Prince the Parrot

What a joy this cheeky fellow was to tat. And such a perfect use of those left-over threads that we all find on our shuttles.

This little fellow took several months to tat, because he was my 'stand-in chap' for when I didn't have a larger project to work on. I guess he got worked on each time I needed to free a new shuttle up from left-over threads.

Prince Parrot was designed by Mary Parrott and was tatted in many shades of Altin Basak size 50.

Needlelace - take 2

Ughh! That is the most descriptive word that can explain how I feel about my second attempt at needlelace.

The uplifting feeling that I experienced when looking at the beautiful pictures of other people's needlelace was followed by disappointment when I realised that I did not possess their skill :(

I enjoyed doing the Single Corded Brussels stitch, but found that I had ten thumbs when trying to do the other stitches.

It's back to tatting for me :)

Handkerchief edging

Another item on my 'to-do' list was to edge a handkerchief. Mission now accomplished.

This edging was from the book Tatted Fashion by Teiko Fujito and used DMC size 80.

A woman who is experienced in edging handkerchiefs advised me to do a row of double crochet around the edge of the material prior to attaching the edging. How happy I am for her advice, because it worked out well :)

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.