Beads on a string

So, I wanted to clean my craft area and get rid of some of the clutter. .... and, you can guess what happened.

I found this string of beads inside one of the many boxes.

I just had to do something with it before throwing it out. So, I made this,

It started to get interesting and I tatted a few more,

The above were tatted with shuttle and ball, except for the bottom-most, which was with shuttle only.

Then I continued some more and tried with two shuttles, with the result you can see below,

There is a lot more that can be done with this string of beads.

What? ... The clean-up?  ... Did I say I wanted to clean-up the craft area?

Now, when did I say that?

Updated
Here is another photo before I close this topic. Tatted a couple of cloverleaves to the sample (with two shuttles).

There should be enough sample for you to try experimenting on your own.

There were requests for patterns, here and also on my Facebook page.  Not sure how to prepare patterns for these because the stitch count will depend on the size of the strung beads. Some of the techniques that I have used for this experiment, besides the double-stitch and regular join, is the crocodile join, roll join and double-stitch on split chains.

Hearts All Done

Finally.

A number of tatters have asked for the pattern when I posted my progress on my FB page.
The pattern for the doily is from the Land of Laces blog.  It was published bt the blog author in several parts.  You may have to scroll down several pages to get the pattern since it was published a while back.

The thread that I used for my doily is DMC perle cotton no.12.  Not really a fan of perle for tatting but I had to try it at least once to find out how it feels.  Well, still not a fan.  The thread fuzzes up easily, understandable since it is loose twist 2-ply.  The picots splits, which made it harder to join, especially if the picots are small.  May not consider using it again for future projects.

Photo on the grid mat to show the actual size after blocking

On white, to show the colors of thread used.

Close-up of the hearts

Tatting and sewing

I don't know if there is a name for this doily, so I have been calling it the Hearts doily. it is from the Land of Laces blog,  The penultimate round was taking ages but finally finished all 20 repeats of it.

The lighting is not very good in this photo, sorry

The final round is actually the 2nd last round which joins the last round to the rest of the doily. This should work up quickly enough since it is all chains except for a tiny ring for each repeat, but it is rather fiddly. I still have loads of ends to hide.  I still have the bad habit of not hiding ends immediately after each round - very bad habit. This doily will need to be blocked later.

I will be very happy when this is done and over with.
I am using perle cotton no 12 to tat this, and I don't plan to use any perle again for any of my tatting, Just don't like the feel of it on my fingers, though the final result does look rather pretty.

Not much tatting done because I have been sewing prayer cloaks. These are like what I wore in my photo in front of the Kaabah in the previous post. Here it is again to refresh, My sister-in-law had asked me to sew them for her.

I know it is not tatted edgings, but it will take ages for me to tat 4m of lace multiply by three because I sewed three pieces of the cloaks.

The left-over fabric was sewn into drawstring bag to store the cloaks when travelling.

A few friends have asked me to teach them how to sew these cloaks as well as how to sew garments. So, I am doing that as well.

And that is how I spent my time these past months.

Hi! Hello! Yoo Whoo!

Can't believe that I went for almost four months without blogging!

So, what did I do during my absence? Actually, I did not totally disappear. I updated my Facebook page a few times ....

Here are a few photos about tatting,

Almost there with the doily from the tatted of lace blog which I started in Dec 2015.

Decided to tat something for a few friends and made a bookmark end,

and ended up with four pieces.

Taught tatting at Spotlight to eager students. They were really good at it and caught the flip very quickly 

On a more personal note, I made another pilgrimage to Makkah and Madinah in late November 2015.

A panoramic view of the courtyard Masjid Nabawi in Madinah.  What appear like giant mushrooms are actual huge umbrellas that open up to shade the pilgrims during the day. This photo was taken early in the morning; that tiny white dot in the upper right is the full moon.

A 180 deg view of the inside of  Masjidil Haram in Makkah

To Change or not to Change

This 

started as a re-work of this,

but, as it often happens, the mind wonders.

I have some issues with the (lower) pink doily, so I decided to re-work it. It is difficult to try and stick to the original design plan and it turned into the upper design.  I may decide to come back to the pink at some point.

Other tatting updates.
I have finished the Spring 2015 doily.

Size 40 milford in two shades, 16 inches wide.

Tatted a bookmark for a friend who wants to start tatting again,

Pattern by Robin Perfetti from the blog Tating by the Bay

I sewed a few fabrc bookmarks as part of a Crafting for Charity event by the Arts & Craft Guild, KL and Selangor. These were later finished with button embellishments but I forgot to take any photo with the buttons on.

I think this about sums up what I have been doing the past few months.

p.s. the title of the blog refers to the re-working of the pink doily.

p.p.s Oh, my birthday was at the end of August and I treated myself to these goodies.

Spring, Summer and now Autumn is coming

and I have not fnished my Renulek's Spring 2015 Doily. Here is a report of my progress so far.

After having issues with the small flowers, as in the last post, I snipped off that round and started over and the result is much better. Rounds 6 and 7 went smoothly.

And just when I thought Round 8 was going to be a breeze .....

Opened up the group of rings and chains and re-tatted - took me two days, in between doing other things. Now, this is what I learned from this episode.
If your first thought was to snip the mistake off, do it immediately. Don't even think about opening the stitches because if you do, you will have to do them all. Once you start un-doing even one ring, you'll keep telling yourself "I'll do one more", and by the time you decided that cutting off is the better option, there will be only a couple more left to do. By then you'll be thinking, might as well do them all! Have you had that feeling before?

Anyway, here is it is after Round 9, which was without any mistakes, Yippeee!

This doily will definitely need blocking when done. Notice how the rings in Round 8 have a slant in them.

Now, I tried something slightly different for Round 10, which you can see here,

I decided to alternate the curve of the chains between the rings. Not sure of the end result but I think it will turn out okay.

and next, the happy-dance news.

Remember this post about my yard sale find? When I was at the yard sale, the homeowner mentioned that she came across a few shuttles while sorting out her late mother's things but can't find them. She promised to call me when she comes across them again. I was not placing mcuh hope that she'd remember.

True to her words, she called me last week to tell me that the shuttles are found and would I like to come and pick them up? Would I? Would I? That needs no answer. 

I picked up them up the next day and was grinning ear-to-ear when I saw the shuttles. Wouldn't you too, when you see these?

Now I have three of them.  The first was my mother-in-law's that surfaced during packing when she had to move house. Growing up, I learned tatting using this type of shuttles but that was more than 40 yearas ago and have lost them somewhere.

It was a long break .....

... from blogging.

We have just concluded our fasting during the month of Ramadhan.  I was keeping low from any blogging activities during that period but managed to do some tatting.  Her are some of what I have finished or in the progress of tatting.

The doily in from the Needlework magazine was blocked and slightly pressed,

I resumed tatting Renulek's 2015 Spring Doily. I stopped at round 5, where the small individual flowers are.  I was very unhappy with how the flowers are turning out, stopped and worked on the doily above.

This photo shows clearly what I am having probems with.  The flowers were twisting all over and looks horrible.  I made a few and joined the next round to it, but it did not get any better,

  

So, I snipped that part off and started on the small flowers again. This time, I added tiny picots after two double stitches and join the rings together.  They stayed flat this way and I am much happier. You can compare it to the twisted flower in this photo (below).

 

I am now at Round 7 and I just want to finish this as soon as possible so that I can begin on this doily from Land of Laces blog.  Please follow the link to view it.  I am not posting the photo here because it is not my photo to share.