A Tragic End

I could hardly believe my eyes… as I got closer to the last repeat of the Butterfly Doily - the one that's been more than 2½ years in the making! - I realised, with horror, that it wouldn't fit!  Although everything was fine all the way through,  there must have been some discrepancy somewhere as the last butterfly wouldn't fit.  I could have cried.  Now, normally I would undo and fix but NOT THIS TIME!  This has not been my favourite tat by a long way but I just had to complete it once I got far enough into it.  The circumference on the last round is about 96 inches!!  That's a lot of tatting, and I had to refill my shuttles frequently.  I have no idea where I might have missed something along the way so that the last round wouldn't work out.  I knew though, that if I had to un-do and re-do anything on this particular piece, it would probably never get completed again.  I've just not enjoyed it enough.

So I made it fit.

Actually I could fit the last butterfly but what I was short of was a ring below to attach the second half of it.  I'm afraid in this case, I improvised and changed the bottom part slightly to make it fit in what I hope is a not-too-obvious manner.  If you examine the whole edge closely, you'll see it but I think at a glance, it's not glaringly obvious.  Phew!

Ok, enough of an introduction, here it is:

and here with a shuttle

for size reference

I couldn't remember how many balls of Lizbeth I used…

so I weighed my doily:  88 grams

(not much weight for all that work!)

so that 3½ balls of Lizbeth Mocha Light.

I'm certainly pleased I finally got to the end (even if not perfectly)

If just for that reason, I'm going to celebrate.

I even widened the columns of my blog for this post

so I could have one larger image of the completed piece.

It does look rather nice on this last photo.

Yes, you're right, my title was a tad over the top (I was just having a laugh and being a bit of drama queen!), obviously, it's not that tragic and I have a large piece of lace to show for but I wouldn't recommend this particular design for anyone else to tat.  After the second round of butterflies, I wasn't really enjoying myself and all those long chains kept misbehaving and needed a lot of coaxing into place.  I debated when I got to the last round whether I needed to change the stitch count slightly to try to get it to frill less.  In the end I went with what was written but in spite of all my efforts, it still doesn't lie flat properly, which is a shame… and then to get to the last butterfly and find that I couldn't attach that last chain…

Anyway, enough about it.  Thank you so much for cheering me along.  Your words of encouragement always mean a lot to me.  At last, it's done.  Dusted.  Time to move on.  Definitely happy about that.  :-)

Best wishes,
Frivole

38 Down, 18 To Go!

I am pleased to have finally got around to picking this up again.  It was a shame to have done all that work on it and then to leave it abandoned for so long…

If I'm honest, it's not my favourite design which probably explains why I didn't rush to complete it.  There are LOTS of chains and tiny rings which means that it has a tendency to "misbehave".  I've tried to press it as I went to keep it in shape but I can see it will be a nightmare to wash!

Also, if it was me, I would have made the butterfly motif with just two little rings at the top rather than three.  I know it's a stylised butterfly but it would have looked more "butterflyish" with either two small rings (for the tip of antennae) or one small ring with long picots (for a head with antennae).  Don't you think?

Still, I can finally see the end in sight of this really long-term project (I can't find the original post at the moment but I think I started this - I'm embarrassed to say! - two years ago?)  I now have 38 of the last round butterflies completed and 18 more to go.


Best wishes,
Frivole

Last Round! - Butterfly Doily

I can hardly believe it but I've finally made it to the last round of the Butterfly Doily!  

Here are the first three butterflies of the 18th and last round...

only 53 more to go!!

Best wishes,

Frivole

Penultimate Round!

I'm getting there!  I was travelling again this weekend so the butterfly doily accompanied me.  I completed the last few repeats of the "long chains" row and have started on the "frilly split rings" row.

I do love working on larger pieces like this.  It gives me great satisfaction though I couldn't tell you exactly why.  I like feeling the weight of all that lace and seeing it draped across my lap as I work... 

Best wishes,

Frivole

Yet More Butterfly... Ornamental Mat?

Still looking for another word for "doily" - anyone has suggestions?

Travelling means lots of time sitting on airplanes or waiting in airports.... which means.... tatting time!  I managed to just about complete the next two rounds of my butterfly table decoration (only a few repeats left on this row).  It now measures 21.5 inches across.  There are two rows left.  This piece was the only tatting I took with me.

Here it is, on my ironing board.

The last row was another with long chains

which unfortunately need pressing into place

to get them to behave!

Ironing it also got me to notice that I'd made a small mistake on the previous row!  Oh Dear.  But there will be no cutting and repairing I'm afraid, those rounds are just too long to remake!  The mistake will remain and become part of the "personality" of the piece I've decided.

Best wishes,
Joëlle

Engineering Improvements & Butterfly Doily

Still happy with my home-made swift and how much quicker I can now wind my HDTs, I did make a small improvement to the design though.

I wanted my swift to come apart so it wouldn't take too much space and I could store it away easily.  So I wanted the two blades to stay as two parts and I had just pinned them together when in use.  Today, I used my swift again and thought I could improve...  I added some pieces of cardboard so that the top blade can now slot down into the bottom blade.

I'm happy now.

Works well and stores away neatly.

And an update on the butterfly doily.  Inspired by Fox's perseverance with her own large project, I am now working on row 14 which is lots of small split rings so it's a bit slow-going.  The doily now measures 19 inches across (or 48cm).  There are 4 more rows left after this one.  I only work on this project here and there, not continuously,  so it may be a while yet before it is finished!

The next round is also lots of small split rings and the doily is now so large that it does take a long time to go all the way around!  And it's starting to frill at the edges again so it will need a bit of pressing soon.  I have to admit that I don't like tatting designs that require a lot of coaxing into place like that!  The long chains are troublesome because they need to be flattened into a sharper arch than would be naturally achieved.  Not one I'm going to want to be washing too often - too much work to iron it flat again afterwards!

Best wishes,

Frivole

Butterfly Doily Progress

I've been making progress on this... slowly but surely.  The second butterfly round (with 28 butterfly repeats) took me a while to complete.  And it's not a pattern to tat when you're distracted, I've had to do more un-tatting than I care for (which is NONE really! :-)

I was tempted to change the next round because I feel that the following round (which I'm most of the way through) and which is the same as the round after the first butterfly row detracts from the butterflies in my opinion.  Those long looped chains make them loose their definition - do you know what I mean?  I thought about repeating the same round as below the butterflies instead, thinking this would "frame" them better... maybe?  But then I thought it might mean I would have to change all the other rows so then I wasn't so sure I wanted to tackle such a challenge just now.

The only good thing is that if I decide to do the largest doily, it will end on a butterfly row (as it does now, temporarily).  This doily is now larger than my largest doily so far which was one of the two Jan Stawasz doilies I've completed.  

We like?

A few more rows to go!

Best wishes,