The Wedding

2017 has been a rather exciting year so far for me.  I got to travel twice, to Japan (as I had blogged about earlier) and then to Nordic countries during July. Photos of my Nordic travel will be in another post.

To top it up, my daughter was married in October.  Following are some photos of the event.

Walking into the reception hall.
The marriage solemnisation was conducted earlier in the day.

Seated on the wedding dais

'Bunga telur' - customary at Malay weddings

All in the family

Beautiful friends came to share the joy

More beautiful friends who helped with the preparation

Friends who go back more than 45 years, still looking pretty as ever.
The one on the right was my tatting buddy when we were 10yo.

A close-up of the flower stalks that made up the 'bunga telur'

The 'bunga telur' is customary to have for weddings in Malaysia as a way of wishing a full wedded life for the couple blessed with many children. Literally translated, 'bunga telur' means 'flower (bunga) egg (telur)' or a flower with an egg attached to it.  Traditionally, hard-boiled eggs are used encased in netted pouches and attached to a flower stalk. The flowers are usually made of fabric/paper/plastic.

I decided to be different and asked a friend who makes soap to make some egg-shaped soaps.  These are the blue ones that you can see in the past photo above.  Instead of netting, I tatted the egg pouches used to hold the eggs. Well, what can you expect from a tatter!

It took me about seven months to that 150 pieces of the egg pouches. I tatted when I went to Japan, and when I was in Norway, Sweden and Finland. I only did the tatting pouches while the flowers, which are made of crepe paper, were ordered earlier because paper craft is beyond me.

All things done, it was a beautiful reception and everyone appears to be having a very good time.

Doublestitch brush

As most may know, I like to design my own tatting patterns.  You may see these patterns under the respective tabs in this blog. Sometimes I write the patterns in full and publish them together with charts, sometimes they are only in chart form.  Personally, I prefer charts to fully written pattern as I am more of a visual person and can grasp things quicker when I see a chart or a diagram or a tabulation in the discussion.

I have just finished a major tatting project and have some time at hand, at least before I am tempted to pick up the Monster doily again after putting it away for the recently completed project.

I draw my tatting chart/diagram using the computer software Serif Draw+ X5.  There is a later version but I don't really feel the need to change this to the newer version.

Anyway, this software has a 'brush' feature where you can draw lines or outline of shapes in different style/pattern. Here is  sample of embroidery stitches available with the software,

But, there is none for the doublestitches in tatting! So, I experimented with creating my own brush and this is what I managed to do.

This is how it looks as a flower.  This flower is drawn using the quick shape feature of the software.

Obviously, there are still lots of tweaking to do. In fact, I am not totally sure if this will come handy for my charts because of the different stitch counts in the different elements of the pattern.

Still, I find this kind of interesting considering that I am not a trained designer and learn as I go on how to use this software.

Oh, you are waiting to see a photo of the major tatting project!
That will be a later post, sorry .......

Coquille

No excuses for being silent for so long. Sorry.

Well, the last post was about my trip to Japan.  Since then, I have been to Norway, Sweden and Finland spending a good two weeks savoring the breath-taking views of the fjords, glaciers and  learning the histories of the respective countries. Tavelled by bus, train, plane and took the cruise ship across the Baltic Sea, where I had a wonderful view of the sunrise.

But, this post is not about the trip.

August is a special month for me and I want to share it with all my readers and followers.

This doily was designed in 2014 and I was keeping it for a good time to share it, .... and it slipped my mind until now.  I wrote a post about this doily asking for suggestion to name it. Kathy Nicklewicz suggested the name "Coquille". It is short and simple, which I like very much, hence the name. Thank you Kathy.

And the good news is I am sharing this pattern for free.
You can download this from Google drive through this link,
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bz--YEf52NIRTkEwblhIbnBZTmM/view?usp=sharing

Please, please, this is a free pattern.
You do not have to pay for it. 
There have been many posts about certain people taking free patterns and selling them.  I don't know which is worse, selling free patterns or sharing copyrighted patterns for free. Feels like it is stealing either way.

oops .. sorry ... venting a bit ....

Anyway,  you can sell anything that you make from this pattern, if you wish.

This is my first time sharing anything through Google Drive, so they may be hiccups along the way. If so, Please let me know and I will make corrections if I can. When it comes to computers,, I am not really tech-savvy, actually.

Enjoy!