That's Done

I kept my focus pretty sharp yesterday, well, once I had time to sit down anyway. The morning was busy with schooling and laundry and final test runs on the kids costumes including makeup for the youngest. When I did sit down, it was straight to work.

I managed to finish the last two round on the sample doily. Of course I also discovered that I had failed to write out the last round correctly, so that slowed me down a bit as I had to write it as I tatted it.

The next step is to make all the corrections I found in the computer and then I have to write it all again with the page layout and pictures included. I also have to figure out what else the pattern needs to say to be clear. This is all so much easier when I'm just keeping a design to myself. It doesn't even have to be really legible, just notes, a picture and usually a prototype sitting about as a refresher.

I definitely won't get all that done today, or even this weekend as it should be a busy one. My mother's birthday is on Saturday and as it's a milestone birthday I offered to host a get together at our house. I won't call it a party, because I am rubbish at parties. It does still mean, cleaning, food, guests, and more cleaning. Then of course there's the Halloween evening itself followed by Sunday recovery time. I'm tired just thinking about it, but next week I should have some free time to get the pattern ready and listed. Here's hoping.

Three More Rounds

First, I want to thank everyone who answered my shuttle tatting query. I am so glad to know that the pattern can easily be worked by all, no matter how they make their knots. I also got introduced to the Celtic tatting shuttle, what a neat little tool for getting the shuttle into places as easily as the needle.

Yesterday's outings and meetings did use up a good portion of the day, but I still managed to get a few more rounds done on the sample doily. I'm finding it interesting that the look of the piece is completely different when worked in three colors. I am also so glad that I chose to work this from the written pattern instead of my usual way, which is working from the prototype itself. I've found scads of mistakes in my pattern and I feel pretty confident that once I finish this, I'll be able to publish the pattern without error. Of course now that I've said that it's going to be a proofreading nightmare. I am also getting ahead of myself as I still have a few more rounds and they are long ones.

Today should be pretty productive as we have no extra things to do. I'll have time to work and maybe even time to clean. I even started the third and final circle cardigan gift. It's good to work on while i do other things as I've pretty much got the pattern memorized. It turns crochet into that meditative state of my hands moving without my brain having to focus at all. So again, even without sales in the shop, I have many things to keep me busy.

Progress and Crochet a Necklace

Yesterday's teacher meeting took a good chunk of the morning, but was far less stressful that I built it up to be. This means I had the time and inclination to get working on all sorts of things. I finished up the second circle cardigan gift and I finished writing up the pattern for the Gothic doily.

I grabbed a few different colors that I had an excess of so that I could start making it using the written pattern. I figured I can be my own test tatter first. At least I can try while I work on the pictures for the pattern. If you hadn't guess by now I can't be bothered to learn how to diagram patterns, so photos are my thing. I'm only on round 3 now, not counting the center, so it might still be awhile before it's ready for prime time. I did already find a mistake in my written pattern, so it really is serving two purposes.

While I have some eyes though, I have a question for any shuttle tatters out there. It's quite simple to work the woven rings with the needle, can they be worked as easily with the shuttle? I just don't know and I'd like to answer the question of whether this pattern can be worked both ways correctly. I've always assumed everything that can be done with one, can be done with the other, but since me and the shuttle are in a lifelong battle, I don't actually know that that is true. So please straighten me out here!

In other creating news I used some of the leftover yarn from the circle cardigan to make an additional gift and I thought it look pretty neat. I just had fun making it and it was so easy that I thought I'd give a little tutorial on it.

Crochet Necklace

It's a medium weight yarn and I used a size F hook to crochet a tight chain 125" long. Then I joined to the beginning chain and formed one long loop.
I wrapped it into 5 loops and then using a J hook I crocheted about 7 single stitches around the whole bundle and finished by slip stitching through the tops of those stitches just to give it a little more decoration.

Distracted

I was distracted much of the day yesterday. I'm not entirely certain why, but I think I was just, well, overthinking. It's a busy week ahead and I just couldn't concentrate on making anything for too long. All I managed to work on was another circle cardigan and even that didn't get finished even though I really should have had time enough to do so.

Today's prospects aren't much better as the first real distraction of the week is today's teacher meeting for one of the kids. The next one is tomorrow, followed by an outing. I know it's suppose to be the kids being evaluated, but I always get a bit nervous myself. After all, if they aren't doing well, that's on me, right?

