Tuesday, September 26, 2017

Cricket Project

We'll be driving for three hours  tomorrow to get to Potchefstroom to watch cricket, South Africa versus Bangladesh. It's a Test match, for those who know about cricket, scheduled to last for five days. Our plan is to watch for two days and then go to Bloemfontein to watch rugby, South Africa versus Australia. Even I can't see myself knitting at a rugby match, but I definitely need something to do while at the cricket ground. I've been pondering. It needs to be something simple - imagine how muddled my magic square could get! Yesterday I remembered that I promised my daughter Penny that I would try to replicate a knitted headband she sent me a photo of. That would be just the thing. Penny says it needs to be knitted in a thick yarn, so last night I spun a skein and a half of thick wool. It's possible I overdid the thickness -  here's one skein in comparison with a skein from my last batch of spinning:
Anyway, I'll see how it goes and show you when I blog again on Monday.

A Growth Spurt

I have made some progress on my magic square. But yesterday evening I thought I'd tatted myself into a dead end. Luckily I decided to just put it aside, rather than make 'corrections'. When I came back to it this morning, I could see a path forward. Phew!

Monday, September 25, 2017

Cooking

I've been cooking up a storm in the last couple of weeks - bread rolls and pasta; pastry for flans and pecan pie; chocolate brownies and currant butter cookies.... With cooking and cleaning and entertaining neighbours and friends from far away,  I've been short on tatting time. The magic square is progressing slowly. I plan to do some tatting today and will take a photo tomorrow.

Friday, September 22, 2017

Half Way

Aha, I've done half my magic square and turned the corner. Now I'll tat a mirror image of this half. I hope I can find my way through that maze. The magic square still tends to boggle my mind sometimes!

Thursday, September 21, 2017

Correction

I'm doing fairly well at finding my way through the magic maze, but every now and then I miss a join. X marks the spot in the photo above. Hmm. I really didn't want to spend time retro-tatting or snipping and rejoining. I decided to just use needle and thread to make the join.
I'm using size 40 thread, but I split white size 20 into three strands and used one of them. I anchored the thread on one side, whip stitched to the picot, secured the opposite picot and then took my thread to the other side, repeated the exercise and finished off.
It is possible to see my join, but I don't think it'll matter in the bigger piece. If anyone wants to go looking for said join, I'd say they have too much time on their hands!

Wednesday, September 20, 2017

Another Button

I took Jane Eborall's suggestion and added beads to the top of the button. It works well with this rather boring button. I have a few more buttons like this, which are similar but not matching and therefore can't be used for a sewing project.  This is a good way to use them up.

Monday, September 18, 2017

Progress Report

I haven't had a lot of tatting time in the last few days, but I have made some progress on my Patchwork magic square. Scroll down to see more about it and links to Robin's pattern.

Friday, September 15, 2017

Casting A Larger Spell

My last magic square turned out to be the same as Robin's diagram. I really want to tat a bigger square, so I'm having another go. My idea of turning Robin's diagram upside down is fine, but I needed to use a different 'apex':
That's the new one on the left and the previous one on the right. It does boggle the mind a little, I hope I can keep it all straight. So what I've done forms a quarter of the new square, where it was half of the previous one.

Thursday, September 14, 2017

Longer

I really liked this bracelet so I decided to make a longer version, using the same pattern from from Perlenspiegel.blogspot.com. I posted the bracelet off yesterday but I may just wear this necklace myself.   

Tuesday, September 12, 2017

More Spring Flowers

This is muskaan's pattern, using her floating beads technique. You can find links to the pattern on this post. I didn't have teardrop beads, so I used little groups of beads on each outer chain. As muskaan says, there are a lot of possibilities for this pattern. And they're perfect for Spring!

Spring Flowers

Jack's little flower garden is looking really pretty. The fruit trees are flowering too:

Here are some tatted flowers for Spring. Thanks to Fox for the inspiration.

Monday, September 11, 2017

Light and Lacy


Last week a friend took me to a marvelous yarn and fabric shop in Kimberley. It's just as well we arrived minutes before closing time because it would be easy to go wild in there! I mostly bought sewing essentials like interfacing but I couldn't resist buying two balls of mohair yarn. I used most of the yarn, but at 25 g a ball, it means the scarf weighs less than 50 g. Super light and fluffy. Of course, with Summer almost here, I don't need a mohair scarf right now, so this is pure indulgence.

Saturday, September 9, 2017

Another Bracelet

I'm on a roll with my newly purchased beads! This one was fun to crochet. It comes from perlehaekeln.de. I wasn't able to trace it back to its source, but here's a link to the pattern on Pinterest.

Friday, September 8, 2017

Beading a Rainbow



The pattern for this beaded rainbow is clever, using a purple bead on every second round to overcome the natural bias of beaded crochet. The result is almost like having two bracelets! The pattern comes from beadpet.

Thursday, September 7, 2017

MK Magic

Well, it's Robin Perfetti's magic rather than Mary Konior's, or perhaps a little bit of both? Robin turned Mary Konior's patchwork pattern into a magic square. Here's a link. I really enjoyed tatting this, thanks Robin. It's worked in size 40 thread and measures 20 cm square.

Tuesday, September 5, 2017

Latest Bracelet


Yesterday's photo was so fuzzy that I thought I'd try using my phone to write my blog today rather than my tablet. My phone has a powerful camera.

I found this beaded crochet pattern on Pinterest and traced it back to Perlenspiegel.blogspot.com. I really like the combination of black and bright. I bought beads last week, so I had what I needed to make it. I battled a bit with the invisible join, redid it several times until it was acceptable, though not perfect.

Monday, September 4, 2017

Jane's New Snowflake

Jane Eborall's that is, not mine. The pattern is on her pattern page. I'm working on my tablet because my computer is in for repairs. Hence the fuzzy picture and lack of a link to the pattern! My apologies. I  used rice beads, as in Jane's third variation. It's a straight forward pattern and a very pretty snowflake.