Ça y est! bookmark finished

J'ai montré la nouvelle a coté de celui j'ai fait il y a cinq ans. Je pense que il y a une amelioration, en tout façon je le crois....

Etape 3

Voila j'ai fait le tour en jaune, et ça va mieux deja! J'éspere finir demain ou au pire samedi.
Here it is with the yellow edging done, looking rather better. I am hoping to be finished by tomorrow or Saturday.

Etape 2

J'ai fini tous les sept petits motifs. C'est assez simple, mais c'est qui est embetant c'est de gaspillé du fil si on a trop mis sur la navette, ou, une fois, pas assez! Pour ceux qui n'ont pas encore fait cet etape, je dirai, a peu pres...75cm sur la navette. Et puis ensuite il faut caché tous les bouts des fils.


Evidement, ce n'est pas tres bien monté dans les photos, mais aujourd'hui j'ai commencé la troisieme etape, et ça tient tout mieux en place.
For those who have asked for a translation...
I have finished the seven little motifs, which was quite easy, the worst bit was wasting thread, or not having enough. If you haven't done this bit yet I would suggest about 75 cm. Then afterwards you have to hide all the ends.
Obviously it's not looking too good in the photos, but today I started the third stage, and that pulls everything into place.

Je me lance!

Voici le progres en fin de la premiere journée, avec 4 metres de fil sur une navette et 6 metres sur l'autre. Le fil est DMC dentelles, et c'est un peu trop fine pour cette projet... mais c'est ca que j'ai et donc tant pis!

Et voila la situation hier soir, etape 1, c'est fini. Aujourd'hui j'etais pris dans la preparation infernal pour la rentrée de mon fils. Il fait son sixieme dans une college a Sarlat, comme interne, et je suis epuisé a la suite des courses! (Mon portefeuille aussi!)

New challenge

I have joined a "tat-a-long" doing LaRae's Celtic bookmark on the site of my friend from Brussels, Bidouillette.

This means leaving to one side both Beatrice, (well I need to order more thread anyway) and the basic doily (which is being a bit fiddly at the moment ) and the snowflake project from Jon's book. This is the latest, "twirly" with the ends not hidden.

For the tat-a-long I will write in (not very good ) french, to be more accessible to my new french friends, this means the posts will be mostly photos!

Learning Curve

I have a lot to learn...and I am a slow learner!
This was my first batch of hand-dyed thread, so I had never tried to persuade thread to cease being a skein and become a neat manageable ball. Did I check what others had done, or look on Google or yarn websites? None of these things, I launched straight into the silky stuff and within twenty minutes I had a tangle that took me two hours to sort out! Pamela warned me that I needed at least fifty yards to complete Beatrice, but I had started already. All my friends suggested it was a pattern that needed oodles of concentration, but despite that I just keep tatting in odd five minutes at work and then making mistakes... I was in the middle of this ring when a women turned up to demand that I look at her mother's toenails, by the time I had listened to her harangueing me for ten minutes about how disgraceful it was that her mother had become incontinent, and we were doing nothing about it, it was time for the evening meal and all that entails! (It is so hot here, and definately not wheelchair pushing weather)
Having said that, this thread is extremely forgiving, and I have unpicked some (but not all) of my mistakes, and I shall get some more, and finish the doiley come hell or high water or nagging relatives, and you will all get to admire it! (yes, you will!)

In Black and White, and now In Colour!

I was doing a little blackwork, slowly advancing on my sampler, when the post arrived. I had a letter from America, which surprised me, I don't really know anyone from there, but when I opened it....it was my threads from Sherry! I had assumed they would come from Seoul, but obviously she has some arrangement for the delivery with US mail.

Anyway, the threads are beautiful and I am afraid that the photo won't do them justice. I am already starting to unwind the silk Peach Pandorea, with the idea to use it for the Beatrice doiley! It is size 20, which is something of a departure for me, but I feel sure it will make a stunning combination. I can't wait to get tatting, but also wanted to share my delight with my fellow enthusiasts.

Big thank you Sherry!

Pretty or pants

For those readers who aren't english 'pants' is a word for 'rubbish' or 'crap'! I have made a couple more snowflakes and at the same time as working my way through Jon's book I am also working my way through a box of DMC dentelles threads that I bought on e-bay. Variegated threads can be really effective sometimes but others they just look like vomit! This first one is called "Spring Blossom" and I thought I would choose a colour to fit the vernal theme. I don't think it has worked that well.

This one is called Astral, and I think the colour works better on this one.

Another problem for me is deciding how much thread to wind on the shuttles...no-one likes to waste thread, but joining two rings from the end is also really frustrating. For Astral I wound three metres onto shuttle 1 and 8 metres onto shuttle 2, this was too much, 1.5 and 7 would probably have been ample. Spring Blossom I forgot to note down, but it was just short on the last round and I had to join.

B2B doiley 4th round

I hadn't counted properly, and this is actually the fourth round, it has taken ages and a load of thread! Now it is a bit ruffleyat the edge, perhaps that will sort out with the next row, but I am going to have a pause as it is quite similar to this row and I feel like a break, time for another snowflake I think.

By the way, I love the blog roll feature and am planning to add lots more as I like the way they show the latest update, but I haven't yet, time factors causing delay.

