Daisy, Daisy

My sister is getting married this summer and Daisies are her flower. So I made a few to go on the flower girl's basket (my niece) and to go on the ring bearer's pillow. I tried a couple of designs as you can see in a previous post but this is the one that worked. Unfortunately, its 3-d so it doesn't show up well on the scanner. Here's a quick look, better pictures will come later.

I thought I posted this a week ago

I thought that I hit post for this a week ago...but I guess I forgot to post it.

This is the doily I was talking about in the last post. For whatever reason it started cupping after the 5th row. I'm talking a 90 degree turn. I suspect that it has something to do with that row of rings only. I don't tend to have cupping issues with my doilies.

I started to do the doily because it was a test tat for placemats that I was going to make for my sister in law for Christmas. Everyone needs placemats right? So, there I am tatting away when my friend Sal says to me: "you're not making that for me are you?" I said no, and explain about what I was doing. She says "do YOU like that color? does Linda like that color?" Basically, she thought the color was ugly but didn't want to say it outright. I think that's the point when the doily became cursed. The color below is not exactly accurate but its basically a lavender color. I never did make the sets because I realised that color maybe an issue here. What if I make something and they are never used because the recipient doesn't like the color? That's alot of work to sit hidden away in some drawer. Now, I will admit that its not my favorite color but I don't think its hideous. I have it sitting out in my house and it looks nice.

Round Robin Bookmark pattern

Tattingchic asked for the pattern for this bookmark. It took me a couple of days because I thought it was in a different book. Its from Tatting Doilies and Edgings edited by Rita Weiss on page 38 edging 6 and the pattern is actually on page 40. I did 5 repeats of the pattern for each side, joining in the middle picot of the chain. Each side I did separately and after the last repeat I took the ends from each side and made a spiral tail.

From the same book I've done the occasional doily on pg 13. While doing the pattern I made extra rounds by accident and wasn't sure the outside edging would still fit so I never did the edging round. Now, I'm pretty sure that I could have done a lot more rounds and the edging still would fit as long as there were even number picots (each repeat of the edging takes 2 picots). I didn't pay attention to the instruction and did a 5th round before I realized my mistake. There's no way I'm cutting out a perfectly good round so I did a few more rounds thinking to do the edging when it was bigger. In the end, I was too afraid to do the edging all around then find out it wouldn't fit so I declared the doily finished without the outside edging. My Aunt Erma has it and I wonder what I would think of it if I saw it again.

I also did the distinctive luncheon set doily but never got past the 4th rings only round. Why you say? Well...it started to cup after that...it actually wasn't cupping so much as taking a 90 degree turn. I thought about stiffening it for the outside of a dish but decided to cut it back to the 4th round. I'm pretty sure that I left too much room between the rings, if you've read an earlier post you know I have issues with bare thread on ring only designs. I think it dates back to this pattern. I'm lazy and really hate cutting my work. Its actually one of my favorite doilies (or maybe coaster would be more accurate). I really need to scan this work because there's also another story about the color, maybe next post...

Summertime Exchange hints

I signed up to participate in the HBT summertime exchange. I am really surprised at all the people who have already sent out their packages...I guess I need to get working! My package has a long way to go so I'm going to send it out soon. I am working on a couple things and I have already picked out most of the extra stuff to go with it. One of the things I've made already are some really simple magnets so ***** 's children can hang their pictures on the fridge.

daisy tryouts

My sister is getting married in August and her colors are gold, white and black. Her favorite flower are daisies so she's using them in her bouquet. For her ring bearer's pillow we are using one that we picked up at liquidation world. It is heart shaped and had a lot of white lace on it that really wasn't her style. My sister likes things very clean and simple. So, I pretty much stripped everything off the pillow to the basic satin heart. Now, I am adding a black edging using the mignonette tatting style (yes, I know I complained about this type of tatting a few posts back) and I am making a daisy to go in the middle. I have finally figured out how I am doing it but I'm not finished. I thought I would share a few rejected daisies with you. The first one on the left didn't work out because I couldn't add more petals without it looking lopsided. The second on looks more like a daffodil than a daisy. The petals are too small on the third one. The last one is nice and is done using Helma Siepmann's style but wasn't big enough. The daisy that I'm going to use is still a WIP but I will show the picture when I'm done all 30 petals.