Hopefully, I'll relax enough to work on something today. I did just wake up to a sale in my shop. It's just a simple necklace, so I should be able to handle getting another made for the shop after I get one shipped out. I'm just crossing my fingers that this whole week goes well and I get a minute to relax before the holidays are upon us.

Done

On Friday, after the pumpkin patch, I gave another round one last try on what has clearly become a doily. I really wasn't sure I was going to be able to pull off any more rounds, but this one came out just fine. It's so fine in fact, that I proclaim the motif all grown up. That's right, this is it, I'm done. The completed pieces is about 8.5 inches across at the widest points.

In other good news, I actually started writing up the pattern on Saturday. I stopped about halfway through as it was hurting my head, but I do plan on finishing and eventually getting it listed as a pattern in my shop. I'll need to remake it one more time to test the pattern once I write it and I might do that in multiple colors just to help show the chain weaving rounds. This week might be too busy for it though. There are teacher meetings, another outing, and I've got to prepare for Halloween,which is also my mother's 60th birthday. That means hosting a get together here as well, which means cleaning. I'm just tired thinking about this week.

I did also get to some of the gift cardigans over the weekend. I ever so slightly redesigned the center motif so that each of the girls don't have the exact same one. The all picked different colors as well, but I thought I'd do just a little more. I still have two more of these to make, so I will have plenty to keep my hands busy anytime I have any free time. Of course I'm not expecting a whole lot of that this week. Well, guess I'll get to it then.

Two More Rounds

Despite a doctor's appointment, I managed to be fairly productive yesterday. We sped through schooling, so once lunch was over, I got to sit right down and get to work. Of course at this point the work is just, well nobody's paying me for it, so it's just, well let's go with art. Anyway, I got two more round worked up over the course of the day. This first one here is pretty open because I assumed that I would try another round of woven threads next which is what I ended up doing.

Weaving these longer round is getting harder though. Since I have to cut off the working thread so I can pull it through the tatting, I'm dragging a longer and longer piece of thread. Those long pieces love to tangle up and I'm having to stop more often and undo the mess. I suppose that's one argument for a motif round at some point. I can weave those all I want without the mess.


I started another round after this one, but it was a complete mess. I got almost halfway around before I scrapped it and cut the whole thing off. I think I'll just have to stare at it some more and see if it actually wants to be any bigger at all. It's about 8 inches across at the widest point right now. I'm not sure if that's a good size to stop at or not. What do you think?

We have a pumpkin patch outing today after schooling, so I will likely not get anymore tatting in today, maybe over the weekend though. I was hoping the last batch of sales in the shop signaled a sea change for the season, but it appears it was just a strange fluke. So I'll keep working on this and maybe I'll get some yarn to start the holiday circle cardigan presents. All while crossing my fingers for sales.

Two

I tatted all day and all I achieved was a nearly identical copy of the the motif so far. Of course that's what I was trying to do with the day. This is the finished one and it's twin still in progress. I had finished it by the end of the day which gave me no time to really contemplate the next round at all.

I was ever so slightly tempted to try a motif round next, but then I remembered how much I don't actually enjoying working those myself. It's likely that I'll just keep creating as is and hoping that each new round has an interesting shape. There's always a chance that I work for a while and then decide that I should have just stopped here all along. I just won't know until I get to that point.

I do promise that whenever I finish working out this piece, I will write out the pattern and probably pop it in the shop. I do not, however, know when that can be expected. I have a doctor's appointment today and that should throw my whole day off, so I'm not even certain I'll get around to tatting at all. Hopefully something will get created at some point today, so I can at least have something to share tomorrow morning.

Bigger

It took the entire day to finish up the mask I was working on. Okay, not the entire day, but much of it. I was starting to think I was never going to finish covering the wire, but late in the afternoon I was able to. Of course I blame my slowness on laundry day. That plus schooling and hair dying chewed though most of the day easily. At least I slept on fresh sheets and my hair is a dark shade of blues and purples this morning.

I had just enough time to tackle one more round of the growing motif. I would have had more time, but I had not one, but two phenomenally bad false starts. I never draw anything out before I start tatting and on this piece I've been spectacularly lucky that every round has worked out just fine with my 'make it up as I go' method. This round needed some planning though. The third try was the ticket and I absolutely love the shape it's in now. 

