Took a break

I took a break from tatting to do other things. Specifically, I went for a week's holiday in Perth, Australia.
Here are some photos of my time spent in Perth and places around it.

View of the city taken fom the air as the plane approaches to land.

I am not a shopping person, so while the rest of the group went to look at the shops, my sister and I took a stroll in the Stirling Gardens.

I wish I could have spen more time along the narrow roads of Freemantle and in the quaint little shops, but here is the customary post outside the Freemantle Markets.  Another sister photo-bombed me here but she is looking so cute doing it, I let her be.

The Pinnacles is one place that I would highly recommend to anyone visiting Perth.  It is worth the 2hr 45min drive up, and there are many other interesting places that you can stop at along the way. 

The obligatory photo at Kings Park for an expansive view of Perth city and of the ocean.

On our last day, before leaving for the airport, we stopped to see the tulips at Araluen Botanic Park.  It was still very early spring/late winter and we are not sure if the tulips have bloomed. We were rewarded with some gorgeous flowers in various colour.  This photo is my favorite from the ones that I took.

One last photo at Araluen, showing the stream in the background.

Oh, also tasted the apple strudel touted as the best apple strudel in Australia. That went too fast, no one remembers to take a photo of it, he he he.

Back home, I continued with Round VI of the JS mammoth doily.  I had finished half-way of the round before the break.

Here is Round VI, done

I came back from the holidays in time for the closing ceremony of the Rio Olympics. Wasn't it wonderful that they had included a tribute to lacemakers in the ceremony?

Most of my crochets had been with thread, hence all my hooks are small-sized ones that I also use for making joins in tatting.  But I have some stash of yarns from long ago that I wanted to use up.  Bought a pack of larger sizes of hooks and started on this. It may be a scarf, or something else. I have not decided.

Round V

I was so happy to come to the end of Round V.  So happy, in fact that I made a small mistake. I forgot to tat over tail of the thread at the beginning of the last motif.

It may seem strange that I have ends to hide at the beginning since I am using only white throughout hence I could easily start with CTM.

Okay, let me explain. Maybe someone may find this logical or useful.

I am using two shuttles and I am not measuring the thread for each motif of Round V.  I use whatever balance in the shuttle to continue for the next motif.
For each motif of Round V, I did start with a CTM every time but only at the first ring of the clover. I just pulled enough thread from one shuttle and finger-tatted the first ring. Then I added thread from the other shuttle for the next ring of the clover, tatting over the tail of the thread of the first ring. I should have tatted over the thread end of the second ring in the third ring, but I forgot to do that, and that end is only an inch long.

So, it is not technically a mistake but more of an inconvenience.  I almost always sew in my ends.  In this case, there was a lot of threading and re-threading of that one inch long thread to finish off this round.
Oh, I have to say that I have been good and sewing in the ends of the 12 motifs, doing it straightaway after each motif is done.

And here is the full photo as at Round V.

It is now about 27cm wide or 10.5 inches.

Off to Round VI!

Slight Change in Round V

So, I have completed Round IV of JS Model 13 doily, It seems to lay out quite well right now.

I was having slight difficulty in reading the stitch count for Round V because the numbers are rather small in some parts.  I had an idea to look at JS other patterns from his book because I noticed that he liked to repeat some of his motifs in different doily/mat designs.  True enough, the first six rounds of this doily is very like Doily IV on page 56 in his book Tatting Theory and Patterns.

I was also aware, from the discussion thread in Craftree, that there may be errors or misprints of the chart for Round V, so I was very cautious as I began to tat this, more so with my plan to reduce the number of free picots in some of the rings. But, I think I have figured it out. A marked difference are as pointed out by the red arrows in the photo below.

I made a slight change in the shape of the rings joined to Round IV.
My stand here is, any change done consistently throughout becomes a design variation. In this case, the change is too minimal to alter the big picture and that is how I will continue for this round.

JS Doiy Model 13 Round 3 Completed

But not without a slight hiccup just before the end.

