The End

of the Mystery.

Here it is after I had washed it and laid it out to dry.  As it is, I did not have to block it at all.  After squeezing out the excess water, by rolling it between an absorbent towel, I just had to pull it into shape and leave it to dry.

This is with all the end trimmed off and all dry.  The measurement is 26cm across, or 10.25 inches using size 40 Lisbeth thread.

This is a close-up of a quadrant of the doily,

But the ending was not without some drama.  It took me four attempts to finally get the join of the final repeat.  I totally miss the join in the first attempt, and I joined to the wrong picot in the second attempt. At the third attempt, the joining picot ended up twisted.  I almost butchered the thread when un-tatting it after the third attempt.  Spent almost 30 minutes un-doing a lock join. Lesson learnt from this, the quality of thread is very important.  It would have broken off much earlier if I had used a 3-ply thread instead of the 6-ply Lizbeth.

I don't which is worse, butchering the thread or breaking the tip off the shuttle, as I had blogged here.  But, i managed to save the shuttle by carefully filing the broken tip.

If yo are wondering how long ago I started on this doily, this next photo gives the approximate date,

All in, I have spent more than 50 tatting hours on this Mystery Doily but it is worth every second of it, mistakes and all.