Motif 12: Chunky snowflakes

I finally got around to buying Jon's snowflakes book last week. I paged through trying to find a favourite to do first. I couldn't pick one, so I decided to them in order.  I've been working with black thread, giving myself eyestrain and realizing that my eyes (if not the whole of me) are not as young as they used to be. So, to save myself pain, these are done chunky and not actual size.

The first one is Alladin, done in 3 strands of DMC metallic floss. I am never tatting with this thread again. It's like working with tin foil. My teeth fillings are still zinging.
The middle one is Effloresscence done in multi-colour Anchor Perle 5. Even though it looks like an exploded clown, I rather like this one.
The last one is Sweet Rose in DMC Cebelia 20.



It's the last month of the year and my count is 13 motif's short of 25. I've decided that failure is an option, so these are grouped, just like I normally would. You never know though, sometimes I work well under pressure.  We'll see how it goes.

Motif 11: Pair of hearts

I have a copy of 'The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye' by A.S. Byatt. The first story, 'The Glass Coffin', has a certain crafty charm.

In this story, a tailor has adventures and gets the girl. In the end, he misses being a tailor. So, according to the story, 'He ordered to be brought to him the finest silk cloth and brilliant threads, and made for pleasure what he had once needed to make for harsh necessity'.

Silk cloth? Thread? Now that is a proper happy ending! Today I have some silk to show, and that happy ending is tumbling around in my head.



Here's the first bit of silk. It's a pair of tatted hearts, in chunky silk thread. The one on the left is Jon's Mother's Day heart . The one on the right is from Iris Niebach's site. Hmm, looking at it now, it's a bit wonky. I think I'll have to try it again in cotton. They are both technique hearts, one has daisy picots and one has dimple rings.

The next bit of silk is a pair of Japanese thimble rings for Chloe Patricia's monthly photo sharing. I like making thimble rings, but making them with silk thread is positively addictive. Chloe Patricia is working hard to promote this wonderful craft, so if you have the time, please do visit her site and look around.

Random

Today, I just have some random crafty bits. Here's a monthly thimble ring from a few months back. It's stitched in unravelled bunka thread. Bunka is a strange thread to work with. It has kinks from being unravelled, so it pop-pop-pops as pulls through. Very disconcerting, but it works up quickly. Great for crafting when deadlines are looming.


Next are the little lady's pants. She was a bit annoyed because her brother was showing off his 'baju melayu', with 3 pockets in the top, 2 in the pants. She told me she wanted pink pants, WITH POCKETS. Personally, I agree with her. Why don't they put pockets in women's clothing? Anyway, these are the results. My pink tolerance is quite low, so I opted to mix and match.