I can't seem to decide which direction I like it best in. I think
it's this second one, but I like them both. I'm tempted to stop work right now and leave this as it, but I am equally tempted to keep working. So as a compromise, I think I'm going to leave this one be and start another from scratch and let that one grow some more. It will probably take me all day to get another just to this round though, so tomorrow's post might be a dud. It is nice to be tatting all day again though.

Working

I stayed busy all day just tatting the two pieces that had sold. Well really, it was more like tatting one and half of the pieces that sold. I am still nowhere near finishing the mask. This one is the choker that actually matches the bracelet that I made the day before. I don't know what the odds are that they were sold to two different people in two days, but it made it easy to remember the pattern. This is one of my original design that I call diadem. I was obsessed with onion rings for a while there and tried to put rings inside rings whenever I could. I finished this one much later in the day than I thought I would which is why I didn't finish the mask.

The mask is actually one of my simpler ones, but all of them take more time than a regular piece like a choker because of the complex construction around the wire. Then there's the time consuming task of covering the wire. I haven't even gotten close to that bit yet. I have gotten much further than this photo though. I suppose I should be able to finish it this morning, if I work while schooling. I am hoping to have some time to play with the new motif and see if I can grow it any more.

I thought I'd leave you with a photo of one of my white cats, He sat next to this witch hat for hours as if it was his and I just had to get a picture. We joked that he wished he was a black cat so that he would properly match the hat. Personally, I wish all my white cats were black cats so my black clothes weren't covered in white fur all the time, but there's really nothing for that now.

Motif Making

What a weekend. On Friday I buckled down and just started making. After a couple of false starts I came up with this small motif. The smaller one in the picture was just the step one of it. It had a nice Gothic feel to me with a little woven chain element, but I felt like I could not only use this small motif as a pendant or maybe joined with a couple more for a bracelet, but I could also just keep building and see where it gets me.

I made a point of actually taking a picture after every round I created. Yes, I was just making it up as I went. No, I didn't write down the pattern at all.








I guess I kind of had that monster doily everyone has been working on in my mind. Not that I have any illusions that this with grow to those kind of proportions, but it was, I suppose, an inspiration to keep me adding more rounds.







This is where I stopped for the day. I liked playing with the shape of the piece as I went too. Some rounds were more, well, round and others more square. There was also this unintended element of straight crossed lines formed from the smaller rings joining across rows. It wasn't intentional, but I really love how it looks.

I had to stop because I had a house to thoroughly clean for a family gathering at our house.It's just the first of many over the fall and winter. I went for the whole upstairs and downstairs, bathrooms included and that took up most of Saturday. Sunday was the gathering, plus a haircut and I was rewarded for something from the Universe with a bracelet sales, so I spent Sunday night tatting up another for the shop. Then I woke up this morning to two more sales, a necklace and a mask. So I start this week with two existing pieces to tat up. Then I can play with this growing motif some more and see where it really wants to end. After all that I have permission to create three more circle cardigans as gifts. I love busy.

That's Three

Another day, another cardigan. I was quite a bit busier with schooling and housework yesterday. In fact if I hadn't used some of my downtime while schooling to crochet, I never would have finished this one. There were dishes and laundry and science experiments to set up and then clean up after. The day was actually exhausting.

Every human female in the house now has their own circle cardigan, not that it's cool enough to wear them yet. We're still experiencing summer temperatures over here. When it does cool a bit, I'm hoping the girls will actually like wearing them. I should be able to run the idea of them as gifts past some parents this weekend, so there's a chance next week will see more of them.

I still haven't been granted any good tatting ideas by the Universe. Something has got to give soon though, my fingers are already getting twitchy for something to make.

Purples

Still no sales in the shop to get me to stop crocheting, so crochet I did. I got the youngest daughter's circle cardigan all made and started on the older daughter's right after that. I should have that one finished this afternoon and then I'll be all out of yarn. I still think they are a good idea for gifts, but I need to get color requests from the intended recipients before I start. I know some people dread the handmade gift, the least I can do is make sure it's in a color they'd actually wear.

So I guess that's really all to share today. Between schooling the kids and crocheting, I was busy pretty much all day. I do enjoy the mindlessness of making a piece like these, especially the second or third time. I can really just turn off and let my hands work. Maybe today my mind will drift to other things to make. I really need to get back to designing some tatting, but I have no new ideas. I just need to think of something so awesome people will actually start shopping in my store again, so no pressure.

