Tag: Perfect Quilter

Yellow tangle

We took a family vacation over the Memorial Day weekend; my husband and I, our kids, and their families.  It was a lot of fun! While on vacation I did very little tatting, even on the long drive to and from our destination.  I took my tatting with me (of course!) and sorta, kinda, had an idea of what I wanted to work on.  I had shuttles wound with  Perfect Quilter 085 ready to go.

Why I thought I could tat anything on vacation with such tiny thread when I usually use size 20 baffles me.  Using thread I’m not used to in the car while traveling or when likely to get interrupted by the grandkids was  a mistake waiting to happen.

This is the extent of what I accomplished while on vacation.

The one time I actually got a little tatting done ended abruptly when I was needed due to some minor emergency, which I can’t even remember.  I only know I was finally putting in a little tatting time when I had to put it down in a hurry then came back to such a tangled mess I put it away.

Over the next two weeks I picked up my yellow tangle and tried to work on it several times.  I think it is a lost cause.  I have made stitch count mistakes, broken the thread, and kept making a bigger mess.  I think it is time to retire this piece all together.

The little yellow piece after two weeks of messing with it.
I might try making this in a larger thread if I ever sit down with it and write down the stitch counts. We’ll see.

I thought I would have another pattern ready for today but I’m still fighting with my computer.  We had gotten it working better but today while trying to touch up the pattern a bit it just froze up.   It’s becoming quite annoying.


“One of the most feared expressions in modern times is ‘The computer is down.'”
Norman Ralph Augustine
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Small threads, vacation and TIAS

I did a little bit more with those small threads, King Tut and Perfect Quilter.  Okay, mostly to work them off my shuttles 🙂
The butterfly at the top is in Lizbeth size #20, the yellow on the right in Perfect Quilter, the smallest in King Tut.  They are tatted with the same number of stitches (though the picots may not have the same ratio to stitch size.)  The edging is also Perfect Quilter.  Making this, and the crosses I posted about last week, show that I have trouble getting the picots the right size for the size of thread.
IsDihara left a comment on last week’s post about what she found out about the quilting threads.
“Since I have a ball of size 100 thread to compare against, I can confirm that WPI (wrapas per inch) for King Tut thread matches size 100.  Perfect Quilter has more WPI than size 80 Lizbeth but less than size 100 thread.  So it seems to be in between sizes.  But that could also be an issue of different plies.  Pretty sure Perfect Quilter is not a 6-ply cotton. (Don’t know why I didn’t think to check these details before now.)  Thanks Madtatter80 for wondering!”
Thanks, IsDihara, for sharing this information.
We recently went on a vacation to Colorado, to the Buena Vista area – yes, again.  For the last several years this has been our favored vacation spot, and September our favored time of year.  We have been very blessed with seeing the Aspens change to their fall colors – until this year.   They have had so much rain all summer that, unless you were at a pretty high altitude, the aspens were only barely starting to change. 
This is the Mary Murphy Mill, not far from St. Elmo, Colorado. You can see that the Aspens have turned here, but this is at about 11,000 feet.

We stopped for lunch at a likely looking spot – there was a somewhat flat area with a convenient large rock to use as a table. The altimeter app on my phone showed we were at 11,433 feet. 
After lunch I took time to take a few stitches using our ‘table’ to sit on.  You can see it was a little cool here.
Sherry Pence, LadyShuttleMaker, is doing a TIAS, found here. Her pattern won first place at the 2013 Idaho State Fair.  This is my day four.  It doesn’t quite look like the pattern 🙁  I might have to un-tat a bit and try again.  That’s okay, it’s still fun!

“By all these lovely tokens 
September days are here, 
With summer’s best of weather 
And autumn’s best of cheer.”
Helen Hunt Jackson
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Quilting threads

I finally had a little time to try out some of the quilting thread I have recently acquired.  
The cross on the left is made with Perfect Quilter thread #085 Sunrays; the cross on the right is made with King Tut thread #922 Harem.  The crosses are similar but not quite the same – the Sunrays cross has slightly longer arms.  But the King Tut is definitely a bit smaller than the Perfect Quilter.  Both tatted very nicely but I like the Perfect Quilter better.  I made a mistake in both crosses and had to open a couple of rings in each.  The King Tut thread broke while trying to open the rings but I was able to open the rings of the Perfect Quilter without breaking it.  I also had to work with both threads while there was plenty of light because of the size of the threads.  Not surprising but it does limit when I can work with them. And probably what patterns I would try with them.  
I’m happy enough with both brands that I do plan on finding places to use them. I still have several colors that I haven’t worked with yet but still want to try out.
This has been a great experiment.

A couple of weeks ago I showed an edging I was working on.  I actually made two edgings to go on a garter for my niece who was married last Saturday.  (I got it done in time!)  If I had found Gina’s garter pattern before I started I would have used it instead, but I found it only after I’d started and had a plan.  I did use part of her idea for joining the top and bottom, but not quite like she did.  The reason the top and the bottom are not the same is because I ran out of time and had to come up with something a bit simpler.  I think it came out pretty well anyway.  The bride liked it 🙂
“Design is a plan for arranging elements in such a way as best to accomplish a particular purpose.”
Charles Eames
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This weekend I drank tea

 Do you remember a couple of weeks ago I mentioned I had bought several colors of Perfect Quilter thread?
Isdihara mentioned that she had some King Tut quilting thread and wondered if I would be interested in a thread exchange.  I thought it was a great idea!
Just a couple of days later I got her King Tut thread in the mail, in time for the Labor Day weekend.  A three day weekend and seven new threads to try – wow!  Thank you, Isdihara!
Would you like to see everything I got done?
This is a little piece I made with the “Baja” Perfect Quilter thread, just to see how it worked up.  It was easy to work with and amazingly I didn’t have trouble with it tangling or knotting.  It tatted great!
And then…..
Yes, that was it.
I had a lot of time to tat this weekend but instead I sat around feeling miserable!  I had body aches, sore throat, and a terrible stuffy head. I had no motivation to do anything but sit around and drink hot green tea with honey.  Two days of a nasty cold.
I had such plans for the weekend – several tatting projects, some cleaning (I know, but sometimes it has to be done!) and maybe have dinner with our neighbors.  But none of that came to pass.  In fact, I haven’t been able to try out any more of the threads yet!

It is September and the sunflowers are in full bloom.  These sunflowers – between seven and eight foot tall – are in my backyard. For all that they can be a pain when they are done blooming I love to see them every year.

They are so bright and, well, sunny!  

They didn’t raise my spirits this weekend but now that I’m feeling a bit better they are.

“Tea! The panacea for everything from weariness to a cold to a murder
Love and scandal are the best sweeteners of tea”
Henry Fielding