I entered a few things this year, since I finally finished off some mostly-finished pieces that have been hanging around mocking me.
First up is the blue hardanger square-in-square piece that I designed last year. I mounted it into a box lid, and it won a blue ribbon and Best of Show! Yay hooray!!
Next up are the three snowflakes (actually two snowflakes and one eight-sided motif) that I made when I was experimenting with tatting finer threads. The top and bottom ones are made with #40 thread, and the middle is my own design, made with #100 thread. I wanted to put all three in the fair but you can only enter one item per class and lot, so I joined them together, put a hanging loop on, and called it a Christmas ornament.
Last up is the green and white edging that I made last year shortly after I re-taught myself to tat. This has also been sitting in the drawer, just needing the fabric insertion added. So yesterday, at 4:30 pm, I pulled out the sewing machine and an old ripped pillowcase and finished it off. Fair entries were due by 8:00 pm, but I thought I probably had enough time. Because I'm not a procrastinator or anything, nope not me.
I traced a circle with a fortuitously-sized drinking glass, ran a narrow line of very close zigzag stitches around the circle with the machine, then hand-sewed satin stitches over that line, catching the inner picots of the tatted edging as I went.
I like the way it came out. This is pretty much exactly as I was envisioning it as I tatted. The circle isn't perfect and I'll probably clean up that one point on the curve next week when I get it back from the fair, but I really like it.
The thread was my grandmother's, vintage #80 Star tatting thread that's probably 50+ years old. The pillowcase was my mother's, a really old pillowcase that I slept on as a child. When I went to off to college in 1989 this was one of the two pillowcases that she sent with me, and I continued using it until about four years ago, when it ripped down the middle. Throw it out? I think not. The cotton is so soft and worn and sun-bleached white that it's nearly transparent, and I knew I would eventually use it for something.
Grandma's thread, Mom's fabric, my tatted design. Everything about this little doily makes me smile.
4 comments:
congrats! i completely forgot about your 'tatting' (that sounds weird as a noun). All show your amazing attention to detail which I'm sure seriously impressed the judges (as it does me!).
Does Emma enter anything into the fair each year?
All these items are astounding to me. Your ability to do such tiny and detailed work is amazing. And to have the 3-generation element is just so perfect! Congratulations!
Congrats on those amazing pieces!
As much as I think your plants are pretty, I'm so excited to see a fiber post. Congrats on your blue ribbons and for winning best of show. I've never tried hardanger or tatting though I knit, spin and sew. The hardanger piece is stunning.
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