Circle

Yesterday's project was a crochet circle vest, or I guess more accurately a circle cardigan. I ran across circle vests on Ravelry the other day. I had never heard of them, but I fell in love with the idea of a giant, wearable doily. Of course my ulterior motif for making one is to really get a feel for the construction. If I can get a feel for how it's deigned from a standard doily, then I may be able to do the same thing with tatting or Armenian lace. I would have to make them with yarn or I would be constructing for months, but it's still an intriguing thought.

The pattern I picked was a free one, you can find here, with a lot of chain spaces. I love the loose look of it and I knew from experience that it would work up fast. I had started it the night before and so yesterday's work began just after the motif at the center. It was done about 4 in the afternoon and I managed to get a picture of the finished piece. The best part is the back, so I had the oldest child model it for me. She acquiesced mostly because it was just the back. 

Both the kids liked it, so we ran some errands before dinner and picked up some yarn for both of them to get one made as well. I plan on running the idea of making these for all my nieces for the holidays past their parents, to see if they think it would be a good idea, because I think this is the first thing I've made in a while that they all might actually like, especially if I do different center motifs for them. For now I'll just work on the two for my girls and cross my fingers that I sell some tatting soon.

This and That

Alright, so let's start off with the weekend finished sweater. Okay, so there's that. It's far from perfect, but it did prove that there is an easier way to knit a wearable sweater than knitting a bunch of pieces ans seaming them together. There was no seaming at all for this one. It was worked from the top down and the arms were added on at the end from held stitches. If I ever run across some nice, cheap, thicker yarn, I might give it another go just to see how it looks with bulky yarn. Either way, it's wearable, so a success.

That of course, is not what I did yesterday. Yesterday I constructed the oldest child's Halloween costume. She decided she wanted to be Kamala Khan, aka Ms. Marvel. So most of the individual bits she needed for the costume could be ordered, but I had to create the design on the tunic. Since the fabric I was using wasn't stretchy and the tunic was, the best way was to unfortunately sew everything by hand. This picture was before I actually sewed the lighting bolt on and the last bit which was to add a yellow border to the bottom edge as well. My fingers are still a little sore this morning from the task, but I finished it. We still need to get or make a mask and an arm band, but those are small projects compared to this last part.

I also managed to do a little tatting with my day as well. I
was just remaking this simple metal free choker for the shop. After all that sitting and working, we spent the rest of the afternoon moving about our existing decor to create Halloween displays. The only decorations we tend to put away are the lights, window clings, and some gauzy fabrics. Everything else is on display all year long. So we definitely used our day off from schooling to its most productive end. I even started another crochet project in the evening that I think might lead to a potential holiday gift project, but it's too early to tell.

Today it's back to schooling and only having a little time to waste with yarn and thread. I think I'm actually looking forward to it.

Boring

Well, I kind of failed this weekend. Not because I didn't finish knitting my sweater, I did, I just didn't take any pictures of it so I have to proof. More importantly, I have no pictures to make this post less boring, sorry. I did have to unknit and reknit the bottom of the sweater more than once to get the finishing right. The first time was just to do the new bind off that I discovered. It includes a yarn over element that makes it super stretchy and perfect for this loose knit sweater. Then with the curl up from the stockinette stitch, it was just a bit too short, so again I unknit the bind off and did a few more inches of knitting before doing it again. The sweater was done on Saturday morning, but we were so busy with other things I never stopped to get photos.

We had to do some cleaning because there were relatives visiting briefly. That visit also added to our days events on Sunday. I did spend some time on Sunday learning how to crochet a small skull, for no other reason that it looked like something interesting to do. Again, I have no photographic proof that that happened either. There was even a little time spent tatting up a necklace.

So that leaves me here with today's plan. The kids have the day off school, so we will likely spend some more time cleaning and decorating the house with the small portion of Halloween decor that we actually put away, which is about a quarter I'd say. I also have a costume to finish for the oldest child. So that should keep me busy. If I remember, I'll try to get pictures of the weekend things to liven up the post tomorrow. Here's hoping I remember.

Arms

Though I did get a sale in my etsy shop yesterday, thank goodness, I had already made two of the piece that sold. This means that the sale didn't give me any reason to tat another. Although I might take a break from knitting today to do so anyway, just for the sake of tatting. I was just on a nice roll with the sweater I'm trying to construct. I took some time right after schooling to move the piece from one circular needle to two so I could try it on and lo and behold it fit well. I really didn't know if it was going to work at all given all the liberties I had taken with the base pattern. Really, the only time I was on pattern was the first 10 rows or so.

