Nothing to do with tatting!

Friday, good, megga good, exceptionally good, fantastic day.
I had a phone call yesterday evening from my youngest daughter who then put four year old Nathan on the phone. He told me that 'mummy's got a baby in her tummy and it's going to 'pop out' soon'. I can't explain how I feel as I'd been hoping for ages that Nathan would have a sibling to share his parents with. Callum has Oscar and Athena has Carter and finally Nathan will have somebody too!!!
After all those years of teaching I realised way back that it was really good to have more than one child if possible. I'm the oldest of three (one brother and one sister). I know it's not always possible but it's good to have somebody to play with, argue with and, well, just BE with!!!!
I apologise to anybody who thinks that this blog is all tatting - caught you out this time, eh?!?!?!!?
No tatting yesterday and probably not a lot today as the garden took a lot of my time!!!

Time to abandon the edging for a while

Oh dear, oh dear. This is now NOT a good design. I suddenly realised that (as usual) I was being too clever with this edging and so have changed it quite drastically. It occurred to me that the CTJ wasn't actually needed at all!!! How silly is that!! So I tried starting in a different place!! Oh, not a good idea!! That scrap has been duly filed in the bin!! Below is another attempt replacing a ring with a split ring and thus getting rid of the CTJ in one go. BUT I'm not sure I like it now and it certainly needs some 'help' with the swop from the top to the bottom part as it now looks untidy. I find it's a good idea to use strongly contrasting colours when doing this sort of thing as it really, really shows up the problems!!!
I shall now leave it for a while until the 'muse' strikes again!!! I HATE TATTING. Well I did for five or ten minutes!!!!

Still playing with the edging

Well I followed Mark's suggestions and the small sample below on today's posting is what I came up with.

I think I put too many picots on the lower part of the upper part (well, I know what I'm talking about!!!!) so then went off to try something else. Oh, I was also not happy with the clarity of the bottom either!!! Below is a 'two part' tryout. In the first two 'pointy bits' I followed the same idea again but this time with less picots on the chains. Also I made the lower part slightly bigger which I think gives it a separate 'feel' to the header part.
The last two points are yet another idea using the original split ring but throwing a ring off it and down to the main central ring. I again used picots and the larger lower part. This is going to be a challenging (to me) pattern to write down for people to follow. It's not hard at all but does need some careful explanations around the continuous join concept. Anybody willing to give it a whirl? I think I may do all four versions in the end for the pattern site. Time will tell!!!

Edging

Well I did nothing to the edging yesterday as I got waylaid into another tatting project which I want to get further along the way today. This is a gift idea to take on our trip.
BUT thanks SO much to Mark Myers for the following idea. He's such a clever chap with his computer graphics. See - he's added another ring to the top and picots. What a difference this makes. I shall try and get back to it this evening to alter the pattern. Gina, I will let you have the pattern in the original form as soon as I'm sure I can understand it!!!! Susan, I think both you and Mark were thinking along the same lines!!!!!

Edging again

Back again on the edging. I didn't get anything done on Saturday and in fact didn't even pick up a shuttle - BAD DAY!!!! My new computer was playing up so it meant taking it back to the factory settings and then re-installing Vista. Last time I did an 'upgrade' but this time a 'clean install'. The drivers got themselves in a heck of a muddle. This time everything seems to be working well, so far!!! The edging finally got picked up at eight o'clock Sunday evening and I'm still not happy with the header on it. I think it needs to be 'prettier' so perhaps more picots would soften the outline. All suggestions VERY welcome before I abandon the idea!!! Interesting progression using the continuous thread join and I'm pleased with that part. I also like the 'firmness' of it as that will make it stand up to countless amounts of washing! Anyway, here's last evening's version!!!