The squares have started

This is the progress on the new blanket which I'm making using this method.

During the search

During my search for the Coats leaflet I came across the following which I thought you might be interested in.

Please remember that this was before the internet and that I would've had to go to the bank to buy dollars and then wait anything up to three months to get these.  

So, what have I here?  I'd heard somewhere that there was a 'thing' called needle tatting so decided that I really needed to research and try it.  I had somehow found out about Ed and Selma Morin so wrote (along with bank notes) to them to buy the necessary equipment and their book (which is somewhere on my tidy bookshelves).

So, as I've mentioned in the past, I gave this new fangled idea a whirl.  I thought it was OK for yarn but was hopeless for thread so soon gave it up.  As you can probably see from the picture below - the needles in those packets don't appear to have been opened.  

I found even back then that trying to get a good tension using needles just hurt my hands too much.  Anyway, thought you'd like to see my bit of history!

Lots of leftovers

I still seem to have a lot of leftover odds and ends of yarn so I've started another of  the square blankets again.  I do like this method of joining as you knit as it means no ends to sew in or edges to sew up for that matter!!!  

I'm using the same idea as I used doing the tatted poncho in that I'm laying colour combinations together on the carpet and taking a picture so I know what goes where.  Well, that's the theory but who knows what tricks BC3 will play on me!!!!

Moaning Monday

Goodness knows how I manage to get through life with the way my brain works!!!  

Last week I wanted an 'easy to do' long term project that I could sit and do without too much thinking during the 'silly season'. 

I remembered a large doily pattern by Coats that I'd made around fifty years ago but I've no idea what happened to it - the doily, I mean.  I know my gran was impressed that I wanted to do it!!!  Anyway I'm not sure whether it lay flat or not.  I did start an even bigger one from an old House of White Birches leaflet many years after that which I know didn't lie flat and it got thrown away when it was already huge!!!  Nowadays I'd have made sure that I amended the stitch count so it wouldn't happen.

I digress and apologise.

So the search for this small Coats booklet started but it led to many things.  In the end we parted with all the cookery books we owned and other odds and ends of books too (the charity shop were VERY pleased to receive them) so now I have a huge area just for my tatting stuff.  It's truly wonderful.  

Now to the stupid part of this.  I DID find the leaflet and then realised that I'd already scanned all my Coats and Penelope booklets onto my computer!!!  Now how STOOOOOOOPID is that?

Answers on a postage stamp please!!!

Here's the doily pattern I was looking for.