Creating UFOs

UFOs -- alien invasion! No, just bits and pieces, bits and pieces -- me not quite getting there on a bunch of things. I'm determined to use up that horrid yellow DMC Cébélia size 30 thread, so I use it to test things. These are two tests of Iris Niebach's "Anemone Apennina" from her book Fantasia 2. The first time I didn't have the book with me when I got around to the second side of the triangle, and totally went the wrong direction. In attempting to undo it, I discovered that I'd gotten myself tangled up so far back I'd be unpicking until doomsday. I started over, but this isn't quite right either -- too many repeats of one set of 11 ds. At least I matched the error on the other side. Weasels. Now I know how it works and have a better feel for it. I'm very nearly ready to pick something other than yellow to get started on this again. Maybe.

Well, maybe not. I did Diane Saunders' TIAS next, so I still had a lot of peach thread wound on my shuttle, but not enough to complete something so large. From the same Fantasia 2 I picked a small motif named "Lunaria" (pretty name, right?). I'd just gotten it started when my sister and I got the wild idea to spend Easter in Las Vegas (also known as Lost Wages). Not wanting to haul my precious, personally signed, book with me. I left this behind, and started on something else -- something I wouldn't care if I lost. I made a paper copy of my own Bonnie's Butterfly and folded it into a plastic baggie to travel in my purse on the plane. Of course, I had to take my niece's little round-nosed scissors and leave my own stork scissors and size 16 crochet hook in their leather case in my suitcase. I didn't want the airlines thinking I might take over the plane with a crochet hook and a pair of embroidery scissors -- oh, and my shoes. I am a rather dangerous looking character, you know.















So much for that -- I didn't finish those either. It turned into "those" because I couldn't follow my own directions! I missed a join on the blue butterfly and, in disgust pulled it off the shuttles (Aero-style with that nice indignant sounding zzzzing!). "Crap," I thought (not being in a particularly elegant frame of mind). I wound on some nice pinkish thread and started over. Well, double crap. I didn't bring my paperclip. I managed to make a thick thread place-holder with some of the blue, but when I removed it to do the first join, I couldn't find the opening -- not thick enough. I had to put it away until the plane landed and we were checked into our hotel. I really needed that size 16 hook! Everything was working along fine, and I got asked what in the world I was making a few times in Las Vegas (because I took it around in my hip-pack for waiting times). However, I didn't make a lot of progress until we got back on the plane. Weezilbix -- I forgot the wretched paperclip again! I made the thread holder thicker. It worked the first time, but at the point you see it now, it somehow became entangled in the working threads. More putting things away in disgust. Between these false starts and way to much work at work my tatting has fizzled to a halt. Sigh.