Tat's Heaven

Thank you to everyone who commented on my last blog post, you sure did cheer me up I was almost in tears having to destroy all that work. 'Winging It' is what I am doing now with regard to tatting this doily.  As you can see it had the 'big chop' and now I am continuing using a different design which is being made up as I go along. Hence there is no preparation, just chancing it, so far so good, but have no idea what the next row is going to be.   Wish me luck

It seems that I will have to get the scissors out to this doily after hours spent tatting it.  I found the pattern on Linda's page here, and really thought it would work well especially as I was aiming to tat it for someone who wanted a green doily.  Sadly though as I progress the work does not lie flat and gets worse after trying to press it down.   May be my tatting is too tight?  I am sure I did not make any errors, whatever, there is no use in carrying on.   Sad but put it down to experience. There may be a way to continue by not cutting all of it to pieces and making up my own version as I go along, although not sure I am clever enough to do that. 

So I really got a move on with this huge doily, it is in fact the third one I have made following Renulek's Edelweiss pattern. Actually there is still a fourth one waiting in the wings, started it years ago but it has remained uncompleted mainly because the colours are awful,  I will show you it sometime. It was really difficult trying to get a good photograph of the finished piece of work and I know it should have been blocked and pressed properly especially when you see this section which I have just scanned but I was too excited to show you. On the last row I added some tiny beads to the chains and they give it such a lovely finish

I have been asked to make another doily for someone to give as a Christmas present, but very eager to get started and hopefully finish tatting it well before the festive season.  This is the first two rounds of the pattern I have chosen.  I wonder if any of you can guess whose pattern it is? And here is the continuing work on what I now know is called Edelweiss, Renulek's doily.

So big sister Jane said it might be a good idea to make a wooden shuttle with a pick on. This task was set before 'Im in the Garage and here is the result. However, first shuttle went a little wrong so was turned into an normal pop-a-bobbin shuttle. I will test the shuttle this week and see how usable it is and then pass it on to Jane for another test.  Also have to say that it took a long time to get the pick to this stage, a plastic shuttle with a pick did help him get the idea of what was required.