In fact I managed to get all the way to the bottom of the sweater and start on one arm yesterday. Of course it wasn't all roses, I didn't really like the bind off edge I had done, so once both arms are complete I'm likely going to rip back the bottom a bit and give it another go. I know I've done a loose enough bind off on projects before, I just can't remember which ones right now. I'm certain the Internet will provide all the answers. At the rate I'm working I might should have a wearable garment by Monday. That is of course, unless I muck something up horribly, which is a real possibility.

So I guess I'm going to try for some knitting, some tatting, and probably a little way overdue cleaning. Hopefully I'll emerge on Monday with more things to share.

Sweater

I had the worst time trying to find a project yesterday. Again, there were no sales in my shop, nor tatting ideas to pull me out of this random fiber arts whirlwind I've been on lately. Perhaps I just needed a break to make some things for myself that didn't need to be sell-able. Well eventually I decided that what I really wanted to make for me was one of those great loose knit sweaters everyone wears in post apocalyptic entertainment. You know the ones that look like they should be falling apart or unraveling, but they still look great and gauzy. Of course finding an actual pattern for such a thing seems nigh on impossible. I settled on something close enough and I figure I'll make it up mostly as written and muck with it if need be.

My improvisation skills are not as good with knitting as they are with tatting, just a product of practice, but I'm hoping that this at least turns out wearable. If not, it should be terribly easy to unravel and start over with whatever I have learned from the failure. Of course given that it's suppose to be a sweater, it wasn't anywhere near done yesterday. If I had finished it in one day, I might've felt I had a new calling with speed knitting. Hopefully I'll at least get far enough today to know whether I'm barking up the wrong tree with the pattern.

As usual, I'll still be not so patiently waiting for something interesting to happen in my shop, or some magic light bulb moment to pull me back to the lace. Until then though at least I'm staying busy.

Slippers

So since Monday I spent the day knitting, I opted to find something to finish up the yarn leftover from the dragon cowl. I settled on some crochet slippers since my feet were cold for the first time this year. I got the pattern on Ravelry, where I am finally posting a few things. I picked the Seaspray slippers because they looked simple, but they still had an interesting design.

I was just using up the Caron simply soft yarn I had on hand and unfortunately the yarn did not make for comfy slippers. well that's not entirely true. They were perfectly comfortable to wear while lounging on the couch, but walking in them on my tile floors was actually painful as the stitches pushed into my feet. So I suppose it was sort of a wasted day. I was however forced to learn a new technique to make them, the magic ring. I'd never heard of it before, but after figuring it out, it's almost the same thing as the center ring in Armenian lace only with a crochet hook instead of a needle. I guess as long as I learned something, the day was productive.

Now I am again forced to find a new project unless I'm sent some orders in the shop in the next couple of hours. Yeah, I'm not counting on that either. I'll come up with something to make. It's just too bad my family doesn't like knit, crochet, tatted, or other fiber art gifts, then I'd have a purpose.

Dragon Wing

The battle for my idle hands was won by a knitting pattern I had seen fly across my twitter dashboard a few days ago. It's call a Dragon Wing Cowl and I thought it looked ever so interesting. Luckily I had plenty of plain black yarn on hand in the right thickness, so I was ready to go. It started out with a hell of a lot of garter stitch. I hate the look of garter stitch, but I trusted the pattern and knitted all throughout the morning of schooling. The rows got longer and longer and I was worried that I wouldn't finish it in one day. I really wanted to see the next step, because it's the reason I started on this boring garter stitch mass.

I kept at it and after an incredibly long day of schooling, there was an essay involved, I got to the next step. I dropped rows of stitches. It was painful to do, but kind of fun as well. They are dropped all the way to the beginning of the piece for the next step which is the one I was really waiting for.

You pick up all the dropped stitches and reknit them in bundles. Doesn't it look neat. I used a crochet hook and the process was fiddly as hell, but I was determined to finish my idle hands project in one day. I was actually still doing the braided spines while I was cooking dinner. I finished the piece right after we finished eating, a glass of wine in hand.

Now there was some talk of blocking in the pattern, but I never block anything, so this is what it looks like all done. I didn't have any buttons on hand to finish it properly, so I dug about my hoard of supplies and decided to use some jewelry toggle bars instead. I did sew them on in a way that will help with their removal should I acquire proper buttons in the future, but honestly I think it looks fine and it cost me nothing to make since I had everything already, just a day's worth of idle, project hungry hands.

