Doily with an Antique Motif

I mentioned last week that I have been working on a doily based on an old pattern. I’m finally done! There was a lot of mind changing and retro tatting due to mistakes as well, but finally, finally it’s done! I’m calling this #12 in my 25 Motif Challenge – I did make 13 of the medallions for it!
This doily is 8 x 8 inches (about 20 cm) made with DMC Cebelia size 30 in ecru. The large medallion is a pattern from Priscilla Tatting Book No. 1, copyright 1909. The way patterns were written back then makes it a lot harder for me to decipher than the way many patterns are written today, so at first I just used the picture as a pattern, then I read through the written text. And, yes, this pattern uses two shuttles (“For convenience’ sake call one shuttle A and the other B” page 5, Pris. Tatting Book No. 1). I didn’t follow it quite like it was written as I climbed out of the center by a picot and went on to the next round without a cut and tie and used size 30 thread instead of the specified size 50. As this medallion has long picots and I was going to be making quite a few of them I made myself a set of picot gauges from a plastic lid, which helped a lot after I got used to using them.

Another way I didn’t follow the pattern was not using the size 150 thread to go around each of the medallions. According to the pattern you should make all your medallions and go around each of them with the small thread, not joining them to each other yet. You then place them all on a piece of material in the order you want them, THEN you stitch them together. You also use ‘simple rings’ (which are the same as the center of the medallions) between the medallions, which you stitch in at this time, too. Okay, I wanted an old fashioned looking doily, but I didn’t really want to go to all this trouble. So I did it my way, joining them together as I went, and the simple rings became small medallions made of the center two rounds of the big medallion, just with slightly shorter picots, to fit in the spaces between medallions. The outside rounds of the doily were not part of the 1909 pattern at all, they are something I came up with. Both rounds were started and restarted several times. I’m still not real sure about them, but for the moment I’ll leave it like this. The question is, did I succeed in making an old fashioned looking doily?

It’s funny, I thought I did a pretty good job of blocking this – twice – but looking at the picture now I see where I didn’t do as good a job as I thought. I made this with the Cebelia thread because I have several balls of it as I used to tat with it a lot. After tatting with Lizbeth and Manuela threads this seems to be soft and fuzzy. I know that when I was retro tatting I had more trouble doing it without messing up the thread that I’ve become used to lately.

I was inspired to make an old fashioned-looking doily by the Ice Palace Bed and Breakfast that we stayed at while in Leadville, Co. According to the owner, the B & B was built using some of the lumber from the original Ice Palace, which was built in Leadville in 1895. The B & B is furnished with a lot of period pieces and I enjoyed the Victorian look of the whole house. On the way home I got to thinking about a doily that would fit into that decor. So when I got home I started looking through my vintage pattern books as well as on-line, including the Knots pattern page, which has a lot of vintage patterns. I chose the one I did for several reasons: 1) I liked the look (obviously) and 2) the picture was good enough that if I couldn’t figure out the written text I was pretty sure I could figure it out with just the picture. As I mentioned, I did a little of both. I actually have an idea for another doily using the same medallion. Except that I have a couple of other pieces that I need to do first, I’d already be working on it!

For today’s Tatting Tea Tuesday I displayed part of a miniature tea set I had as a little girl on the doily. I think it adds a little bit to the old-fashioned flavor of the doily. The shuttle is a wooden one from The Shuttle Shop my husband bought me. And to really set the mood, I’m enjoying a little mint tea with my tatting today, another old-fashioned flavor.

Thinking on the age of things, I looked back at my old posts and realized that I will have been blogging for two years in a couple of weeks, which got me thinking of having a giveaway. If anyone is interested please leave a comment on this post to be entered in the drawing. I’ll announce the winner on October 26th in my Tatting Tea Tuesday post.

Now on to newer things: I did finally get my homework done for the Design-Tat class and I’m working on a bookmark for The Tatting Forums bookmark-a-month challenge. That’s coming out a little different than planned (again!) but it has a nice fall look to it. I’m almost done and ran out of thread (!) and now have to add some, but it should be done soon.

I did say I would post the pattern for the previous bookmark/bracelet, so here it is. I’ve gone through it for errors but a few might still be lurking. (I’m so hoping that when I’m done with the Design-Tat class that I can diagram patterns!)

Vacation Bookmark/Bracelet Sept. 2010
p = picot += join RW = reverse work DNRW = do not reverse work
prev = previous CL = clover leaf
1 Shuttle and ball. If wanting chain color for center
ring of cloverleaf, 2 shuttles.
All picots on clover leaves are for joining only,
make as small as possible.
CL R 6-3-3. R 3+6-3-3-6-3. R 3+3-6. RW
*Ch 9-9. RW
CL R 6+ (to 2nd p of prev R)3-3.R 3+6-3-3-6-3.R 3+3-6. RW*
Repeat between * for desired length, then
Ch 9-12 RW
R 6+(to 2nd p of prev R) 6. R 6-6. RW
Ch 20 join to base of last two rings DNRW
Ch 12-9 RW
R 6+ (to p of prev R)3+(to 4th p of facing R) 3.
+ (to 3rd p of facing R. R 3+(to 2nd p of facing R)3-6.RW
*Ch 9-9. RW
R 6+ (to 2nd p of prev. R) 3+(to 4th p of facing R) 3.
+ (to 3rd p of facing R). R 3+(to 2nd p of facing R)3-6.RW*
Repeat between * for length, then
Ch 9-12 RW
R 6+(to 2nd p of prev R) 6. R 6+ (to 1st p of starting R)6. RW
Ch 20 join to base of prev two rings DNRW
Ch 12-9 Cut and tie, finish off the ends.
For bracelet:
Put the thread through the chain at one end before wrapping
it around your hand for a ring.
*R 15 ++ to toggle clasp 15. Cut and tie, finish off ends.*
Repeat for the other end.

A Try at a Butterfly and other things

I see a lot of beautiful tatting done with beads as I surf through blogs. Now I don’t do much with beads for several reasons, the foremost being that it’s not very portable, at least for me. But a friend asked me to make a butterfly and an idea came to mind that would look pretty with beads. This is the result, what I had mentioned I was working on last week. This is made in Lizbeth size 20, black for the body and Caribbean for the wings, with 10/0 seed beads. I’m counting this as #11 of my second 25 Motif Challenge – it certainly was a challenge for me!

A mini vacation
My husband and I took a long weekend and went to Colorado this last week. Our timing was great as the aspens are in the midst of changing their colors for fall. It was gorgeous in the mountains! We stayed in a Bed and Breakfast called The Ice Palace. We had a wonderful stay there. I highly recommend it if you ever want to spent the night in Leadville.
Leadville’s elevation is recorded as being 10,152 feet, which took us a little while to get used to. We also went up to Independence Pass, which is a little bit higher : )

We enjoyed a guided horseback ride from Mega Mountain Magic that had some pretty magical views. We don’t ride much so at the end of our two and a half hour ride I was glad to be done, but sad at the same time. You know the views are wonderful when your guide stops to take pictures, too!
We drove up to Weston pass and stopped once in awhile to enjoy the colorful roadsides.

The road did get kind of rough. But it was worth every mile!

It was a wonderful, long weekend with just the two of us this time. Quite a difference from the trip we made to Washington, DC earlier in the year. Each trip was great in it’s own way and I’m fortunate to be able to have done both this year.

Rooibos was the tea for today. I sipped several cups this morning as I finished off a bookmark and went through vacation pictures. A wonderful start to the day even though I have to go back to work this afternoon.

May all of you have a wonderful week and enjoy a little tea and tatting if you can.