Establishing Eleonora

Nice work Snowy! 

She identified the doily, now getting close to being half-way tatted.

She also suggests we shall make it through the booklet! 

That would indeed be an accomplishment.

The thread is Silky again, and I am liking the colour, as it reminds me of my favourite colour-way in Lizbeth thread - Vinyard Harvest, I think it is called.

Once again I am truly enjoying another of Iris Niebach’s convoluted one-round wonders!

At the same time and breaking my one-at-a-time rule, I have begun the hankie border that I ordered thread especially for. 

It was a challenge to find the right colours for this special silk hankie, which I received a while ago from umintsuru. It is one of my favourite hankies ever, but the silk intimidated me.

It is a soft, pale peach colour, beautifully finished on the edge; so beautifully in fact that I am not sure how to attach the tatting without nasty holes showing in the silk

After a lot of browsing, I found a Sulky Blendables that I thought would be perfect, and when the mail arrived I saw I had picked well. You probably can’t see on your monitor how it has exactly the right, subtle, pinkish tones to enhance that in the fabric. 

I tried a few edgings - vintage all - and liked how this one seems to mimic the embroidered flower. 

Now I have to invent a corner and that always makes my heart quicken. There is never a lot of confidence on that front and the mirror trick can be counted upon to elicit dyslexic tremors!

There were other patterns I preferred a bit more, but the picot-joining edges of those did not seem appropriate for the curves of the hankie, so I had to choose carefully.

Maybe I should use - ugh - invisible thread?

Loving The Look

Does this trigger any pattern memories?

As the title suggests, I am enjoying this one immensely! 

So far so good....  #80, Sulky.

Dare I write that? 

: )

Reflecting On The Results

I am so into this new pattern, tatted in Sulky, that I have moved way beyond the two that I had tatted for my experiment! Ancient history a day later!

Do you recognize this pattern? Finished, it will be much smaller than the pattern calls for because Sulky is about a #80. I think the pattern calls for #30.

The Experiment

This is Dahlia, by Karey Solomon. 

It can be found in one of her booklets. 

Tatting it with Monica’s lovely #80 HDT was a pleasure as I had been saving the thread for the right design. While working on it, I realized that I had the perfect beads to compliment the thread. 

All was fine until I hit the middle section, where I coud not figure out how to proceed. Ah, Karey - you have done it again to me! Stymied!

I improvised and followed my own logic and it seemed to turn out well, but I am still wondering about that 6th row...

Anyone else out there found this snag to which I refer? Id be interested to learn how to connect that 6th row...

You can see the scale if I include a shuttle...

This purple motif, using #40 Lizbeth, is the same size as the above #80 piece.

Pattern: Kirsten Christensen

The experiment was to:

                                     1) compare my enjoyment levels of #40 to #80

                                     2) compare attention span to using these threads

                                     3) compare quality Lizbeth to Sulky

                                     4) compare finished products according to the above criteria 

In conclusion, I find that I enjoy tatting with Sulky far more, finding it to be a superior quality thread than Lizbeth #40. If you have read tat-ology for a time, you will realize this is definitely not a eureka moment for me.

My attention to detail and thus the finished motif was infinitely better and more keenly focused using the lighter Sulky thread. 

I lost interest early on using Lizbeth; my attention wandered and the resulting tatting looks as if another, less critical tatter had been at work. The tatting in the orangey motif is superior to that of the purple one. Says me. 

Why all this comparing? Well, I have diminished the stash to the point where I might like to add a bit of thread that I KNOW for sure I like. The Perfect Quilter fiasco was insane! I bought a ton of it, but on receiving my order realized I did not like the colour breaks in most of the colourways. I found them far too long. 

So, bye-bye Perfect Quilter! I kept a few of the colours, but created a big emptiness in my thread drawer! I do have a few spools of Sulky and will order a few more as time goes by, now that I know I like it very much.

Oh yes, The outer bit of the orange motif was tatted with #80 Oran Bayan, which I happened to have in  exactly the right shade. This is a ver, very fine #80 and not my fave at all. 

This leads me to add that speaking of #80s I do like DMC. It is a pretty good thread.

A very good tatting friend of mine has kindly agreed to send me a sample of  Oliver Twist thread. This is another of the skinnies that I have been very curious about. 

However, I have learned a valuable lesson: never order thread without trying it first! Following my own sage advice, I shall try out the Oliver Twist and see whether it shall be added to the stockpile!

I leave you with an update:

My beautiful Mr G

November Nonsense

It is an experiment.  I love to set little questions for myself to answer as I tat away, to see what conclusions I will come to by the end of the pattern. 

After having tatted Nancy Tracy's motif yet again ( I can't seem to get it to look symmetrical) I found myself wondering about thread size again and also:

Where was I?

I have been watching Doctor Who as I tat and suddenly realized that there was a flying shuttle in the intro! Who knew! I never watched these when they were on television - just to busy on those days. Now I get to stay up late and get caught up.  : ) Now I too know what a Tardis is!!!

So, here are the pieces I have been working on while asking the thread questions:

I have had the orangeish beads for many a moon. These are part of the stash I accumulated when I received a generous surprise from Miranda. The HDT from Monica is perfect with them! The lilac is a Ladytats lovely.  Thank you, ladies!