The pattern is available free from Jessie At Home, if anyone
else is interested in taking a knitting day.

Now I just need to figure out what to do with my hands today. Here's hoping it's something interesting at least.

Done

I realized that on Friday I was talking about the design I was making up for the latest Armenian lace doily, but none of the pictures showed it yet at all. So this is what I started with on Friday. You can finally see here what I was talking about when I referred to a stripe beginning to form. It's not as distinct as I was hoping it would be, but I think more rounds and it would eventually become a nice spiral stripe. I however, was not interested in working on the design that long.

After a few more rounds I decided to come up with some unique edging design. There were a few patterns in the book with pointed edges, but I knew the points were all worked individually and then the thread was tied and cut and honestly I was looking to complete this piece with a minimum of fuss. I still wanted it to look interesting though. So after doing a little math to confirm it would work I made these small points that I then worked down the side of to start the next one. So it's worked back and forth over a handful of loops and then down the side giving it a rounded look. I think it also managed to enhance the stripe a bit as well.

 I finished it early in the evening yesterday. It still needs to be
washed and pressed. but I'm fairly satisfied with what I managed to come up with to finish the piece after earlier math had failed me. It ended up being about 9.5 inches across which means this one is small enough to put in a nice 10 inch square frame. You know, should I choose to go that route. This one has taught me that I need to be more mindful of the math, but when I'm not, I can in fact make stuff up as I go and it's not a complete disaster. What's up for me next to keep my hands from idleness, I don't know. I also managed to make 5 pairs of tatted cat ear headbands over the weekend, so I've exhausted my current tatting projects as well. As always I'll just hope for inspiration, sales, or both to keep me going.

Off Book

I took a good hard look at the doily yesterday morning and then simply abandoned the pattern. I stated that I had done so because of math and that is truly the reason. I just could not make the medallion round work evenly as it was and I didn't want to be done with it as it was either. All that being said, I had no plan in mind at all. I started here with large loops over the basket stitch and followed that with a few rounds of small loops.


I know that I didn't want to do too many more rounds of just the small rings, but I also had no idea what to do next. This is where I decided to just really make things up. I am completely off book now, of course the last picture here just shows the beginning of it.









I am seriously just guessing with these new rounds. I think this should create a diagonal stripe, but it's too soon to tell if I guessed wrong. There are no patterns in the book exactly like it, though the diamonds were made using a similar technique, so I should be good here, I hope. I guess I'll just keep on like this and hope that it looks good after a few more rounds. Then it'll be time to pick a new design. Here's hoping I come up with something good. And while I'm spending some time on hoping. Here's hoping sales in the shop pick up soon, that I get all the Armenian lace pieces photographed and listed, and that I have a brilliant idea for something tatted to make. All those would be great, thanks.

So Many Knots

I started in on the doily first thing in the morning, even before we started schooling for the day. I was determined to at least get to the next section of the pattern. This is the first round after the 20 small loops. It was the beginning of a section of basket stitch. Since I don't really have any final count of how many loops there ought to be at the end of the small loops, I was just lucky that they were just right for this next round.

This is during the basket stitch. It was going much faster with the larger loops of this section. I know that you don't need all these in progress pictures, but since I did little else during the day, they fill up the space nicely, don't you think?

This was the end of the main portion of the lace.
The rest of the piece is suppose to be done in small medallions attached around this. You know how I mentioned that I didn't know how many small loops I was suppose to have at the end of that section? Here's where that information shows how important it would have been. You see I'm suppose to have 78 small loops on the out side in order to attach the proper number of medallions. Guess what? I only have 58. Not only is that far too few, but it's not divisible by the right number to adjust the pattern properly either. I went ahead and started on a medallion, but I think what I may end up doing it just designing a few more rounds myself to get the doily to a nice size and and call it a day. Well, it will probably still take many days to finish, but you get the point.

Before I go though, one of the folks over on my Facebook page posted a link to the first in a series of YouTube videos in English on Armenian lace. I think I might have seem someone else mention this somewhere before, but since it was posted there, I though I'd share it here too, for anyone else interested in torturing themselves with thousands of tiny knots. The video is here. I've only watched a few seconds of it, so I can't speak for how good it is, but what I did see was promising. Just in case it wasn't clear, that torturing comment was hyperbole, I find all these knots quite enjoyable to create.