Spinning Wheel (The Start of)

Again, I haven't felt like posting, but I don't think it is weather related. Actually, I don't even want to talk about the weather. I'm convinced (and I'm not alone here) that we are not going to have spring or summer. It kind of reminds me of fall right now. There are hardly any leaves on the trees right now, the grass has a greenish colour to it, but with brown undertones, and its pretty cool in the mornings still. It snowed last Thursday night, enough to make everything white for a few hours Friday morning. It may snow tonight and it is in the forecast again for Wednesday. It's wacky weather like this that makes me glad that I have many house plants (and outdoor plants masquerading as houseplants) to enjoy until the weather tuns nice permanently (well, till fall anyway).

Speaking of outdoor plants pretending to be houseplants, here is a quick photo of one that I am particularly fond of (I will get to the tatting, I promise!).

This is Ginkgo biloba, the Maidenhair Tree. While its not much to look at yet (I'm hoping it will produce a few branches), I love this tree. I'm also quite proud of the tree; it is starting to follow our seasons. Let me explain. I grew it from seed, that I planted November 2007. One seed germinated in December (same year). It grew (albeit slowly) for several months, then went dormant, only to begin growing again late fall. It lives on a window sill that get pretty cool in the winter, and last fall it went dormant, and began growing this spring. It's adapting to life in Saskatchewan. Now we can move on to the tatting.

You may remember in my last post, I mentioned that along with some Lizbeth thread, I purchased a round cloth doily so I could make the full size Spinning Wheel doily from Mary Konior's Tatting with Visual Patterns. You do? Good. Anyway, I started working on the doily, and thought I'd post a quick update. Here is my progress:

OK. It's not much, but thats not the point. I had planned on making the tatted edging then sewing it on. But, quite honestly, that seems like a lot of extra work. Now, I hope this decision won't come back to haunt me years from now. I know that some people don't like directly tatting edgings on things like hankies so they can save the lace if necessary, but I think this may be different. If anyone wants to provide reasons why this is a bad idea, by all means let me know. Now for a few stats on the doily. I am using Lizbeth thread (which is AWESOME!) in the Countryside colourway. The doily I'm using is 6 inches in diameter. It has 120 holes along the edge (yes, I counted them), there are a total of 24 repeats required for the tatting, which means that each repeat is "allowed" five holes (two for joining, and three unjoined). If anyone has done this pattern before, I'd love to see it and for anyone who hasn't attempted it yet, I urge you to try. It's actually pretty easy; the stitch counts are almost the same as the mat, each repeat is just longer.

That's all for now. I hope you like the tatting part. I might talk about the weather next time! This post ended up much longer than I planned. I'll try to post again soon. I have a few earrings to show that I made for my Mom on Mother's Day. Later.

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