Baby bonnet with tatting

Now that the gift has been given I can post a better picture...

The edging round the front of the bonnet is a pattern from Mary Konior's Tatting with visual patterns book.
The butterflies (one on each side) are from a Japanese book.

The baby is only about 3 weeks old and this bonnet is for 3-6 months so it'll be a while before I see it modeled properly.

New year of tatting

It's a new year, and for me just a few months into my second year of tatting.
I'm also going to try to blog a little more often :)

December/January I was working on some tatting for a baby bonnet. I need to take a better picture before giving it to the proud new parents next weekend.

Just as I was finishing the bonnet they announced the birth of their baby girl so I started making some pink butterflies and bits as well.  And then the start of the first T.I.A.S. of the year so here is a picture of both:

Today saw part 3 of the T.I.A.S. I've also started some trimming for a victorian style bob-cap

This picture also has my first attempt at Tattered Heart by Mary Konior but I had problems with the larger rings so it hasn't worked out very well :( 

Recent tatting

I said I had done some tatting and here it is...

At the top is some Etruscan braid from a Mlle Riego book - it's also in a Mary Konior book where she gives the directions for the corner.  This is going to be the edging for a tray cloth for Victorian/Edwardian re-enactment.  It's in size 16 Puppets Eldorado thread.

In the middle is more Etruscan braid, this time in size 40 Anchor mercer. This is the piece I was tatting in public over last weekend (a bank holiday weekend) during the Victorian Weekend at Lincoln Castle.  This will probably become trimming for the cuffs of my next Edwardian-style blouse.

At the bottom is Curds and Whey from one of Mary Konior's books, again in size 40 Anchor mercer.  After the first few repeats I switched to front-side/back-side tatting and that is making it lie much flatter than the first portion.

TIAS day 4

Today brought day 5 of the TIAS - and this time I didn't have to wait until evening to do it!  Since I was working from home today due to the snow I did most of it in my lunch break and the last two chains in my afternoon short break. Today's part is the chain along the bottom edge and up the left-hand edge.Since I've been intrepidly learning new things with this TIAS I went for the Catherine Wheel join option for most of the joins except for the first 2 which are plain old lock joins. I've decided I like Catherine Wheel joins.

The TIAS is not the only tatting I'm doing at the moment - I've started on my first piece of tatting for reenactment.   This is going to be the edging for the table cloth on my little table in my tent.  It's a pattern published by Mlle Riego and was also included by Mary Konior in "Tatting in Lace".  The picture shows my "working" box which holds the screwdriver for the silent tatter shuttle, a spare bobbin - sometimes I wind 2 at a time - and a bit of paper with the instructions written in modern short notation.  The red thread is my measure for this piece - it's the length of 2 sides of the cloth with a knot marking the corner.

Forgot to mention that I added that book to my Mary Konior book collection last week - don't think it was on ebay for very long before I pounced on it.   If someone's looking for a good book to add to their collection I've just spotted a copy of "The Craft of Tatting By Bessie M. Attenborough" for under £2 (paperback). I've already got a copy and its a nice little book - it's also mentioned in the bibliography section in "Tatting in Lace".

There was a full 3 inches of snow outside this morning. People reading this from some countries won't think this is much! 
I made a Snow Mouse.

When we went to the bank at lunchtime I couldn't believe the number of drivers who hadn't bothered removing any of the snow from their roof - or even from their bonnet. I really dislike driving behind people who have their own personal snowstorm trailing behind them which is one of the reasons I chose to work from home today.  We did notice that one of the minority of snow-free cars passing by had a number plate for Poland where like most of northern-ish Europe they're a bit more used to snow than we are here.