Bead-less, But Best

Mary Konior Pattern Marguerite

Thread: Cebelia #30 Blue, Lizbeth #40 Yellow

Here is the vintage hanky with the edging that I copied from Frivole’s work here. 

Honestly, I believe that even after all the hankies I have done, with beads and fancy stitches and so on, this is the best one yet. It is so simple pretty and was satisfying to tat, with enough of a challenge  having the two rows with a smaller thread on the inside.

Thanks, Frivole. I loved your idea of adding that second row and have wanted to tat this since you posted yours, but I didn’t have an appropriate hankie until good fortune smiled and my Friend in North Carolina sent me this one AND the perfect blue thread with which to tat an edging!

I do love these vintage hankies, 

but I find that they are very hard to come by.

Sewing this edging on was also a challenge, as I changed my usual method. I sewed it on the backside of the hankie so that the bottom half or quarter of the attached picots were mainly on the back of the fabric. I do not know why I did not think of this before as it makes more sense. Anyway, the stitching is less obvious and neater than in the past. I am not much of a needleworker at the best of times!

I used regular yellow cotton thread - after trying that dreadful invisible stuff. It is awful to work with and I nearly threw out the spool, but I knew as soon as I did I would find some arcane use for it! So it is back in the little sewing box, hidden safely away.

Before sewing - I do not baste - I attached the hankie to the edging with safety pins in 8 places. The pins were bought online and are inferior - nothing like the quality of that little round striver that you see beside the coil-less pin. I have only one of those and had never seen one before I received this one in a package from... I think it was Denise.

I finally caved this morning and sent away for a packet of 10. : ))