The Problem With Handbag Tatting

 

I have at last finished the ball of Coats variegated size 40 thread and so finished the edging I have been carrying about for many months. The pattern came from the Knotting Nurse Sharon's blog, here.  I love the edging and have enjoyed the tatting, but I have to say that after months of being carried about and worked on in dusty places, it was rather grubby. 

I considered putting it in a washing bag with my weekly wash, but forgot to carry out the idea! I soaked it for some time in water with a liquid detergent added and then laid it out on a towel, pulling the chains into shape. I should really have straightened out all the picots, but thought it would be better to just sort them out when I sew the braid onto something. 

I don't think it would pass muster for a competition, but I think it's clean enough for normal use. I've started another take along tat, in spite of my reservations about keeping it clean. The leaf braid is ideal as handbag tatting because it's easy and has no joining. (And I like it!)

You can read about the origin of the pattern  here and here. There are alternating split rings of 2-6/4 and 4/2-6. 

I think I have managed to get my photos to a better size. I use a resizing app, but even the smallest size  still looked very large with the new blogger. I found a custom option on the app and made the photos smaller than small. 600 pixels by 400 pixels, for the record. 

Spring Flowers

 

Phew, putting the necklace together was trickier than I had anticipated. At one point I considered putting the beads into a bowl to be admired and forgetting the necklace altogether! These beaded beads are heavier than my candy cane ones,  The white 'pearl' beads must be heavier than the ones I usually use. I threaded the flower beads onto the same size 40 thread that I used to crochet the beads, but it didn't feel secure. I left the thread in place and added a thread of nylon beading thread. It's like invisible thread - I felt as though I were making the emperor's clothes. I did a stitch through the felt of each bead, but it doesn't prevent the beads from swiveling. So be it. The necklace does feel stronger and more substantial with the two threads holding it together. I threaded both threads through the clasp, took them back through the green beads at the ends and then secured them in the felt of the first and last beaded beads. 

More Flowers

 

I don't have quite enough for a necklace yet, but I have made progress on the flowery beaded beads. The ends look very messy, I know, but I'm going to thread them in after I've assembled the necklace so that I can use them to orient the beads. 

Back To Beads

 My flower beads have been on hold; life got in the way from several different directions. But today I am back to crocheting flower beads. I thought I'd show the inside of the bead before I put the felt ball in. There's a rather large hole at the bottom, but I've crocheted over the starting thread and will pull it tight at the end to close the hole. 

Test Tatting and Lambs

 I'm doing some test tatting, which I'm enjoying. Of course I won't show you a picture because it's not my project.

Mixed news on the lambs. Only Lily survived. It's a shame that the weather was cold and wet, which didn't help, though in truth their chances of survival were very slim. Lily is fine. Here's a picture of her using a friend of ours as a climbing frame:

Lilly, Lucky and Tom

 

Despite living in suburbia now, we have three little lambs in the garden. It seems you can take the man from the farm, but he remains a farmer! Jack rescued them and is bottle feeding them. I don't know if they'll all survive, we'll have to see how it goes. The farmer had assumed they would die, so if Jack can save even one of them, that's a bonus. 

Masks In Progress

 

Because I can sew, I tend to forget that others can't or don't want to! I mentioned masks on an online group this morning and promptly had a request for five. I'm seeing the person tomorrow, so I had better whiz them up today. These are rather boring compared to the brocade ones  but hopefully they'll do the job. 

Flower Beads

 

This is the plan I was hatching, a beaded bead with a flower on it. I took the flower from a beaded rope pattern by Mariam. It fitted fine onto my grid. The green 'vine and leaves' I did freehand. It took me several goes to get right, but I think I'm there now. You can see on the top right bead how many gaps in the vine there were!  The white beads I was using are rather uneven and I thought that detracted from the flower. I found some tiny plastic 'pearls' that are more even and I think that works better. Now to make enough beads for a necklace. 

Meditation

 

I had the idea that I would plan my next beaded bead pattern while I worked on keyrings. Mmm, no. It turns out that threading beads is akin to meditation - it fills the mind, with no room for flights of fancy. 

Christmas Baubles

 

I know, I know, it's much too early for Christmas baubles. But there were some ideas I wanted to try out. The red and green ball is just a bigger version of the black and brights beads that I showed a couple of posts back. Very easy, I didn't have to work out a pattern or stringing chart. For the other one, I drew one section of the pattern and then just multiplied it by six.

 I kept fingers crossed that it was going to work, that was a lot of beads threaded in vain if it didn't! It worked fine, the theory was good.  There's a plastic ball from a deodorant bottle in the middle of each ball. 

So Excited

I was so excited to see Tammy L Turner's version of my Under An African Sky doily on the Just Tatting Facebook group this morning. Tammy has made some changes to suit her own requirements, while retaining the spirit of the doily. Thumbs up, I love to see a project evolve. One of the changes was the trees - many people have struggled with the interlocking rings, but it's quite possible to do the trees without interlocking. Tammy isn't fond of split rings, so she changed the outer round to use one shuttle rings - splendid.

 Tammy shared a link to the pattern on her post. So many people clicked on it that the daily limit of free bandwidth that Keep-and-Share allows me has been reached! Sorry about that. The free allowance is normally ample for people looking at my patterns.

 There's a link to the pattern on the right hand size of this page. Maybe wait a day or two before clicking on it!

Done

 

I've finished the black and brights beaded bead necklace. I strung the beaded beads sideways, rather than end to end,  to try to show off the 'spider' pattern. Of course the beads swivel on the string, so I'm not sure how well that works. My text is shown as underlined in the draft. I don't know if the underlining will show when I publish it. Last time I wrote, I spent a lot of time and energy trying to get rid of the underlining, and then when I published the post, there was no underlining! I have reduced the size of the text on my photos, as well as making the photos small rather than medium as I used to do. The idea is to claim ownership of the photo, not shout my name at you! 

Work In Progress

I'm working on another necklace of beaded beads.

Trying Out Patterns

I've been trying out patterns on beaded beads. Some of them are my own designs and the others come from beadingdigest, here and here. The beading digest stitch count is a little different to mine. I might stick to my own count for now.

Blogger has now updated me to the new look. Right. Have to figure things out anew. 

A Necklace For Spring

The days are beginning to lengthen, green shoots starting to appear, it will soon be Spring. I have the jump on Spring though with this necklace.

 I hope the person who ordered it will like it. I always wonder if what the person ordering visualises is the same as what I"m imagining!