigan, my parents stopped by for lunch, and dropped off a wonderful gift. My dad (who reads my blog) had been explaining to my uncle H my interest in rugs, and my uncle, on his own, gave them this rug (that had been seeing heavy duty in his garage) for me, made by my grandma! It's a little dusty, but not at all grimy, and you can see the colors are bright. (These colors are not exactly right, it was very grey this morning, and my camera flash went off. I will take a more accurate picture when I can put it outside on the front porch.)

It is about 4 feet wide by 5 feet long. A couple of the strips have broken/come unstitched and there are various levels of wear, depending on the make-up of the fabric. The rust/pumpkin colored strips have frayed badly, wearing completely through in places. On the far left, the light pink strips were originally a dark maroon (I think) that has faded, so the design isn't as good as it had been originally. Some of the strips have no wear at all!



It is a 5-part braid, and the strips are not folded over when they come to the edge of the braid. The strips are folded with the raw edges inside, and then held closed with a running stitch, and the strips are joined with stitches. The braids are not sewn together so much as laced together with a strong heavy thread. I'm amazed that that thread seems not to have broken anywhere, and some of the strips have.

I'm actually pleased that this is coming apart in places because I can see better how it was put together. It's almost (but not quite) as good as asking my grandma to show me how she made her rugs. Thank you so much, Uncle H, for thinking of me and sharing this wonderful gift.

Doll dress, and tatting

The piping and the pleats you can see in this picture are what have been scaring me about making this dress. Now that they are out of the way, the rest should go without too much trouble.



JoAnn's had the narrow lace I needed, so that is taken care of too.

My tatting book came on Friday, and since I had the supplies out, I did lesson one right away. This is a chain, and it is sort of what I didn't know how to do before. I could do rings, but nothing else, and now, this book starts with the chain. (The home-work was to make a chain a foot long! This is only about 2 inches long, though. I might take this to music practice tonight instead of my crochet, or I might start lesson 2, rings!)



Two minutes after taking this picture our Golden Retriever Jake looked into the studio (the seat of my stitchy chair) and his mind registered "Ball!" So he took off with the ball of thread, dragging the shuttle and the tatting behind him. Fortunately DH was in the room and rescued it. Usually Jake is okay about leaving my stitching alone; I have lost a couple of balls/spools of thread, but we try to keep things out of his reach. (No Kleenex is safe, even if it is out of his reach, but that's another story.) I can see that I will have to devise a different way of storing my tatting.

It's the start of another busy week. Have a good one!