Saturday, May 31, 2008

Fantasia 2 again and Day 6

Finally! I made these two versions of Anemone Sylvestris from Iris Niebach's book Fantasia 2 during the past month or so. Both are from more of that stash of pink and green size 30 DMC Cébélia. Somehow I couldn't seem to stir myself to block them. They weren't horribly deformed, just rumpled looking. I'm so used to dampening things and using a zillion pins (stainless steel dressmaker pins!) I didn't think. When the light dawned, I dampened them and took 'em to the ironing board with a bit of clean, white cloth. Wow. Ironing works! The first one I made was the one with the five centers. I hadn't intended to do five -- just four. Uh-huh. The pattern required and odd number of centers, and it says so quite plainly. Five worked very well though. Reversing the colors, I worked the square one around one center. This one was actually harder to figure out and I had to watch the diagram much more closely. I started the same place -- with a chain off a paper clip. However, that didn't result in a simple ending the way the five center one did. I was doing a quite a bit of shuttle maneuvering, and had to (ahem) retrotat one of the elements about three times before getting all the picots properly joined. The final join is, as in the first one, rough. I need to work on that kind of chain join. There's gotta be a smoother way to work it.

DAY 6 -- and, yes, I did day five...just didn't scan it. Well, it's no longer Kokopelli on a unicycle but what it actually is, I can't imagine. Luckily, I don't have to because Jane knows! It's certainly fun to do this way.

The other thing I'm working on should be finished today. It's a Pretty Doily Tat-Along from Etatters. I worked it once, but found it too...er...hairy because I made all the picots too large. This time its totally bald -- no extraneous picots at all, just the joining bits. I'm not even certain I can ever block the first one -- way too many picots to manage quickly and I don't like it well enough to spend a lot of time! Ah well, it might look a lot better than I suspect if I do block it. I'll put that one in think-about-it mode. You know -- if you think-about-it long enough you never have to DO anything!

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

TIAS and more

Here's my version of days three and four of the TIAS. I did day two (else I couldn't have done three and four, you see), but didn't scan it. As to what I'm tatting, haven't a clue (unless it's Kokopelli on a unicycle). It's so fun that way!
The pink ring is my trial Josephine Ring using Jane Eborall's alternate technique shown on Day 4 of her TIAS. I wanted to make certain I had it figured out before actually doing it on the real thing. I do believe the first pink "trial" came out better than the green one on my TIAS-in-progress. Rats. In between things, I did this green "Yorkie Dimple" with a bit of left over thread. Wow. Great technique Sue Hanson! Thank you Sherry Pence for the video (May 14th blog post) and Jane Eborall for the written instructions. This one is closed tighter on one side than the other, but--hey-- it works!
The other things I've been working on need blocking before I drop 'em on the scanner. That means I've got to hunt up my round tuit again.