Weekend Recap

Well, I woke up this morning to a custom order in my etsy shop, so I have something new to work on today. Over the weekend it was just the Armenian lace though. I'm very close to done on this one. I'm at about 23cm across and I'm going for about 26cm. I think after the next pattern section it will actually be a little bigger than that and I will be almost out of the the thread I'm using for it as well. I also thought it would be more fun to add the cat to the the doily picture for this one.

The rest of the weekend was pretty lazy. There were some errands, a movie night and some cleaning. The summer definitely feels like it's winding down even though there are about three weeks left before we're back to schooling. I fear I have missed my opportunity to anything 'big' creatively over the summer. I have enjoyed the doilies though, so I suppose it's fine. They may not have been hugely challenging, but I think they turned out well.

Two Days

Sorry that I didn't write yesterday morning. My computer didn't want to play nice with our internet connection. It was fixed later in the morning, but my routine had already been upended so I didn't bother. That just means that you get two pictures of Armenian lace progress, the one from Wednesday and the one from yesterday. Wednesday I was still working it with the same basic repeating design.

Yesterday I decided that it was getting unwieldy at the long loops and it was best to revert to small loop rounds to strengthen the piece. After a few rounds of those I'm changing it up again. Initially I was going to repeat the design at the center, but the spacing won't work right, so I'm just winging it again and hoping that I have developed enough of an instinct with the knotting to not screw it up entirely at this point. It's at about 18cm right now and I'm already running low on thread so I'm not sure how big it'll grow before I have to call it finished. I'm pretty pleased with it so far though, so whenever that it should be fine.

One last thing, thank you for the comments regarding teaching this skill. I'm still a little wary as my information on the background of Armenian lace is so thin, but I suppose that's not the most important bit. Maybe I'll get up the courage when this one is done to do a basic tutorial. I'll just think on it some more I guess.

Eyes

A full half of yesterday was spent sitting in the eye doctor's office with the family, because that's what happens when you schedule 4 appointments in a row and 3 of you have your eyes dilated extending the appointment. The first half of the day was pretty nice though. Look what I got in the mail from Instructables. It's a neat new prize pack. I know I haven't put anything new on that site in a while, but I do go there all the time to learn new things. It's my first stop when curiosity hits.

I've been getting a few comments on facebook asking for an Armenian knotted lace tutorial, but I don't think I'm quite good enough, or more importantly, knowledgeable enough of the technique to teach it. I mean, everything I know I learned from one book or experimentation. Does that even remotely qualify me to teach something to other people? No, really I'm asking. What do you think?

Leaving that question, this is what I got done on the gray piece during the day. I actually worked on it a bit in the waiting room before my eyes were dilated and I could no longer see. I didn't measure it so I'm not sure how big it is right now. I think I'm going to continue with the design I've worked out by growing the points every new round. So far it's working out okay, but this one is just pure guesswork. I'll likely just work it up to about the same size as the purple one.

Done and Started

I had a weird day yesterday. We had AT&T guys coming out to work on our internet and of course
anytime that's happening, you spend much of your day waiting. Bonus, I got to spend much of it without the television or internet to entertain me while I knotted. Regardless, I still got the purple piece done. I still don't know what will be done with it though. For now it's just sitting on my desk looking pretty.

Since I was waiting all day and couldn't think of anything better to do with my time, I picked up some gray thread and started another Armenian lace project. I started the piece based on an existing pattern. Then, a couple of rounds in, I decided to just make it up as I went. I honestly have no idea what I'm doing at this point. I'm just making choices at the beginning of each round and hoping that they look nice as the piece grows. It appears I have become a little addicted to the knotting. Though I do really miss tatting. I guess I just haven't had any good tatting ideas in a while and the Armenian lace keeps my hands busy.

Almost Done

Much of the weekend was spent binging the Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt on Netflix with the family. I know we're late to the party, but I'm glad I watched that first episode on a whim. Anyway all that sitting got me almost to done with my purple Armenian lace piece. This picture was Friday as I was just starting the last round of pineapples. I made these ones even bigger than the previous round and there was the fear of ruffles again. Pressing after each round proved to be the way to go though. It's not flat as a board.

This is last night just before the last couple of rounds. It looks like the final size will be around 28cm or 11 inches. I had initially thought it should be about 10 inches, but it needed that pineapple round on the outside, so I'm stopping as soon as I get a nice small loop edge on it. That means it'll be done today and then I get to wonder what to do next. I really want to keep it, but I also really need to be selling things, so perhaps I'll list it in the shop anyway and if it doesn't sell after a few months, then I'll frame it. Of course I've never tried to actually sell a doily because the amount of work involved is so much more than the perceived value of a purely decorative piece of lace. Part of that is because you can get crochet doilies for a couple of bucks pretty much anywhere and most people don't know the difference. I guess I'll just think on it for a while. Then I'll have to think on what lace project to tackle next.