Windmills Doily, Completed TIAS, And Another Orchid Photo

I know, I know. I said I could post last week, and I didn't. I would have, but I forgot my camera here in the city, and couldn't take any photos of my completed work. Also, I seem to have caught a cold (AGAIN!) or my first one came back. I'm not quite sure, so I haven't done much tatting this week. I'm kinda bummed out, but then again I didn't get a cold last year.

I'm sure everyone by now is aware of the passing of beloved tatter and designer Mary Konior. I too am a big fan of her and her tatting designs. While I never met her, or had the opportunity to see her tatting in real life (the latter is still possible since HBT's founder Sue Hanson was given the honour of caring for the lace, and brings it to tatting events for all to see), I am proud to own two of her tatting books, Tatting Patterns and Tatting With Visual Patterns. Since hearing of her passing, I have made it a goal of mine to find the other two books. Hopefully I can manage this without spending a large amount of money (what are those people on eBay and Amazon thinking!!!!!!!!). Anyway, Rest In Peace Mary. Hopefully you are tatting with the other tatting legends that left the Earth before you did.

As you all know, I have been tatting Mary's Windmills motif lately. I also mentioned that I wanted to make a small doily using that motif. As a tribute to Mary Konior, here is the completed doily:


As you can see, the reason Mary called the pattern "Windmills" really shows once you have several joined together. A windmill is very evident in the centre of the doily. While I said the doily is complete, that isn't technically the case. As pictured above, the doily is about 6 1/4 inches in diameter. That's too small for my purpose, so I'm going to add another round of motifs. That will be another 12 motifs to make. Of course, once that round is done, I may decide to add another. I show you how it looks once I'm done the next round. I am using DMC Cordonnet size 20 thread to make this doily.

I have also completed Jane TIAS 2010. I'm terrible with the daily progress so we will go straight to the finished motif.

As you can see, our mystery motif turned into a rooster. I was beginning to wonder partway through, but it began to look kinda bird like towards the end. For this motif, I used Lizbeth size 20 in colour numbers 656 (Dark Wedgewood Blue) and 142 (Turquoise Twist), along with DMC Cordonnet size 20 (White). I'm actually quite pleased with my colour choices (especially since I didn't plan ahead and just picked a colour when they were needed). This will be Motif # 16 of my Third 25 Motif Challenge.

Finally, I have another orchid photo to share with you. This is a relatively new addition to my collection. First, the whole spray:

Next, just a single flower:

This particular orchid is a Cymbidium. More specifically, the plant is called Cymbidium [(Via Ireland 'Delightful' x (Pendragon x Camelia 'Yellow Sunset')] 'Shamrock'. Whew. That's quite a name. I find the green colour of the flowers quite nice. While this is only my second one, I'm getting quite fond of this genre of orchid. I think it's their large size, and their relatively easy care that probably has something to do with it. I may have to get another one.

Before I forget, I would like to thank everyone who has commented over the past few weeks. I haven't had a chance to comment lately. In particular, I would like to thank Miranda for her suggestion on eliminating the little dots of colour on my colorized Windmills motif I posted about earlier. Miranda suggested using a "Slope and Roll" join. See this page: (http://www.ds9designs.com/patterns_free.shtml). Scroll down to the bottom of the page for the link. I tried it out on another pattern and it seems to work well. I'll try it out on another Windmills motif and post my results.

Well, that's it for now. Hopefully, I'll post again soon. Till next time.