Back to Stawasz

Well, I'm finally back to making some progress on the Stawasz Monster Doily, after taking a much longer break than anticipated. In order to keep from going crazy from the monotony, I find that I need to take regular breaks to work on other things that are more interesting. Here is the doily, up to Round 7 now, tatted in DMC Cordonnet Special size 100 white:

I changed the stitch count a bit from the suggested numbers posted by monedido at InTatters. This is one of the rounds where the stitch counts for the chains are missing, and the photograph in the magazine is too zoomed out to be able to count stitches. I must have altered it a bit too much, because I found this round starting to ruffle. No worries though...a bit of water and a trip to the blocking board fixed that right away.

Now the question is whether or not my blocking board will be large enough to contain the doily once it gets to the last few rounds. It will be close. I bought this last year from my local JoAnn Fabrics for about $15 after using my 50% off coupon. I think I got a pretty good deal. It's called the June Tailor Cushioned Quilter's Square 'N Blocker for anyone interested.

Here's another shot of the doily.

It's getting to be too big to photograph on my card stock, so maybe I'll make a trip to Hobby Lobby to pick up some of the poster board sized paper I saw there.

Now it's time to formulate my first post about how to diagram with Inkscape, so I can get it on the blog later this week.

Slow Progress

I haven't been tatting much lately, so although Round VI is a very easy one, it has taken me a few weeks to complete. Here is my latest progress on the Stawasz Doily Tat-along:

I like to use a folding chair as a foot rest while I tat, which also doubles as a resting place for the doily when I am not working on it. It looks very small on the chair, but my eyes have gotten used to looking at size 100, so anything larger would look really big by comparison:

I still haven't made it through my first ball of thread yet. I wonder how much of the doily I can complete before running out. I have one more full ball of size 100, which I got for free because Handy Hands mistakenly sent me white instead of ecru on a previous order. They have great customer service and let me keep the ball of white thread as well as sending me the correct color. So, if I can finish the project with two balls of thread, that will be a total cost of $3.75, which is kind of funny to think about for such a massive project. I also wonder how long I can keep it on the folding chair before it gets to be too big and starts to spill over...

Bunnies!

I've seen these bunny shuttles popping up on other people's blogs and wanted to join in! I received these adorable tatting shuttles last week from Carollyn. (Click here to access her blog)

I purchased one at a time because I couldn't decide if I wanted one or two...but after receiving the first bunny, I knew I had to have a second to complete the pair. Especially because I am a rabbit owner, and wouldn't you know it, I had one light colored and one dark colored rabbit myself?

Ronnie is no longer with us, he passed away in 2012 of congestive heart failure at 7 and 1/2 years old. This is my favorite picture of him, taken when he was around 3. He was such a nice little guy, so well behaved for his nail trimming:

He had a very happy (and humpy) personality. He was a retired breeder bunny and was so excited to be in a home rather than a breeder cage. I remember when we first got him, his legs were very wobbly from lack of exercise. He took every opportunity to come out of his cage, and despite being neutered, was always running and buzzing in an attempt to "court" me. He was so full of energy and never slowed down, even in his final years.

Billy, our other bunny, is a little old man now. He is 7 and 1/2 years old and has slowed down a lot from his younger days. His favorite activities are tunneling under blankets and looking for someone to pet him. He will go around the apartment (sometimes to inanimate objects) and put his head down waiting for pets. Here he is, sitting with the bunny tatting shuttles. Notice both real bunny and wooden bunnies are in the "pet me" position:

When he was younger, Billy would run around the apartment and dance on the bed. He was a bit of a YouTube star, though I believe most of the videos have since been removed due to copyright infringement of the background music. I stopped checking my YouTube account years ago, though I heard that one of the videos reached 1 million views before it was taken down. Here is a photo of him from 2009 performing one of his trademark "binkies"

On the tatting front, I received my copy of Moje Robotki from Poland on Monday. Thanks to Karen, Maureen, and Grace for setting up the opportunity to purchase the magazine! I now have a crystal clear copy to work from, so no more mistakes from misreading blurry numbers :)

I am a little more than halfway done with Round V, but have been taking a break to let my wrist recover. If I tat for more than an hour a day, I find my fingers and wrists start to hurt. Whenever this happens, I put the tatting down for a few days to give myself a chance to recover. How do other tatters produce things so quickly without becoming injured?

Stawasz Tat-along: Round IV

Round IV of the giant Stawasz doily has been completed:

I've been spending most of my time messing around with Round V, which is a much larger round, with 12 individual motifs. When I began the round I had the wrong stitch count written down, so I had to cut off three motifs (roughly six hours of tatting). Better to cut off toward the beginning than further in!

Here is where I'm at now. You can see the motifs I cut off at the bottom, and I've almost gotten back to where I started:

I had a few other mistakes in the motifs that I cut, so I was glad to start fresh. I had been tatting rather quickly in an attempt to keep up with the others tatting this pattern, but in doing so I realized that I needed to slow down. 

My normal tatting speed is on the slower end. I get enjoyment out of making sure each ring and chain is in its proper position, and like to put the tatting down somewhat frequently to flatten it out and see how it's progressing. I used to crochet slowly as well. I could crochet fast if I wanted to, but that defeated the purpose of it being relaxing, and made my arm more prone to injury.

I did learn something from tatting quickly and making a few mistakes. After two years, I've finally gotten the hang of opening closed rings. I think I know the tricks now: 

1) Pulling the thread in the correct direction from the last picot, 

2) Using a pair of tweezers to get a good grip on the thread that is being pulled, and 

3) Using the right brand of thread.

I could never open a closed ring in Lizbeth size 20 or smaller, even when I knew what to do. The Lizbeth thread doesn't glide as easily as DMC. So, I was a little scared when I made a mistake in DMC size 100...I thought I would never be able to fix it. 

To my surprise, opening a closed ring in DMC is easier than undoing stitches in this thread. It is so smooth and glides so easily, that it is no problem at all to undo mistakes. So, if you haven't tried this thread out yet, I highly recommend it!

Tat-along: Stawasz Mega Doily

I'm joining the tat-along of the huge Jan Stawasz doily at InTatters. It's been difficult to keep up with Rachael and Grace, but here I am with three rounds completed:

This is tatted in DMC Cordonnet Special size 100 white. It's my first time using such a small thread, but it's a lot easier than I expected. DMC is very smooth so all of the rings glide closed effortlessly. My size 15 mini crochet hook works really well for joining very small picots.

So far, the doily measures 4 inches across. Here is another photo for an idea of it's size:

I honestly thought it would turn out smaller than this. It's too bad DMC stopped producing size 150. I wonder what that would have looked like...

You can see the completed doily at Karen Cabrera's blog or at Elena Koval's blog. I've linked the relevant blog posts to their names above.

Jan Stawasz didn't name this pattern, so I'm copying Elena's idea of the "Mega Project" and will be calling this the "Mega Doily." I'm rather uncertain if I will be able to finish such a large project, but I will give it my best shot!