It is spring! At least the calendar shows that, though lately, it’s been hard to tell. One morning you get up and there’s snow on the ground, the next day it’s 70 degrees. The grass and the trees are greening up, so I hope the cold weather is done. A little rain would be nice. The only thing consistent seems to be the wind. Tomorrow is another day of high wind gusts and very high fire danger, not just here but from Arizona and New Mexico all the way up to South Dakota. Hang on to your hats!
I’ve been doing a lot of tatting the last few weeks. Not necessarily a lot to show, but putting knots in thread steadily. Some things have worked out, some have not. Being the Easter season I have done a little egg decorating and that has worked out – mostly.
I did the egg in purple first. It has a mistake that shall remain hidden on the back of the egg. I did not do enough repeats on the bottom tatting to match the top so the bare thread stitching does not match up correctly. The bottom would have looked much better if I had done it right. As I made it just to be making it, it is just fine the way it is. I used Lizbeth # 632 Purple Med in size 20.
I made the pink one next. I used a thread I was given by a neighbor that his wife had used. It is DMC #224 Shell Pink – Very Light in size 10. I wouldn’t usually use size 10 on eggs of this size, but it was handy and I was feeling a bit nostalgic. I had taught my neighbor’s wife how to tat years ago and still feel her loss. I used the medallion pattern that I designed five years ago for Palmetto Tat Days. Figuring out how to hold these to the egg proved interesting.
The light blue egg is done in Lizbeth # 651 Med Blue in size 20. I had been using this for something else I was working on and had some left on the shuttles. I used the same medallion pattern, but it fits much differently when done in size 20 than it does in size 10. I like how the bottom part came out but the top part not so much. I might need to come up with something different – next year.
The eggs I used were some I bought from Joann’s. Back in February when they put out the Easter things I found a bag of 18. They are the size of chicken eggs, nicer to work with than the plastic ones that come apart for candy, and much less fragile than real eggs. I have decided that I must find a better way to hold the two ends on the egg while finishing them. It was a pain to keep them in place while trying to stitch them together with the bare thread. And that is an issue I will address next year.
“The difference between involvement and commitment is like ham and eggs. The chicken is involved; the pig is committed. Martina Navratilova”
They’re very pretty. I like hearing about design development.
Love the doubled-up bare thread ‘sun beams’ in the pink one! Elegant.
Would an egg cup solve the issue of how to hold while sewing? Or some cardboard hollow custom-cut to hold the center of the egg, with a stand glued behind, so that the egg and stand rest on a surface, with both ends open and both hands free? I’m sure you’ll come up with much better solutions
Thanks, muskaan. Those are good ideas. I’ll keep them in mind to try next time I try decorating eggs.