Gidday all, I came across a cute and easy tatted basket pattern a few days ago:
http://www.ringoftatters.org.uk/patterns/jeborall/jeborall.html and have ambitiously (crazily?) decided to make enough of these for favours at my wedding in September! So, having decided this at the last minute I have dropped everything else and am madly tatting. Ian's task for this weekend is to wind me lots of shuttles, to save me time when I run out of thread. I'm doing them in DMC Perle 8 in ecru, with tiny "pearl" beads on the edge of the final round, so they are coming out a fraction larger than the stipulated size in the pattern, which uses 20 cotton. To save time, I am not planning to sew in the ends of each round and have just left them hanging at the moment. If I get them all done and have time I will thread the ends in, but alternatively I am thinking of cutting them off very close and dabbing with a spot of a clear-drying glue. I know years ago there was mention of a product called Fraycheck? that people used for this purpose, but in the coastal town that I am now living in there is no hope of finding that, so I wondered is there some ordinary everyday variety of glue stuff that anyone can recommend? The kind that you will find in any old hardware shop or might have lying around. My intention is not for these baskets to be family heirlooms and last forever, so a bit of chemical damage to them that might be destructive to the basket over time does not worry me in this instance. Am I right in assuming that split rings cannot be used on this pattern? My experience with split rings is only that I've a length of practice ones, and have the instructions, but I don't do tatting often enough to have ever minded sewing in a few ends. From looking at my diagrams it seems you need 2 shuttles to do them? I don't particularly want to use a second shuttle for the ball chain here because they annoy me dangling down, especially when I'm trying to do things quickly. My other question is, can someone please tell me really easy instructions on how to do the last join of the last ring in a round, where you have to do it in some funny backwards way to get it to sit right?! No matter what I try (going through the picot from the other side etc.) I always end up with a twisted joining picot. I found in some old Arachne bits, a piece of advice that said to turn the bit of tatting to your left twice, so tried this yesterday and that was even worse. I'm obviously just not getting it. Better get back to my shuttle now and stop wasting precious tatting time. Michelle an Aussie living in Richards Bay, South Africa where I am still amazed at temperatures of 28C in the middle of Winter! Ian & Chelle Long +27 35 788 0777 - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED]
