One more

Thinking of Diane here as this one is in blue. Well, two blues, actually!!!  Now why did I write that last sentence?  It's obvious that there are two blues!!!  Old age and senility rearing it's ugly head again!

If I remember rightly this was two polyester threads.  I'm not sure I like this one as there seems to be a lack of definition in the threads.  They appear to be 'fuzzy' to me but perhaps that's cause I've got a fuzzy head!!!!  Back to the shuttles, Jane and forget this one.  

Having got my new gloves finished the weather has decided to go warmer!! Perhaps I should crochet gloves all year round to keep the weather mild!!!

Gloves finished

It's gone really cold here so I got out my scarf and gloves to wear this week. Then I remembered that I hadn't shown you the latest gloves that I made. I showed them to you when I'd started one a few weeks ago but then forgot to update you.

These are crocheted and I've deliberately not finished off the ends of the fingers as I like to use them to get money out of my purse or use my phone. Yes, I'm still playing Pokemon  Go (level 16) when I remember!!! 

Last winter I wore a knitted pair that I'd made where the fingers were knitted upwards for just a few rows. I loved them but the fingers still got cold on very cold days. This new idea may prove better but only time will tell. Anyway, saves taking them off (and losing them) when you need to get money out of your purse. 

This is a free pattern I found on the internet but, obviously, I had to translate it from American to English crochet terms.

Making up my mind

Now that's an impossible thing to do as I'm a real ditherer. I need nagging/prompting to make decisions but once I make them I act!! I really couldn't decide which colours to make the next snowflakes out of - thus the dithering.

Today I've got two more of the Snowflower pattern to show you. The green is a variegated cotton thread but the red is polyester.

You may ask 'why' or 'does it work' - mixing the two types? 

Well the answer to the first question (why) is because I'd got the green cotton thread out to work with and forgot a contrast. Rather than get up and potter back into the other room I grabbed what was sitting on the table next to me and that happened to be the polyester thread which came from Edda. 

I've not tried 'burning' the ends as recommended but automatically sewed in the final ends.  Not a problem at all!!!

Something else I did yesterday is to stop all notifications from the tatting Facebook groups. I was finding it was generating too many emails which distracted me from other things. I only really 'pop' into Facebook in the morning or when the rare email tickles my interest!!! I'd rather tat instead!!!

Another project finished

Do you remember these flowers that I made sometime ago? I asked if anybody knew what or why I'd made them? Well here's the answer!!

First picture is the back of the brooch. You'll see that I've made a circle of tatting (chains only round one tiny ring). I did two of these rounds joining the second one to the first but before I finished I inserted two plastic circles to keep the shape rigid. It's amazing what you can do with plastic milk containers!!! 

Forgot to say - I sewed a clasp to the back of one of the tatted circles before joining the second one to it. 

When everything was done I sprayed with Scotch Guard to keep the whole thing clean. Why? Well it's going to be worn on my winter coat!!!  

In fact (as of yesterday) it's now on the coat and I'm now having to wear it as it's gone very cold.

Dora's progress

More progress on the Dora Young doily on page 15.  My original post is here.

Actually this isn't hard to tat but it's hard trying to keep track of where you are!!!  I'd appreciate somebody inventing satnav for tatting but meanwhile I'll stick to my coilless safety pin and 'good old' BC3!

As I said - it's easy but it's wise to keep counting the number of picots you've got and now the number of chains too. As you can tell by progress - I'm REALLY enjoying this experience and can't wait to try another pattern from the book.  Meanwhile I've GOT to finish this one and won't allow myself to start anything else before it's done!  Well that's my story and I'm sticking to it!

An apology

I apologise to all who were upset by my blog post the other day.. I thought someone had done a similar design after they had seen mine, but I was mistaken. They had 'got there' by their own means.

I would like to point out that I was in no way accusing anybody of copyright theft, please take time to re-read my original post. 

I guess I was excited to see a pattern I recognised. The whole situation got very personal and out of hand which has been immensely hurtful to all parties and this is not good for the tatting community.

Over the weekend I seriously considered taking down my site as it would appear that the only valuable designs are those that are paid for and that free ones are under valued. I decided not to as it’s something that I enjoy doing.

I will not be publishing another design based on my original but will (in time) add a technique page showing how I added the beads to the centre of the one I did.