So, as in the previous post, I started over Round 3 because I noticed a mistake right at the beginning of the round.  The re-worked round looks much better.

As it seems to happen often to me, I ran out of the shuttle thread real close to the end,

There was only 5 inches of thread left for two rings and two chains.  I could use the SLT at this point and continue tatting but it would distort the shape at the base of the trefoil. So, I loaded the shuttle and finished the round.

After so many years of tatting, I don't particularly pay special attention to the amount of thread needed for any project.  I just loaded the shuttles and start tatting.  For a large project such as this JS doily, you can't escape running out of shuttle/ball thread.

But, it does help a lot to know the different methods of adding new thread.  I think knowing the techniques of adding new thread is one of the basic skills that every tatter should know. There are many tutorials available online showing the various method.
I wrote a tutorial on the knotless method in my How-To page here,
Jane Eborall included one in her techniques page as well.
Karen Cabrera shared a video tutorial of another method of adding thread.

Tatting is suppose to be enjoyed and running out of thread is not going to spoil that for me.

Round 3 and 1st mistake made

I started on Round 3 of the Model 13 Doily and made my first mistake.

There was something wrong in the rings of Round 3 as I looked at them. I looked at the pattern a few times and was very sure they were all correct, until I noticed that the rings at the base of the trefoil has an additional picot and three extra doublestitches.

I could undo all the stitches if I want to, seeing that I am still at the beginning of the round, but I decided to cut it off and start anew.

Having lots of this particular thread is another convincing factor to cut off, :)

The 'after' looks much better to me.

I am not very fond of picots with a single ds in between.  Somehow the picots get squashed when I do it like that. That is why I have altered some of the rings to have two doublestitches between picots, while still keeping to the same total number of stitches in each element.

Short Update

I should be sewing so this is a short one.

Just completed Round 2 of JS Monsterpiece.  There a very slight cupping which I think will flatten with pressing.  I was making small joining picots because I think that was how Jan Stawasz made his from photos in his two books.  For the next round onwards, I may make make the picots slightly bigger. I have also removed/rearranged some of the decorative picots for this project.

Seven more repeats to go for this crochet doily.  

The pattern for this doily in in Moje Robotke Nr 7 2009, for anyone who is interested in this.

One sewing project done, except for attaching buttons on the cuffs.

Another one is waiting at the sewing machine.

So, bye for now.

Jumping in with Eyes Wide Open

Yes, open-eyed, looking at all the beautiful Monsterpiece Doily, how could I not jump in!

I have been putting this off for so long. When Ginny Weathers showed her almost done Doily in Facebook recently, I finally decided I have to start on it.  If I am going to take a year or more to work on this Jan Stawasz doily, I might as well get cracking.  The longer I delay, the longer it will take to get done.
Hmm ... can you get my logic?

It was a toss up between a size 20 thread or at the other end a size 80. Common sense prevailed and I chose size 20 because I have already have lots of that in one colour, which happens to be white. No problems with matching the colours here.  This thread is German Hakelgarn, a soft 6-ply thread which is one of my favourite to tat with.

Oh well, just have to make sure that I wash my hands each time I want to work on it. I am not going to think any farther about what shade it will be a year from now, ha ha ha...

I should be doing a lot of something else around this time.  We are already half-way into Ramadhan and I have not sewn my garments for the celebratory 'Eid festivities.  Boxes of stuff from the re-painting of the house are not totally cleared and I have yet to think of the food to prepare for 'Eid.

Instead, if not tatting, I am doing this,

This crochet piece is from another Moje Robotki magazine (not the same as the one that has the Monsterpiece Doily in it)  This is crocheted with Omega thread size 50.

Oh, how wish tatting can be work up as quickly as crochet.
Okay, off to ponder what I should really be doing.

Oh, almost forgot ... I finished a UFO as well. A small doily, 19cm in diameter.

Thread is Milford mercer size 20.