Tatting lesson 3

I worked on lesson 3 last night, and I am quite pleased with my progress, even though you can see from the picture that I am not (yet) a perfect tatter. Combining rings (the purple parts) and chains (the green parts) is the step I had never taken before now. Hurray for me!



At my last visit to JoAnn's, I found this size 20 thread, and I think it is perfect for a beginner like me. I love the colors, and the size is very manageble. Thank you Carol for recommending it.

As you can see, there are several mistakes in this swatch, and this is my second try. One of the rings has 4 picots instead of 3, and the join is with the wrong picot from the ring before. I will have to learn to read my tatting better since I find it almost impossible to undo a mistake once the ring is closed. I understand there is a way to do it, but I have not managed that yet. I'm used to crochet, where you can just pull on the thread to undo your mistakes. I am finding it difficult to keep track of where I am in a pattern, mostly because you have to pinch your work to make the stitches. I have to remember to undo the pinch and look at my progress to keep from making mistakes.

Over the weekend, I think I will try to make the heart from my lesson book. The swatch about is about 1/2 of the tatting I will need to complete it, so we shall see how it goes.

Gina, you are right, the pattern I want to be able to make, eventually, is the mignonette pattern. Thank you for that information, I was able to find a how-to on line.

My pictures were taken outside on the front porch at 6:45 AM this morning, since we didn't have any electricity at that time. I had to correct the color quite a bit (I think I got close) because the sun wasn't quite all the way up yet. I'm already finding it very discouraging how dark it is in the morning, and how early it is getting dark at night. That's one of the reasons the thought of spending winters in Arizona is so appealing. I heard the electricity came back on a couple of minutes after I left for work.

I also want to wish DD2 a happy birthday (again). (Blank) number of years ago, on this date, we received the gift of a beautiful baby girl, and we are still grateful for that gift.



Here are DDs 1 & 2 wearing their brand new dresses mommy made for them.



This is with her dad on her wedding day. This one makes me teary. Love you, sweetheart!

Nothing to see here

I've been busy, but nothing exciting to look at. I made a Christmas ornament for my guild's Christmas Ornament sale at our show in October.



I am making mari, little ones for the ornaments, big ones for my regular stitching, and middle sized ones for the classes I will be teaching this fall. The green one is for my Queen Anne's Lace temari that I will make when I'm done with all these chores. The 1/2 knee highs in the corner are what I stuff with rice hulls for the centers.



These are the middle sized ones ready for class. I'm about 1/2 way for the 2 classes I will be teaching this fall.



I'm running out of white and off-white thread for the wrapping, so I'm using goofy colors for the centers.

_

The kittens get very intrigued when I am winding maris, and think I am creating a kitty toy just for them. It does tend to slow down the process somewhat.

Tatted lace for Hankies

I think I am getting ahead of myself. Now that I've learned to do a little bit of tatting, I went looking for my hankies from my grandma D. I found 4 tatted ones (and 2 hairpin lace ones, and a handful of crochet ones, but I didn't count those). I hadn't looked at these in so long that they were kind of sad, and a little discolored. I washed them last night, and ironed them, and they came out as crisp as if they were new.

The top one is the simple edging that I've been able to make for years. The second and the fourth ones are a variation on the "hens and chicks" pattern that I should be able to make; I learned the techniques in lesson 2. I really like the variegated thread of number 2!



Number 3 is also worked with variegated thread, and is actually in the worst shape. It has a 3-inch section where the lace is gone, but what is left is very pretty. It is a ring and chain pattern that I haven't attempted yet.

However, none of these is the pattern I was looking for. Then I remembered my album with all my grandma's samples and swatches in it, and there it was, about 1 inch wide, but enough to tell what the pattern would be. It is 3 rows of small rings with long unworked threads between them (almost in a netting pattern) and a row of chain around the outside. It always seemed so delicate to me. I'll try to get a picture of the sample tomorrow.

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!

Shopping at home

I went shoppping for notions in my sewing room last night, and found quite a few different things.

I was looking for the notions I needed to make the smocked dress. I found cording to make the piping, which surprised me, because I don't remember ever making piping before. (That is one of the things I am procrastinating about.) I found the tiny buttons I need for the front of the bodice. I found a perfect match for sewing thread. I did not find a good lace to use to trim the sleeves. I found about 6 inches of a lace that would work, but I need 12 inches. I found a chunkier lace with enough length, but the scale is all wrong. Lace is the one thing I wasn't worried about! I found a bottle of ribbons, and a tub of trims, but I haven't found my stash of lace yet. There's got to be some in there!

I did cut out the pattern, so I am making progress.



Earlier this week I ordered a tatting DVD; tatting is something I've always wanted to do, but haven't learned yet. I didn't order the inexpensive tatting shuttle they recommended, because of the shipping charges, which were more than the shuttle itself. I am very glad, though, because look what I found!



The yellow shuttle is loaded with pearl #5, but the wood shuttle is beautiful! It looks like it is hand-crafted, it has a hook, and it is stored in a cardboard tube that fits it perfectly. I also found Cebelia thread that should tat up very nicely... now if my order would arrive!

I found and organized my crochet hooks. I had picked up a stash of crochet hooks at our guild garage sale, from someone's estate. Previously my smallest hook was a size 4, now I have a size 14! Most of the ones I picked up I did not have before, so that was a very good find. If I had started earlier, I could have crocheted a lace edging for the smocked dress sleeves.

I found the silk ribbons I had wanted to use on my current temari (before I got distracted by my new threads from Japan). I found a whole fist-full of bias tapes to use for thimble bases.

Maybe I should go shopping at home more often! It's a lot of work, though, this store isn't very organized.