Needlelace - Take 1

One of my tatting WIPs requires a more 'dense' area, and tatting just doesn't do justice to it. So I thought that it might be possible to incorporate needlelace into the design.

Well, that's the long term goal. The short term goal is to actually learn how to do needlelace :)

So this is my first attempt at needlelace. At the suggestion from Liz (a needlelacer from Victoria, Australia), I purchased some beginner's books from the Guild of Needlelaces in the UK and gave it my best attempt. The books made the process reasonable easy (thank you whoever wrote the instructions).

This first picture shows the needlelace leaf design still on the backing fabric. The directions stated to 'stitch the outer cord down to the fabric with very small stitches'. Well, that was a distasteful thought to me, so I got the old faithful sewing machine out and stitched the cord to the backing fabric with a very large zig-zag stitch. Seemed to work OK....



This second picture shows the completed article - TA-DA! Next time around I will 'snip' the blasted zig-zag stitches better instead of merely yanking the poor needle lace off the backing fabric in a rough and disrespectful way. The poor little leaf lost a little bit of shape in the process.

Long awaited doily

It was definitely time to tackle a larger tatting task than I had previously undertaken, so a doily pattern was chosen.

Debbie Arnold made this opportunity possible by kindly sharing her Purple and teal square doily pattern on the Web.

This pattern was interesting and enjoyable to tat. It gave me the opportunity to polish up on my 'unpicking' skills. It even gave me the opportunity to learn how to 'cut out' mistakes that were too large to unpick (twice!).

Debbie warns that rows 8 to 10 are 'count carefully rows'. And I'd like to confirm that she wasn't joking:)

I hope to come across other patterns that she has designed because her doily pattern keeps its shape nicely when completed.

Jacobean Flower Spray

This Jacobean Flower Spray was designed by Mark Myers.

The pattern mentioned using Oliver Twist Thread. In the absense of that thread, I decided to do the design twice for comparative purposes. The first one was tatted in size 80 DMC and the second one was in size 50 Altin Basak.

The size 50 thread was more enjoyable and seems to look nicer. Plus...it hides the threads better :)

The design specified that the flowers were to have the threads cut and tied at the end of each row. However, my lazy side kicked in a bit and I changed the flowers slightly so that I could complete each flower without stopping at each round.

I really like the way that Mark has designed the leaf part of it. It keeps its shape really well. And best of all - the large frond can be tatted in one go without having to cut and tie the ends! Very important to me :)

Winner of the knot maker giveaway

And the winner is...Dale Marie!

Dale Marie, would you please e-mail me to advise of the address you would like this knot maker to be sent to?

Thanks everyone for entering.

No more UFOs

At last my UFO list has reached zero! NB - I've been told that works in progress are not counted as UFOs :)

Last year I completed this rose that was designed by Toni Storer. And that is how it stayed for many months until I got around to putting all of the pieces together.

It then stayed at 'stage 2' for several more months until I worked up the motivation to stiffen the petals.

It was a really nice and relaxing pattern to tat. Note to self - don't choose patterns that need to be pieced together or sewn together :)

Giveaway

To celebrate the completion of my first 25 Motif Challenge, I'm offering my first 'Give Away'.

Please make a comment to this blog if you are interested in going in the draw to win the Asian Knot maker from the following picture. Entries will close on Mother's Day, which is Sunday the 9th of May from my recollection.

Ah, and one small technicality, I don't know how people who do these giveaways actually know the winner's address to post it to. So I would be most obliged if anyone could tell me the 'usual' way that addresses are exchanged.

Motif 25

My 25th Motif consists of two smaller motifs combined to make a necklace.

The larger flower is from Teiko Fujito's book Tatted Fashion, whilst the smaller flowers are from Rebecca Jone's book The Complete Book of Tatting.

The chain was made from repeating a half stitch in the same way that a Josephone knot is made (without the knot aspect of course).