More M's: Martha, Mrs. Mee and Murderous Mistakes

Oh, yes.  These are Mrs. Mee's pesky pearly picots that I learned to tat in Martha's new book - which is fantastic, by the way.  Lots of fun tatting in there, thanks to the creativity of Ms. Ess.

My attempt at the picots is certainly not stellar, but the overall effect can be clearly seen and I find it rather pleasing!  I was lazy and eye-balled the picots instead of using a gauge, ( which I can rarely spell either!) for I find them frustrating to use.

In this case, I should have.  Also it would have helped to have read the instructions straight through before beginning, as the picots should be a bit shorter; had they been, the end result would have been better.  Next time!

Un-tatting #16 Finca thread is absolutely crazy-making!  I thought I would go mad trying to get a couple of rings un-tatted, but the Tat-Pic was magnifique, and I got through it.  Love the thread though - a bit on the soft side, but  lovely to tat with.

Then I tried the broomstick lace technique.  Love it!  Thanks, Martha.  The next one I tat will be one of the bookmarks that employs this trick.  Very pretty and challenging, yet not a hopelessly difficult skill to achieve.

________A bit of a non sequitur_______  

I thought I had forgotten how to tat a 

single shuttle split ring and PANICKED!  

Yup, I got all shaky and everything! 

 Rushed to YouTube and 

found a video and... 

whew!

_______Then______

The Delica Bead Experiment

A couple of days ago I posted about my new Delica beads.  I received an e-mail from JaneE, who was good enough to caution me to check out the "washability" of my new sparklies, lest I ruin something inadvertently.  She said:

Sorry, but there is a risk with laundering delicas!!  I noticed when I bought some off ebay that there was a warning on the packets so looked it up and lo and behold they're right!!!  Not a great risk, probably but I'd certainly not use them on an item of clothing that has to be washed a lot.  Here's a link http://www.beadage.net/glossary/index.php?term=delica-beads

So, I performed a little experiment:

No damage to the beads, no leaking of colours and no staining on the cotton.  I am very relieved. It may be that certain other colours will bleed, or other types of Delicas might react differently, as there are a variety of other finishes.  I had never realized there was so much variety in Delicas till I ordered some.

One other thing: Delicas seem to be more brittle than other glass beads, due to the way they are manufactured; they are definitely finer, so they may not stand up to machine washing very well.

___________LASTLY_____________