Back and Forth

Saturday morning I stopped to take a picture of the Armenian lace doily, that will be something more some day. It measured 8 inches across at this point. I gave up with the honeycomb stitch after just three rounds. I just wasn't enjoying it and so I went back to plain loops yet again. Then I finally got a small order in my shop, so I had a little tatting to do.

First I worked up this small Threes pendant in black. I couldn't find the one I was suppose to have on hand. If you'd seen my organizational prowess, you would no be surprised by that. Everything is carefully put away in labelled storage boxes...with so many other pieces it's a literal scavenger hunt to find the piece I'm looking for sometimes. This time I gave up, so I made two of the pendant to restock the shop. After that it was a custom Mother's knot pendant, though I didn't stop to get a photo of that one.

Then it was back to the knotting. I had actually also sold a pair of ankle corsets on Friday as well, but I didn't have to remake those as I already had two pairs made. I'm sure when I need a break from knotting I'll get another pair made. I do like to have a back up pair of those so that they can always be listed. After about ten rounds of plain loops I went back to the basket stitch. It's about 10 inches across at this point. The plan is to do three rounds of the basket stitch this time and then back to plain loops. I'll figure out what to do next when I get there. It's been a little more work than I thought to keep the rounds growing at the correct rate to keep the piece laying mostly flat. I've gone through both warped edges when it was slightly too big and curled ones when I hadn't quite grew it enough. It's a balancing act, but it's keeping my busy and on my toes. So that's the plan for my leap day. Not particularly exciting, but at least I'll be busy.

Slowly

Another day another inch or so of lace. As the circumference increases, my progress on the diameter slows down painfully. Instead of growing larger quickly, it becomes a challenge just finish a few rows, then a couple, then just one in a day. I'm not quite there yet, but it's definitely slowed down. This picture was after a couple of rounds in the morning. I measured it at about 6.5 inches across.

Oh, and I really ought to mention again that this is not tatting. A few folks on my facebook page have assumed it was, which isn't such a stretch because that's what I am known for. If you've just tuned in here, it is called Armenian lace in the book I learned it from, but is incredibly similar to Turkish oya, or knotted oya, or actually about a dozen other names. Since I learned it from that book, I tend to call it Armenian knotted lace.

After a couple more rounds of plain loops, I decided to change it up again. This one is referred to as the honeycomb stitch. I haven't a clue as to why, it doesn't look very 'honeycomb' to be me, but I thought I'd give it a go for a few rounds at least. I haven't measured it again yet, but the growth is slowing, so it wouldn't be much of a dramatic change. I plan to do enough rounds of this to see if it does look more like it's namesake eventually. Then it will be back to plain loops for a while again. I guess we'll see how far the weekend gets me. We have a school outing today, so I likely won't get any done today, but the rest of the weekend should be fairly quiet. You might see another inch by Monday.

Basket Stitch

I was having such a good time with the knotted lace that I even took it with me when we started schooling for the day. It's is ridiculously easy to put down at any point in it's creation, even more so than needle tatting, so it's easy to do when I have to stop and help the kids. It's also fairly simple to start a new thread with this whenever you need, but it's still nice to get a whole round done with one and this round was cut as close as humanly possible, I think. I barely managed to get the last couple of knots out of this, but I was so close that I had to at least try to do so.




That round was just the beginning of a section of basket weave stitch. It's definitely one of my favorites and I really have no idea why. I guess I just really like the pattern it creates. In fact I like it so much I added another section of it after I finished that one. I think after this one I'm going back to the basic stitch for a while to create a nice netted section before I play with another design. The piece is about 5.5 inches across at this point, so I still have quite a ways to go before I start calling the doily a tablecloth. That's definitely where I'm headed with this though. That should keep me busy during these quiet shop times and give me something slightly out of reach to attempt. So forgive me in advance for the length of time you will likely be subjected to my Armenian knotted lace photos.

Doily

I'm still not sick. I'm afraid to say it out loud, but I think I might have just already had this particular cold virus before and that's why I'm escaping unscathed. Of course now that I've expressed that thought, the gods of irony are likely going to punish me with it. Nothing for it I suppose.

After schooling I did play with the Armenian lace doily some more. I tried something a little different and then it seems to have undone itself in the next round that I didn't take a picture of. I worked on it and reading pretty much the rest of the day. There's still been no real activity in my etsy shop since I went on vacation, so I guess I will just keep on knotting this until there is. I wondered at how big I could make this if I just used up a whole ball of thread yesterday. It was a crazy thought, but perhaps I'll just make it my fallback project for whenever I don't have something in queue to make. Then it'll just get bigger over time so long as I don't experiment too much with the design and keep it simple. Giant lace tablecloth, here I come.

Knotting

I'm still dodging the household cold, but who knows for how much longer. They are coughing right at me all day long and each one is a virus filled bullet. I did ignore the sickness surrounding me long enough to do some reading and I even pulled out a needle and thread. I didn't however, do any tatting. I haven't had any good ideas lately. Honestly, I haven't even had any bad ideas. It's been no ideas for quite some time now, but I wanted to do something with my hands. It occurred to be that it's been ages since I did any Armenian knotted lace and I didn't want to forget how, so that's what I did.

I didn't pull out any patterns, I just tatted a ring and started working.  I played with working both right to left and left to right for a few rounds, just to practice. By the end of the evening the little circle had grown quite a bit and I was completely comfortable with the stitch again. I think maybe I'll switch up the stitch today and practice another one. I haven't been paying attention to the round counts though, so I can't do any complex designs at this point. I don't have any purpose in mind for this little practice doily either, but at least I'm making some lace and that will do for now.