Done

 

Well, I put the time in and the little flower bag is done. I'm going to tat round 6 of the Spring doily, without noting how long it takes me, before I start on the next little beaded bag. 

Time

 

I have an order for two trinket bags. Someone asked how long one of these bags takes to make. At the time I was working in odd snatches of time, so it was hard to tell. But on this one I made a concerted effort to work it out. The bottom took almost an hour, to thread and crochet. Each pattern repeat takes half an hour to thread and an hour to crochet. There are four pattern repeats. So that gets me to 7 hours. There's also time to finish off the top, thread in ends, set up and put away beads.... It's more time than I realised frankly. 

Shirt Time Again

 

Some of Jack's shirts are beginning to wear out at the back, so I'm making replacements. This is the second, I'll probably make three. As usual, they have certain bespoke elements - pockets deep enough to hold notebook on one side and phone on the other; added length so they tuck in easily; and sewn up front so that he doesn't need to bother to do up buttons.  The green fabric seems a bit less robust than the grey, so I've done the pockets in grey and just used the contrasting fabric for the pocket flaps. I hope they'll last as long as the shirts, but in truth it's the weight of things Jack puts in the pockets that wears them out. 

Round 5

 

I've finished tatting round 5 of the Renulek Spring doily. Now it's on hold until round 6 comes out next week. Which is fine, I like the weekly structure. 

Finish This First

 

I've been itching to start work on round 5  of the Spring doily, but I needed to finish this knitting first. Do you remember the animal ears?  Someone wants to do a photo shoot of a baby wearing ears and matching leggings. Right. I found a pattern by Drops Design on Ravelry and adapted it. The construction is quite complex - it's knitted in the round, with short rows to build up the back, increases, decreases... So it didn't really lend itself to alteration. My swatch was a third bigger than stipulated, so I used that as a basis to work out stitch counts. And winged it here and there. I hope the photographer will be happy! 

Scale

 

You can see from this photo that the beaded bags are tiny. I put coins in mine, but they could hold jewelry or trinkets. Someone suggested recently that I put small glass bottles inside. I'll give it a go if I can find the right bottles. 

Zigzag

 

Another little trinket bag. It was fun to make. I rather laboriously drew out a pattern, adapting and expanding a beaded crochet rope pattern:

I had to pay attention when stringing the beads, but because it was repetitious, it wasn't all that difficult. The pattern took so long to draw I thought I'd make double use of it and made another one in shades of blue and red. I gave it away before taking a photo of it. It's difficult to tell the size of the bag from this photo. Tomorrow I'll show another photo that gives a better idea of scale. 

Tatted It And Saw

 

Well, we've reached the end of Jane Eborall's Tat It And See. Jane really foxed us this time, kept us guessing right to the end. I'm looking forward to using my foxy bookmark. I've just bought a pile of second hand books, so he will be put to use soon. 

Day 15 and Round 4 Progress

 

Right, he's coming together now, our flat fox with the fluffy tail. Not a crocodile. I hesitate to call him a roadkill bookmark, but I have seen the term used! 

I've made a start on round 4 of the Spring doily. It feels like a treat to sit on the verandah after my chores are done, tatting a straight forward round, 8+8, 6-6, counting counting and making sure I don't miss any! 

For Variation

 

A friend of mine brought me her favourite shorts, which were well  past their wear-by-date, and asked me to replicate them. I unpicked enough seams to use the bits as a pattern, which took me longer than making the shorts themselves. Grace was delighted with her new shorts and asked me to make three more pairs in different colours. Mmm, no. Three more pairs I can do, but they'll all be the same colour because I bought 10 metres of fabric at the wholesale shop. (Guess what colour Jack's next shirts are going to be!) So we agreed that I'd put different embroidery on each pair so that they're not identical. I've just finished the third pair. 

Day 14

 

Right, I've caught up now. Lelia was right, we're outlining the second part. Presumably  we're going to join soon to the first part. On we go, not very much the wiser! 

Days 12 and 13

 

I'm caught up in time for tomorrow's installment. I did actually do day 12 on Friday and post the picture off to Jane, but I didn't blog about it. I spent Friday morning helping a small boy with his online schooling and I think I'm only just recovered from the experience! It looks less like a crocodile head after day 13. 

Round 3

 

Round 3 is done. I'm a little wary of 'easy' rounds because that's where I tend to make mistakes. But I've looked it over and think it's all in order. It might benefit from muskaan's rolling pin method of blocking. Problem is, my rolling pin tends to have bits of pastry adhering to it! 

Day 11

 

I thought I was going to be packing meat this morning, but it didn't materialise, so I was able to tackle day 11 of the tat it and see as soon as it came out. I was so busy making sure I followed directions (I hope I did!) that I forgot to wonder about what it is we're making. Now I look at it again, it looks like a crocodile's head. Could that fit with the bit we've already made? 

Day 10, Trinket Bag and Pattern Visitors

 

We've started on a new section of the tat it and see. No, don't ask me what it is... 

I've finished the little trinket bag that I showed you the bottom of in Thursday's post. I use my one for putting coins in, but these little bags could house other treasures. I took the heart from a beaded rope pattern on beaddust.de, then multiplied it out on graph paper. 

There were a lot of visits to my patterns last week, according to yesterday's Keep and Share report. Thank you. I hope someone found something useful!