Tea Pot and Knitting

I finally got around to purchasing Martha Ess's Tea is for Tatting book.  I had seen many examples of her pretty teapots on various blogs and kept telling myself I'd get her book some day.  Well the day is now!

Here is the first one I've tried:

The thread is Karey Solomon's Upper Atmosphere.

Cool weather is upon us.  This means it's time to get the knitting out.  Last winter I only got so far as casting on and knitting just a few rows of my next knitting project which is something I had wanted to knit for a loooooooong time.  It is Alice Starmore's Flora jacket.  Every time I saw a photo of this jacket, I thought I wanted to knit it someday.  Last year, I finally treated myself and bought the wools.  

Now I shall be torn between tatting and knitting!  But aren't the colours looking amazing?  I just had to show you.

And for some reason, the search bar tool on my blog wasn't working anymore... every time I tried to search for something (I know should be there!), it came up with "no results found".  Very frustrating. So I searched on the web, and replaced the widget with a html/javascript code.  It works.  So if you tried searching my blog before and got no results, it should work now.

Best wishes,

Pumpkin

It's October.  Time for harvest, colourful leaves, Halloween and... pumpkins!  I love pumpkins.  I like the way they look and I like the way they taste!

Here is one very pretty teapot pumpkin conceived by Martha Ess and which she generously shares on her blog.

My only contribution to this great pattern was to add a couple of tendrils.

I imagine this pattern was meant to lie flat.  I have to admit that mine cupped a lot.  I debated whether to press it flat but then opted against it.  So this is a lovely three-dimensional pumpkin.  In fact my young son thought I should tat another half and make it completely round.  I had no brown so used black for the tail and the beautiful Autumn Spice by Lizbeth for the pumpkin itself.  The spout and handle are done in Lizbeth Evergreen Dark.

Ooh, it will soon be time to carve some.  The children (and I!) love doing that.

Best wishes,

I think I'll Stop Here...

For now.  I've been carrying this project around for what seems like ages.  It all started here last summer.  And was mentioned here too.  This project was my "in the background" project.  It's the one that lived in my car and got worked on when I wasn't doing anything more pressing (the stuff you were seeing on the blog) and whenever I was in the car and had to wait, out it would come and I would work on it a little bit more.

Motif no.22 of 25-motif challenge

This currently measures 18in x 13in.
It was tatted in DMC Babylo no. 20

I still love the look of the motif and may work on it some more at some point in the future.  I may make a border for it...  Maybe I'd like to make a bigger square out of it...  I don't know.  But for now I think it's time to put it away for a while.  Or rather I won't put it away but use it and enjoy it as is for the moment until I'm inspired anew.  I love the colour of the thread and have enjoyed working on this.  But there are a lot of tiny rings and short chains which mean a lot of flipping the work back and forth which is fiddly when working on a bigger piece and you are joining the motifs.

This design comes from the book "Tatting Patterns" from Workbasket Magazine

and here is where you can find a bit more info about it.

I wish you all a...

See you soon.

Best wishes,

Daisy Heart - One Last Time!

As discussed, I added another row of chains around the Daisy Heart as I felt the flowers were quite bold and required a stronger outline, in my opinion.  As Gina said, I would have made the first row of chains without picots but I didn't want to redo the whole thing so I just carried on adding the last row.  I'm happy with that.

On another note, I love getting things in the post - don't you?  So yesterday I had a nice envelope arrive from Canada and it was from Fox.  In it there was a card and also this lovely bookmark:

Thank you Fox!

This bookmark will be going in my holiday book.

This is an interesting pattern which has pretty hearts in it.  Because Fox used two colours in a particular way, you can't see them so well but I think it would look really nice with the colours used differently to highlight the hearts - can you see them?  We had a thread about a similar pattern at In Tatters not too long ago.  Fox often uses beads on joining picots and I particularly like the little silver ones in this.

Best wishes,

Daisy Heart - Take Two

For Suztats and Happy Bluebird, here you go:

And I did it right this second time around

with 8 petals as per the pattern.

Looking at it now, I think it would look nice with another row of rings

around the outside for a stronger outline...

What do you think?

Best wishes,

Daisy Heart

I liked this motif (blue square motif) so much that I decided to get the book which I was luckily able to find second-hand on Amazon.  I have carried on with the blue motif and made many more since the last photo.  But in the small book, there was also this Daisy Heart which appealed to me:

Daisy Heart tatted in Lizbeth 20, "Pink Parade"

I only realised after I had completed the two-daisy center that I had missed a petal on the flowers - there should be 8 petals on each and I only have 7.  But strangely, the whole thing worked out anyway and it still looks like the picture in the book so I'm not sure where I would have squeezed in the other petal!

I think this would also look nice with the flowers in one colour, the leaves and stems in another and the surround in another.  What do you think?

This is the book that the patterns came from.  

It is a reprint of patterns from Workbasket magazine.

Edit added 25.09.11

I have just found out that this lovely heart

was actually designed by Martha Ess

for Workbasket

Best wishes,