Merry Christmas

Its a beautiful and sunny Christmas Day here at my cottage.  I'm just sitting outside on the deck enjoying the warmer weather and watching the wildlife.
I hope all of you are enjoying the holidays with family and friends.

More pins

I am restoring this hairpin doily for a friend.  She inherited it from a relative and wants to keep it for her daughter.  The knots closing a few rounds have come undone so I used invisible thread to mend the rounds.  I washed the doily and started pinning it out but 50 pins are not enough.  So tomorrow I will stop at wool-tyme to pick up more pins.  The outside round wants to bunch so I'm going to pin each section to get a smoother result.  So maybe I'll buy 2 packs of pins.

Ice drop with tassel

I'm still making ice drops.  I started to add tassels for fun. The best part about the ice drops is that even when you make mistakes they still turn out. 

Thanks Diane

Diane of lace loving librarian posted a tutorial on how to make her ice drops.  Basically you capture the stone in lace.  This has always been something that seemed too fiddly to me.  I did not have much success in the past with attempting a pattern.  So I was happy when Diane posted a turorial and I was actually able to do it without too much trouble.  The thing to note is that pictures really don't capture how pretty the ice drops are in person.

We Remember

Cascade Prima Cotton

Eliza left a comment on a previous post asking how I liked Cascade Prima Cotton for tatting.  I find that I like tatting with it, it flips easily and glides so you can close the rings.  Of course it is still soft compared to tatting thread so its going to have a drape to it.  It is also really nice for crochet.  I used a little of both to make this placemat.  The cascade ultra prima cotton tats up slightly larger than size 3 Lizbeth thread.  It does not have the tight twist of Lizbeth thread so it is not stiff when tatted.  This may be a problem for some people but I learned tatting with pearl cotton so its not a problem for me.  It also comes in great colors but not as many as the Lizbeth size 3.  I am currently tatting up this pattern in size 3 thread and I will show a size comparison when finished.

Confetti bracelet

Another birthday bracelet for a friend.  The white beads look like confetti to me hence the name. 
Normally I use mock rings around the center beads but this time I did something different.  I tatted half a ring then pulled the leg of the first half stitch down through the blue bead, used a paperclip to hold it in place and then finished the ring.  After I closed the ring I removed the paperclip and did a beaded lock join.  This seemed to sit better to my eyes. 
I used silk thread and really enjoyed tatting with it.  The only trick with silk is that you have to make sure the stitches don't unravel while tatting. Red isn't my color but I'm tempted to break into my stash of Sherry Pence's hand dyed silks to make one for myself.