As I mentioned in my last post, the garden has been going nuts recently. We’ve had a ton of hot weather in the UK – and the occasional heavy rain shower – so everything has been growing like crazy. A few months ago I potted up some cheap bedding plants, kept my fingers crossed I’d find someone to water them when I was working away, and tried to ignore the fact that the rest of the garden looks terrible. Well, the rest of the garden still does look terrible, but the bedding plants looks amazing. They make me smile every day. I nipped out there just a minute ago to take a picture, and look what I found…

If I’d known tatting was that easy to grow, I’d’ve done it earlier!

It is, of course, the centre of a Primrose Path doily, by Mary Konior. It’s the only bit of tatting I managed to do on my days off, which is a bit of a shame, but couldn’t be helped. It’s really pretty though, even if I do say so myself. I used the Shoe Lace Trick (SLT) on this a lot, because I wanted the centre rings to be the darker colour, and it worked really well. One of those things I’d read about before but wasn’t 100% sure I could see a use for.

I’ve earmarked this for someone as it is, because I think they might be able to make something quite nice out of it, and the full doily really is best left as a doily rather than a starting point for something else. (If that makes any sense?) I still intend to make the full thing though.

I mentioned before I’d bought the Venus Thread in size 70 to try it out… and umm, I really don’t like it! I love the soft greys, but the thread produces rings that are really difficult to close – does anyone else find this? I abandoned the intended 2 colours, shown above, and thought I’d make my life (and my commute, which is where I tatt most) easier, by just using one ball and one shuttle. We’ll see if I make it through!

I also bought Jon’s Tatting with Rings book a little while ago. I purchased the PDF version (which arrived very promptly via email) and printed it all out asap. It looks wonderful – now I just need the time to start! Since having a few days off everything has become 10 times busier, which means… I’d better get back to it actually.

No rest for the wicked. (And clearly, I’ve been very wicked).