Now It Is Real

    Now this doily is real. At least to me it is. Thanks to Mandatory for finding the pattern for Mary Maynard's small doily. It did not take long to make. It does have a couple of challenges. For instance, in the last chains, it says make a ring 1-1, then chain. I just did a lock join. I like the KISS principle. (Keep It Simple, Stupid.) I think the join at the clover is an alligator join, but the instructions sound a bit confusing to me. I did the alligator join. It did require just a little blocking to make it lay flat.

All in all, I am quite happy with it. Perhaps I should teach this one at Tat Days sometime. The hairpin would be quite interesting.

Game Doily Round 3

    Round 3 is done. Easy really. The hardest part is remembering which ring I am making. I did get to one join and the thread split. Then I noticed that on top of that I had about 4 stitches too many. I got a little "perturbed" about that. I cut the thread, pulled it back through the ring to undo it, the sewed in the end. Then I joined a new thread and continued. I really don't mind joining in thread. I do a knotless join. It works for me and I like that it doesnt leave the bump.

I have round 4, the split rings, started. Shouldn't take too long. Then I will do the chains and be through. In size 20 Lizbeth, this is coming out to be about a 7" doily. I think it will go under my size 80 bobbin tree.

New Book

    I got the book! The reprint of Dora Young's "All New Knotless Tatting Designs". I ordered them from Heidi Nakayama. She was really nice to deal with and shipped them so fast. She even signed them. So nice of her to do that.
    I did buy two of them. I have a friend at work, Brandi, who learned to tat from me. She does pretty well with it and picked it up really fast. I got one of these for her. I think she will like it. Last year she made angels for the Christmas tree and this year she has been making ice drops. This book will help expand her techniques. I hope she does one from the book eventually. (She is Tattingmommy if you go to Craftree.com)

    The Tatting Corner and Handy Hands are carrying it also.

Corrected Picots

    This looks a lot better. The picots fit better. I have not blocked anything, I just finished round 2, the rings that are 4-4-4-4. Tying to the hairpin lace is a little fiddly because the loops keep getting in the way, but now it's through.
    I did have one mistake. I left a short picot off one of the small rings in the hairpin. To fix it, I remembered that picots, in the very olden days, were tied. So I added the picot to the larger ring in round two, then went back and "tied" it. It works and does not look to bad. I am not going to point it out though. I don't think it will show unless you look for it.

    Yes, I love my Pop-A-Bobbin shuttles!

A Failure

   No, I am not a failure, though sometimes I feel like it. I just mean that the attempt the last couple of days did not work. I figured the picots too long.

    You can see they are overlapping the outer rings. Not good. Do over. I have already started over. I took measurements while it was laying like this. This time, it should be a lot better.

Game Doily Progression

    I will keep a progression going on this. I want to track it. I hope it works out. I have the center done. It feels a little loose, but I have not tried to shape it. I don't think loose would hurt because of the way it is constructed with the long picots.

    On to the next round.

The Game Doily Started

    I said I was going to do it, so here we go. I want that doily from the game. It is Mary Maynard's Small Doily from a page by Georgia Seitz. It has the pattern there. I am modifying it just a bit, only size, to make it in size 20. I have worked out that the picots for the hairpin lace part should be just about one inch either side. I suppose we will find out if I am right.  I see some really good instructions, but I have a tendency to do things my way.

    So, here is a shot of the start. You have to begin with the hairpin lace. This is 1/4 the way through the hairpin lace and not taking long at all. I figure about an hour or so for the 40 rings and measured picots. I sure hope this works.

Answered - Is This Tatting?

    In short - no, it is not tatting. In long - it is probably going to be. You remember I said I was stunned a bit when I saw this. Here is the long and short of it. I think it is supposed to be tatting.
    I have a penchant for playing video games on my computer. Particularly the ones called first person shooters. There is one called Fallout 4 (you can google it to see what it looks like) that I have been playing that takes place about 200 years after the nuclear world war. You go all over this game world exploring and killing monsters. I was doing so when I entered a bombed out house and was going through it when I saw this doily on top of a cabinet in one room. 

    When I saw that, I just stopped. Who has put tatting in a video game, especially one that is a post-apocalyptic type game. I just could not believe that the game creators had done that. Not so much as it is there, but that someone knows what tatting is at that company. I have been all over several different worlds in games, but this is the first time I ever saw a tatted piece in one of them. I was just totally blown away.
    I do intend to try to make this. I like the pattern and I feel it should be brought to life out of the game.

UPDATE!! See Mandatory's comment. She found out this is a real doily and linked the pattern!
Mary Maynard's Small Doily

Is This Tatting?

    Sometimes things take a turn for the weird. Look at the pictures this time and tell me if this is a tatted doily. It sure looks like it could be. These are the best pictures of it I can get. I did try but this is it. When I saw this I was just stunned a bit. I know I could make it. Does anyone know where I found it?
    More on this tomorrow.

A Bit of History

    One of the first books I ever got was Tatting Patterns and Designs, by Gun Blomqvist and Elwy Persson. This, I find, is a staple for a lot of tatters. I have at least 3 copies of it around here, paperback and electronic. Yes, I bought the e-book. Last week I saw that Amazon had a hard copy available for under $11.00. That is cheap. I had never seen a hard copy. All I ever knew was the blue paperback.
The book was published October 1974.

    Well, I collect tatting books (approaching 200) and so I ordered it. It was listed as very good condition. It is. It still has the paper slip cover and it is not torn. the pages are all nice and no marks. The pages are starting to yellow ever so slightly. This is a really nice copy. I noticed the original price was $6.50. It is part of the slip cover just inside the front leaflet.
    What has stunned me are the photos below. I had never ever seen photos of the ladies that wrote this book. To be honest, not knowing anything about Scandinavian names, I thought Gun was a man's name. It is nice to finally put faces with the names. This book will have a place of honor in my library, right beside Mary Konior and, if I ever find an original, Dora Young.

     By the way, there are still copies of the hardback available on Amazon.