Something a little different

We were cleaning out the junk that tends to pile up in the clinic. One of the things we found is a bag that Salima (other Chiropractor in the clinic) was going to take home and never did. It had been in a drawer since Christmas. When she opened the bag it had what I made her for Christmas-Tasbih (Muslim prayer beads) . She's Muslim so you may find it strange that I give her a Christmas gift but we don't think about it that way. I had forgotten about them but I'm happy to say that seeing them again I was impressed. The Tasbih have 99 beads with every 33 beads separated by a different bead and a bottom bead and tassel. Ideally the top bead has a certain shape to it but often people use a larger bead or series of beads.

The red and green Tasbih is made out of red fossil and green quartz. The tassel is green and gold. I choose those color because they are important colors for a big holiday. Semi-precious stones tend to be heavy and have smaller holes so they tend to break the thread holding the Tasbih together. This is meant for special occasions.

I'm not sure if it shows up but the next one has green glass beads. I used goldstone beads as the separators and put a red tassel on the top. These beads have larger holes and are lighter. This Tasbih could take a lot of abuse and not break.

I used smaller beads here to make a smaller Tasbih. Again the beads are glass so its lighter. You can't see it but the separator beads are polygons (does that work in 3-d?) and there is a band of gold on them. Green and White are the colors of the Aga Khan who is the the Ismaili's religious leader.

Anyways, I thought I would share this with you. I can't share any pictures of what I'm working on right now. Unfortunately, the summertime exchange package I sent never arrived at its destination. I'm trying to remake what I sent but it's not going well. It's taking forever.

paradigm shift

Definition: a fundamental change in approach or assumptions

I think that I just experienced a paradigm shift in the way that I approach my tatting. It was my opinion that tatting has neither a front side nor a back side so I never bother with front sided/back sided techniques. Most people that I give my tatting to would have no idea which side was up or down so really front/back sided techniques don't apply. In fact, one of the charms about tatting is that there is no obvious front or back unlike say...knitting. Sure, tatters may notice the difference, but the average person won't. I also like the fact that I can just flip a doily if it gets a fleck on it.
However, today I voluntarily changed to front side/back side tatting for a pattern. Why? Well, some things by their nature have fronts and backs. Oh say...an amulet bag. You have an inside and outside portion of the bag and you can't just turn it inside out and have the same thing. Another example is the rosette which by the nature of the joins looks different on the front than on the back. So, I have decided in these cases to use front sided/back sided techniques. This is a major change for me since it changes how I look at patterns and the double stitch. It also makes things a little more complicated. Crap!

Wedding Jitters

I thought I hit publish on this note 2 weeks ago. Jessica's wedding has passed and it was lovely. She had her outdoor evening wedding on the nicest day of the summer...Lucky girl. The rest is the note I wrote 2 weeks ago:

My sister is getting married on the 23rd so I'm making her ring pillow. I have all of the elements done but I just have to assemble it. Every time I think I'm going to have a moment to work on it something comes up. Next week I'll be worrying about the tent and stuff so its getting a little down to the wire here...I think that I am going to be spending a few nights this week finishing it. The other thing I have to do is an edging on her hanky. I think that I need to keep it very simple, its too bad because there's some edgings that would be great! Oh well...time is short and the hanky was a late addition to the plan.

The ring bearer's pillow is a pre-made heart with lots of white machine lace that I stripped down to the bare pillow. If you've read some of my earlier posts you've read (heard) me whine about mignonette tatting. What I didn't say about it is that it works up quick and looks very frilly as an edging. So, I did black mignonette tatting for the edging. For the first round I did the rings every 1/2 inch or so and then sewed them onto the pillow. I sewed the stitches so the thread went top to bottom and Guess what? this angles the lace downwards. No, I'm not kidding. I did two rounds and no matter how I fluff it up, it wants to angle downwards. If I flip the pillow, the lace sits perfect, no downwards angle! If I wasn't afraid of damaging the pillow by ripping out more stitches I would cut it off and sew it on again. The lesson here is consider the direction of your stitches when attaching edging. I'm going to use hairspray to make it sit the way I want!

Special note after the wedding: The edging on the pillow looked fantastic when just sprayed but hairspray really doesn't stand up to a 4 year old boy's handling. So it was a little wilted by the time he went down the aisle. Pictures will be coming soon.

Christmas in July

Here are the pictures of the package I received from Susan for the Christmas in July exchange. It was a lovely package... of course the chocolate that came in the package is long gone so no pictures of chocolate!
I really like the cute little tins that the earrings came packaged in. I forgot to include a picture of the Betty Boop tin.

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...