Weird thing

I received a package in the post this morning...and I only vaguely remembered ordering it, It came from Roseground and I ordered it very late one night last week, after wandering around the tatting blogs.
So I opened my little box, wondering what I had, in my tired, and possibly slightly inebriated state, bought...
Iris Niebach's Tatting Doilies, a green "Sew Mate" shuttle and a pretty hand turned hook. This rang a bell and I started looking back, and found this entry from Dianne! I think Beatrice must have impressed me more than I was aware!
Now, I keep looking at Sherry's new silk threads...
Having said that I am only half way through with the next round on my current doiley, I ran out of thread which I couldn't believe, but I have a new shuttle attached now. Not a scrap of blu-tack in the house when it happened, a lack which I have remedied for next time.

Learning, and back to basics

I have found blogging an excellent stimulus for learning and improving my work. Recently I bought Jon's book of snowflake patterns, and it has been a good way to learn and practise split rings and two shuttle work. These three are my first attempts.


I am also doing a back to basics doily, shuttle and ball, size 50 DMC cordonnet, from the french tatting book. I have only done two rows so far, and there are five, I wonder if I will ever complete it.

Help!

I was looking at this and I couldn't think how I would use a double shuttle. Can anyone explain how they work?

Baby bootees finished

At last I have finished these, even though they aren't quite as I would like...I would change the pattern of the flower. I liked the bootees that Sharon made.

A New Book

I bought this book a week ago, via Amazon.fr and I have to say I can't really recommend it. It suggests it's a book for beginners, and indeed it has five pages of instructions, but I couldn't really say if they were easy to follow, being as I know that bit. Then there are some patterns, which are in general very pretty, but then we hit the problems. On some patterns there isn't even a stitch count on the diagram, let alone a suggestion of where to start or what order you should tat. There isn't much on whether you should use one or two shuttles or any other techniques.

Here are a couple of stars from a very pretty doiley pattern called Rose
one done with me discovering after I had begun that I should have wound two shuttles in CTM and managing by using the SLT. Then, serendipity, as Jon showed how to do self-closing mock rings, and so I tried that as an alternative method. I think it was successful and am not even sure now which is which.
The bootees are coming along slowly, one is finished and one is on the third row, but I am running out of thread! Who else struggles to make their thread last, like driving home really fast before the petrol runs out!
Also, does anyone have time to explain how to get an E-Tatters banner on this page? I see others have done it, but have no idea where to start!

Black bootees

I have put a picture of progress on my black baby bootee on my other blog
There are quite a lot of other photos and the tatting is somewhere in the middle, so it's not for those in a hurry!

Latest work

I haven't been posting, because it's difficult to scan on my computer and I have to use the one belonging to the man I live with. He doesn't mind that much, but he often seems to be using it himself.
Anyway, here are a few bits from the previous month.
First, a lilac square from Mary Konior's book.



A little brown square from A Tatter's Workbook.


This was the beginning of a square from Iris' book, but I didn't like the colour of the thread...sort of bilious, I felt, so I gave up.

And then I discovered that the man's eldest son and his girlfriend are expecting a baby, so I decided to have a go at the bootees as shown by Pamela...not knowing what sex the offspring might be I chose black, well, it goes with everything doesn't it? Mmm, I have been getting a lot of "Black is not really suitable for babies" feedback, but as I am bound to make too many mistakes I am carrying on regardless, this will just be a prototype.

You're so square

This is my attempt at one of the squares from Iris Niebach's booklet Tatting Together, Square Motifs. I found it quite challenging, and this is a long way from being right, but I felt it was worth showing. Sometimes, bad tatting is as interesting as good... My excuse is that it was mostly done while on night-duty, which can be a jelly brain time. (Dealing with drunken phone calls at 2 am can be a bit distracting to the real business in hand!)

Music from Buddy Holly!

another square

I'm not sure that this merits a post, but just to let you know I'm still here, and still, albeit slowly, tatting. Here are the previous patterns joined to make a square. I did as usual make a mistake...my excuse was that I waiting to be interrogated by the gendarmes after a weekend on night duty...but I'm certainly not going to start again!

Pink square

This square is the same as Mrs. John did, but on one corner I put in one too many picots. I am showing it, because I enjoy looking and comparing different versions of the same pattern. This is Valdani 50 thread, precious pansies.

Some work and another book review

I have been very tied up in boring work and not boring but rather stressful studying. My tatting has suffered somewhat, with loads of mistakes.




This is an example; David was in England for Christmas and brought home a load of handkerchieves that his mother had given him. My guess is she'd had them in a cupboard since the '70's as they were in really tacky colours, but one just matched a ball of variegated DMC special dentelles. I decided to make an edging for it, though what anyone would want with such a thing as a funky purple lace edged man's hanky... Anyway I haven't got very far, I keep making mistakes! (So the problem of what to do with it is in the distance for the moment!)


Another pattern I am working on is this one from Mary Konior's book. It requires aboout 16 motifs to be joined together, and the first motif was completely disasterous, but I have at last achieved two...I'll let you know if I manage to get any further.



I wanted to talk about another book, A Tatter's Workbook. The patterns are not my favourites, but I love her use of colour in her designs. It's a book I enjoy looking at more than working from, but it is always interesting to try the patterns, because it can be quite a puzzle between the words and the picture to work it all out! Here's a sample page, at random. You can see more if you click the link.