Tuesday, 28 February 2012


The book I bought myself with my birthday money finally arrived. 



It is a second hand copy and I have to admit I don’t think it is worth what I paid for it.  I missed out on a copy that was cheaper and instead of waiting to see if another cheap copy became available I just went ahead and bought the next available one which was about £20 more.

On a positive note there are patterns with lots of new techniques I have never tried before.  The first item I am going to make will be the choker that’s illustrated on the front cover.  Only thing is it doesn’t specify what size of brass rings to use.  The thread is size 20 so if anyone has any idea then please let me know!

The baby bonnet cap is frustrating me at the moment.  I did 4 heart medallions on for the 7th row and decided that I attached the first one to the wrong picot and didn’t make the joining picots long enough what distorted the shape of it so this morning before I left for work I cut out the medallions and I’m going to start again tonight.  Longer picots seem to be tricky for me to do.  Looking at the old photo below it looks like picots used to be made very long and mine ended up about half the length of what these look like.



I think if anyone else what’s to do this pattern, I will re-write the instructions and have illustrations because some of the instructions are a little too vague with only one unclear picture of the finished piece, especially when the tricky bits are all hidden at the base of the bonnet.  Hopefully tonight’s tatting will be a lot more successful. 

While I was tatting away in vain last night we were watching a program called Ice Dogs.  Basically its a dcumentary about a guy trying to dog sled from Siberia throught the Bering Strait to Alaska.  I thought the guy was a bit of a tool and had no idea about sled dogs but my boy Nao seemed to enjoy it...



Until next time... Cat x

3 comments:

  1. Oh, I've got that book and I too was disappointed in it. Mainly as I've got all the patterns in their original old 'form'. I think a lot are in the public domain but Judith's done a good job modernising them. I should've read up about it before I bought it - silly me. Must add that I love Judith's other book about beads in tatting. You could contact her for help - I believe she's Australian and she's active online too. Email me privately (address is in my profile) if you want more help.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I hope you enjoy your book, even a second hand book these days costs a lot of money,
    I have not done the bonnet pattern it looks quite hard, I hope you manage to get it sorted as it looks very pretty.
    Margaret

    ReplyDelete
  3. It's a really good book, although a shame you had to pay so much for it! You may be interested to know that Judith Connors runs the wonderful Queensland Tatters group here in Brisbane - she is a fount of knowledge and happy to teach us,and to share everything she knows.

    ReplyDelete