Thursday, November 7, 2024

In The File

 


The next food cover requires lizards. I've tatted Jane Eborall's gecko before and I reckon it qualifies as a lizard. It was tempting to just print the pattern out again, but in the interest of saving ink, I trawled through my file until I found it. It has a mark against each line for each time I've used the pattern. Surely that's unnecessary I muttered to myself as I started tatting. That was until I looked carefully and saw I'd tatted an extra ring. I will have to start again, and this time I'll mark each line so I'm sure of where I am in the pattern.



Monday, November 4, 2024

Lavender Again

 The market on Saturday had a lot of stalls, but not that many customers. I sold enough to make it worth my while, and enjoyed the morning. 

I'm working on the second half of the lavender order. 


I'm not sure I'll finish today because my little sewing pupil is coming this afternoon. I'll see how it goes. I have another food cover order to work on after this order is done. 

Thursday, October 31, 2024

Market On Saturday

 



There's a market on Saturday, so I'm working on getting ready for that. I've been knitting the fingerless gloves, Leaves by ValKnitting, as take along knitting, but yesterday I finished off the thumbs at home. The yarn is my handspun wool.  Today I'm working on  puppets. I sold three at the last market, so I need to make at least another three. 

Monday, October 28, 2024

Daisy, Daisy

 



I sewed the tatting to my food cover yesterday. It's not easy to photograph, looks better in real life than it does here. There are five butterflies as well as the flowers. 

Thursday, October 24, 2024

Someone Else's Stash

 


I had a phone call from an acquaintance yesterday asking if I was home. I was. She arrived with several carrier bags of yarn for me, and two half done garments, a cardigan and a sleeveless pullover, which she asked me to complete. She's moving to a smaller home and needs to downsize. My heart sank a bit. It's a generous gift, and what I can't use I'll pass on to knitters at the retirement home. But I'm going to feel guilty until I finish the knitting, which I have neither the time nor the inclination to do right now. 

I have an order for another 10 tatted lavender bunches. I'd like to deliver 5 on Saturday, so I worked on those yesterday and put the food cover on hold.  As I tatted, I listened to a series of podcasts, Visible Women on Tortoise media. It was very interesting. Apparently, women are less safe in cars than men, because crash test dummies are based on male bodies. Men's pyjamas have pockets, but women's don't. Who knew? 


Tuesday, October 22, 2024

Edged

 


I've finished the edging of the latest food cover, a combination of  machine embroidery and beads. The beads are a bit bigger than the ones I used last time. I thought it would look a bit crowded with a bead for every leaf pair, so I  sewed a bead on every second leaf. 

I did two flowers from Jennifer Williams's Cariad TattingSpring Flower and Flower using two layered tatting .


I'm rapidly giving up on the idea of doing a bouquet in each corner though. It's all taking way too long, considering the price I quoted and the number of other things I have to do. 

Friday, October 18, 2024

Daisy Doodle And More

 


The lady who ordered the third food cover said she wants daisies on it. I fiddled with stitch counts and different constructions until I came up with this. I'm sure there are similar patterns out there, but I'm not going to scour the internet looking for them. I'm all for protecting copyright, but I think the Just Tatting site on Facebook gets a bit carried away when it comes to people independently coming up with similar designs.  

I showed Chantelle the daisy; she likes it, and is happy to have other flowers on the food cover too. I thought I might do 'bouquets' in the corners and scattered daisies in the centre. Where to begin? I started with Jane Eborall's This Way And That Way pattern. If you look at the pattern, you'll see it's a snowflake! It looks like a flower to me, but to emphasise its floweriness, I did muskaan's leaf to put alongside them.


I love both these patterns, and they're both copyright-worthy!