Friday, August 30, 2019

Spring

Spring started springing while I was away. The herbs are reviving:
Jack's lettuce seedlings are growing:
Bees are buzzing around the peach tree flowers:
At the moment the little flower bed is overwhelmingly green, but there should soon be flowers to brighten it - sweet peas, violas, daisies and so on.

Thursday, August 29, 2019

I'm Back

I didn't get much tatting done on my trip. It was a 13 hour drive each way, so if I was able to tat in a bus I could've done a lot of tatting! But no, I can't tat while in motion. I did enjoy my trip though. It was good to be part of a like-minded group, we had a lot of fun.

My competition articles were not placed. I haven't had them back yet, so I haven't read the judges comments. Aside from the embroidery, I thought the competition articles were a bit on the boring side, but there you go. Here are some pictures:









The beaded bags on the podium were all of the type shown here, with swags of beads, rather than beaded pictures like mine. The embroidered cushion in the bottom picture was the best article in show. 


Sunday, August 18, 2019

Tatting To Go

I've started a new curds and whey braid from Mary Konior's Tatting With Visual Patterns to take on a trip. I was tempted to take my knitting, but it's too bulky. I'll be travelling by bus, so I want to limit the number of bags I take along. Tatting will slip into my handbag instead of having to have its own bag. I'm going to Goudini Spa, near Cape Town, for the two day Congress of the Cape Women's Agricultural Association. I'm looking forward to listening to some interesting speakers, and even more to seeing all the handcraft competition articles. After the Congress, I'll be spending a few days with my cousin who lives near there. So it'll be a while before I write my blog again, though I should get the chance to read blogs while I'm away from home. 

Saturday, August 17, 2019

No no no

I decided to finish tatting my Root Beer Fudge ice drop yesterday evening. Big mistake. I thought something looked a little off, but I'd check before I sewed in the ends in daylight. I looked at it this morning and thought, oh, I've joined the last chain to the wrong spot, undid it and rejoined. Mmm, still not right. Then I realised I'd made a complete mess of the thing, only the first repeat was correct! And because that first repeat was correct, I couldn't even claim it was meant to be like that.

Scissors came out. I contemplated using the 'snip rings not chains' trick, but decided it was better to cut both off and restart CTM. I just made sure I had long enough ends left to sew in and then then rewound the shuttle and started again with no knot.

Here's how it is supposed to look:
The pattern by Lace lovin' librarian is in the files of the Ice Drop Addicts group on Facebook. The beads are swarovski crystals. They look better in person than on the screen!

Friday, August 16, 2019

Another

Here's another tropical ice drop, pattern by Nicola Bowersox. Here's a picture of the two together:
They do make me think of orchids or some such tropical flower.

Thursday, August 15, 2019

Tropical

My stock of ice drops is low, so I thought I'd make some more. This is Tropical Ice Drop by Nicola Bowersox. The pattern is in the files of the Ice Drop Addicts group on Facebook. I like it. I might make another one, now that I have the hang of it. I need to pay attention to the tension of the mock rings. Beyond the first two rounds, it's worked entirely in chains.

Tuesday, August 13, 2019

Further Than I Expected

The brown yarn is going much further than I expected it to, so I think I can make a stole using Rebekah Yeager's Turkish Tiles chart. I should have some white yarn left over to work an edging on each side.

Monday, August 12, 2019

Rescue

A friend of mine found this tatted doily when she was clearing out her mum's things. She has no idea where it came from or how old it is. She asked me to sort it out. To be honest, it's not the kind of job I enjoy. I shoved it to the bottom of my tatting bag and ignored it. Which was naughty of me.

 I think the outer two rounds will have to be cut off and the rest blocked. And then? Should I tat a couple of replacement rounds? In a different colour perhaps? Or leave it as a small doily?

Friday, August 9, 2019

Bagged

Ever had the experience that you make a mistake, correct it and then find you didn't make a mistake in the first place? I hope it's not just me! Turns out I did have handles in animal fabric for two bags, so I made two bags with animal outers, shweshwe lining and one bag entirely from shweshwe.

I spent all day Wednesday in town, waiting for my car to be serviced. Got absolutely nothing done. Well, craftwise that is. I did visit a friend who has recently moved to town. It was good to have time to catch up with her. I sometimes think I should be less target-driven in deciding whether a day was well spent.

Tuesday, August 6, 2019

Production Line

I have three more shopping bags to make. I've cut the fabric for all three before I start sewing. I was just finishing off when I realised I'd cut handles from the animal fabric for only one bag instead of two. I went back to the fabric - nope, nowhere near enough for a second set of handles. After a bit of pondering, I decided I'll make the animal fabric the lining. I cut a set of handles from the sweshwe fabric that was originally intended to be the lining. Problem solved!

Monday, August 5, 2019

Using A Chart

Rebekah Yeager's free Ravelry pattern, Turkish Tiles, a slip stitch dishcloth.... is very comprehensive. It has full written instructions as well as a few charts. I followed the written instructions when I made the two dishcloths shown in the previous post. But now that I have the hang of mosaic knitting and slipping stitches to create a pattern, I wanted to try using a chart. Thumbs up, I think I have it. I'm not sure if I'll make a cushion cover or a small blanket, it depends how far the yarn goes. The brown is left over from my Alice in Wonderland cardigan. The cream is a rather horrid mohair/cotton mix yarn that I was given. I'm a great fan of mohair, I used to have a spinning business spinning mohair, so I know that there are different qualities of mohair and this is not the best. But it's fine for practising a new technique.

Friday, August 2, 2019

Oops

I started another of Rebekah Yeager's slip stitch dishcloths, with the colours swapped about. I stopped to admire my progress and, oops, realised that I'd made a mistake, left a couple of rows out on the previous repeat. I was a bit tempted to leave it, because I quite like how it looks, and it would be in the centre of the cloth. But I want the two to be a pair, and to be honest, every time I looked at the cloth, I thought of the mistake. It had to be undone. I thought I might struggle to find my place in the pattern, but actually the rows are quite easy to count. I ripped back to the mistake and reknitted:
Here are the two together:
I learnt from comments on the previous post that this kind of knitting is called 'mosaic knitting'. I googled it; apparently the term was coined by Barbara Walker. Craftie Sylvie mentioned mosaic crochet too, I'll have to find out about that! Lelia gave me a link to another dishcloth using this method, it's in the comments on the previous post if you're interested.