double duty due to delegated dusting

No, I am not trying to twist your tongue; tongues can be very slippery.

This is a true story. It all started because the duty of dusting the house has been delegated to my dear husband (phew, I hate dusting). Read on to find out more ...

Last year, while tatting the Wiosna, I was distracted by Vinnie’s doily. Elegant pattern & tatting, one-pass design, with just that hint of dimensionality that I adore.

Spring Doily *

Designer : Vinnie (Vinita Sharma)

I followed the pattern on her blog (there are 2 versions); later found that it is also available as a pdf download from Georgia’ssite  

TRIAL I    (May 24, 2015)

Started with size 20 shaded green, but abandoned after one bobbin ran out of thread. It was too fiddly, I didn’t like the colour, & the chains were ugh !. However, it helped to orient my head to the pattern & memorize it. Hmmm, seems I didn’t take a pic.

TRIAL II   (May 24-25, 2015)

Started afresh with 2 colours this time.

Threads & sizes :

~ 5” in size 20 Anchor Mercer Art 4054. yellow – 0293; green – 0239.

Techniques Adopted :

• directional or fs/bs tatting,
• down join,
• Reverse join (instead of SLT),
• SCMR with thrown central ring (hence a single marker was required)

Long Chains needed to be steadied, especially when part of it was folded.

Chain tension is crucial. I snugged the chain stitches too tightly.

This was the first time I had blocked with pins. Since it was a small piece, I used a hot pad. In hindsight, the quilted surface could not have helped & I should've dampened the lace more. But it was better than an unblocked piece & I was okay with it. 

This coaster was placed under the crystal candle-stand on the dining table & soon I noticed that the outer chains ruffled upwards !!! What happened ?! Was my chain tension so tight ?

Overall, it still looked good – like a green wave around the crystal – nice 3D effect ! But tatting-wise it made me restless & I started another one….

TRIAL III  (July 30, 2015)

I wanted to see whether my long chain tension & 'twist' could be improved.

In order to compare oranges with oranges, same threads & techniques were used

TIP : To place marker (paper clip) : Pull a loop of the core thread.. Make the first DS. Then insert marker. For me, this works out neater, less fiddly, and easier to join with later.

I guess it did turn out neater, with more even chains. 

Practice does help, though I still need more ;-D

It is more compact, making the size a tad smaller. Here are the two together ....

new over the old , and

side by side. The new & the old are easily identifiable.

One minor point about pattern : Ch20 is mentioned at both ends of the repeat (within asterisks). It should be made only once. Hence the asterisk should be shifted at one end.

When this new one was blocked & placed in the same way as the older one, the SAME thing happened – it formed waves !!!!

Why ?! What was I doing wrong ? Or was the candle stand too heavy ? No, I have paced other coasters under it .

I kept close vigil & caught the culprit red-handed. Yup, my dear husband was not lifting the coaster & stand while dusting the surface, thus causing the lace to ruffle up. Oh dear . This is what comes of delegation.

Are you wondering whether I took back the dusting chore from him ? Nyah. Trained him a bit better, that’s all :-D   Happy continuation :-)))   

Vinnie has some lovely interesting & innovative pieces , including free patterns, on her blog (but the esnips links don’t work any more). Unfortunately, she has stopped blogging... there is a lot of inspiration & ideas to be gained there.

many thanks to Vinnie for doubling the pleasure

happy tatting :-)