Finished At Last

 At last I have completed my shopping bag in Tunisian crochet. It has duly been lined with a double lining, with pockets, one with a zip. Not all my ideas worked out as I envisioned. I had planned to put a zip in the lining and then cover it with a crochet flap. The problem is that Tunisian crochet is determined to curl, so the flap looked horrible. After a lot of dithering, I decided to put the zip in the bag itself. It's not as discreet as my imaginings, but neater than plan A.

Day 12

 I really must get on with sewing the lining for my shopping bag today, but I was happy to take some time off to tat an embellishment for the pixie's hat. I feel fairly sure that Jane Eborall's tat it and see doesn't involve a pixie's hat, but whatever it is, I've tatted the 12th bit.

Making Things Difficult for Myself

Yesterday we went to town, 50 kilometres away, so I had a chance to buy material to make the lining of my Tunisian crochet shopping bag. I also bought a very short zip to make a pocket in the lining. This is just making life difficult for myself! The specifications for the bag do say that it should have a pocket inside. They do not say it should be an invisible pocket with a zip. It took me three attempts before it looked anywhere near neat enough.

To begin with, I cut an opening and folded the edges back, as per this tutorial. Then I decided it would be better to make a facing for the opening and fold that inwards. The result is still not super smooth, but I hope that being inside the shopping bag, it won't be under great scrutiny.

Day 11 and Rain

 A second pixie hat completed in Jane Eborall's tat it and see. I don't really think it's a  pixie hat, you understand, but it'll do as a description for now.

 It's raining, hooray! That probably doesn't sound like a big deal to most, but we have been desperately dry here and rapidly reaching the point where the cattle on the farm would have to be sold because there would be no grass for them to eat. The rain has been light but steady and should be good for growing grass and filling the underground water supplies.

Texture

 I've been working on the straps for my Tunisian crochet shopping bag. This is cross stitch. It's very slow to work, but I like the texture and I think it should be strong. It eats up yarn at a furious rate. I started with 9 stitches, but it became clear that my straps were going to be rather short, so I unravelled that and started again with 7 stitches.The straps are now long enough to go right around the bag, but used up a whole ball of yarn.

Another Necklace

 This one is tatted in a more conventional thread, size 20. It's funny that if you've been using size 60 or 80 thread, size 20 feels like rope; but if, like me, you've been tatting with 4 ply knitting yarn, size 20 feels very dainty!

 I measured how much thread one chain took and then spaced the 'stacks' of beads along the ball thread that far (7cm) apart.

It didn't have to be exact, but it worked well. The next stack was nearby when I was ready to move it into place, but I didn't have to move unwanted stacks out of the way, which is what I was trying to avoid.

The inspiration for this necklace came from a necklace worn by a character in a local soap opera I watch on weekday afternoons. Hers isn't tatted of course, but has small 'dangles' hanging from a chain.

Day 10

 I've done day 10 of Jane Eborall's tat it and see. It's looking vaguely triangular, like the first bit we tatted, but where we're going with this is still a mystery!