Round 13

 

I was so excited about finishing round 13 on schedule that I joined the last ring to the wrong picot on the first repeat. Oh woe. Luckily I noticed before I cut the ends and sewed them in. I undid the last chain no problem, but really struggled to open the ring. Eventually I cut the shuttle off, leaving a long enough thread to finish the round, and undid the stitches one by one. Anyway, round 13 is now done. I'm leaving my thread markers in place so I can pace round 14 too. The doily measures 38 cm, 15 inches, across. I'm a little tempted to leave it like that because round 13 makes a good edging, but no, I'll go on. 

Nine And Ten

 

I bought exactly the right amount of fabric for the ten shirts. That's more good luck than good judgement, I have to say. Luckily most of the shirts were small sizes so I could fit the back and front pattern pieces next to each other across the fabric.  These last two shirts are large, so I had to put the pieces sequentially, which uses up the roll of fabric very rapidly! I still have to iron these two, but really the job is done. Oh, and after 45 buttonholes, I think I have that process down pat, if nothing else. 

On Track

 

 I've been getting my five-a-day - tatting repeats, that is. So I'm still on track to finish this round before the next one comes out. It should be five today and two tomorrow, but today is rapidly disappearing so I may aim for two today and five tomorrow. 

Working On Number 10

 

I'm working on the last shirt for the order, the end is in sight, hooray. I may not want to sew a shirt for a while....

Breaking It Down

 

Round 13 is a little daunting at first glance - that's a lot of tatting to do in a week. I counted the number of flower repeats on Renulek's photo; there are 32. So if I tat five repeats a day, plus two on the last day, I'll be there. Right. That sounds manageable. I've reached the target for Thursday and Friday - so far, so good. 

I usually just work from my iPad screen or draw myself a little sketch with the stitch count, but this row is complicated, with a lot of different numbers, so I printed it out. Still, it's straight forward enough and after a few repeats I had grasped those numbers. 

Spot The Difference

 

These are shirts seven and eight. The last two sets of shirts needed to be  slightly different to the others to signify the wearers have a different role in the organisation. Right. Originally I thought I'd make them in a different colour, but the restrictions of the wholesale fabric shop meant that I'd have to buy an awful lot of extra material to do that. Plan B was to make them in a single colour, without the contrasting pocket flaps and collars. 

Unexpected Progress

 

 I was resigned to not finishing round 12 before round 13 came out, because I was busy sewing shirts. But yesterday, just as I was about to start the buttonholes on shirt 7, pfft, the power went off. Tatting, of course, doesn't require electricity, so I got on with round 12. By the time the power came on again, five hours later, I'd lost my sewing oomph and was intent on finishing round 12! So it's done in time. Now I must get on with shirt 8.