Motif 10:Lacy medallion

The last time I tried this motif, I lost a row. I managed to redo the row, but in the process, I found 3 little mistakes. Then, managed to add 2 times as many chains as was needed, resulting in a ruffle. I told myself that I liked the ruffle, that no one could see the little mistakes. I took a deep breath, and tried to accept my little doily...


It didn't work. So here it is again, lying flat like it should. (This is the Lacy Medallion from the Tatter's Treasure Chest. The first attempt is done in Olympus perle 8, the second is DMC Cebelia). It seems I have to tat everything twice to be happy.




Here's another little top for my little lady. I should call it the 'Jon' dress. The larger snowflake is 'Featherline' in DMC cordonnet 20, the little ones are 'Hearts in a Snowflake' in DMC 80, both from Jon Yusof's excellent site.


I tried a different approach to finishing this dress. Instead of facings for the neck and armholes, I lined them with contrasting satin bias binding. I like the little splash of colour it adds, but I'm not happy with how it puckers the armholes. Oh well, live and learn.

Baju kurung onslaught

It's the day after hari raya and I'm watching the sunrise after a quiet/busy celebration yesterday; quiet because we didn't visit too many people, busy because small children (my pair and my brother's little guy) lend a bit of chaos to any event.

It's traditional to have new clothes for hari raya. In my parents' time, it was a big deal because this might be the only time in the year you get new clothes. Now, we mostly keep it up for the kids.

This year, I made quite a few baju raya (hari raya clothes). For some reason, I feel compelled to document my endeavours. I'll give a warning first: "Boring post ahead, many ugly pictures"

First here are 6 sets of baju kurung I made for my friend. She asked me if I'd tailor for her little girls, and I said yes. I spent a lot of time worrying as I was working on these. I worried I'd run out of fabric, that I wouldn't finish in time, that I'd ruin some little girl's hari raya by making some terrible mistake with her baju raya.


In the end, it worked out Ok, and I actualy managed to turn my handiwork into profit. The last time that happened, I was 9 years old, selling origami models to my class mates for 5 sen. My school was a bit strict, so my mother put a stop the enterprise, but it was fun then. It's still fun now.

Next are the ones for my family, in all their unironed glory. They are unironed because I was in a hurry to get a group shot before my newphew's set went home with my sister-in-law. Year after year I tell myself to buy something that doesn't need ironing, but then I go the Kamdar, and hear the siren call of the cottons. I'm a sucker for natural fibres and can't resist the wrinkly stuff.

There's one big one for my brother, one with sparkles for the little lady, two baju melayu for my big guy and my nephew and one inadvertant extra. The little lady's has beading on the neckline (I'll get a close-up when it comes out of the wash). The extra is because I mismeasured my nephew and made his too small. There was extra cloth so I opted to just make another one. I'm not sure what to do with the extra. If you've got a 2-3 year old boy and would like a baju melayu, drop me a comment.



The next one is my current favourite (you can tell by the extra wrinkles). The skirt is linen and the top is Japanese cotton, a really yummy combo.


This last one is a mother daughter set, one for the little lady and one for me.


So there we go, 14 baju kurung, 11 of them finished in the last 3 weeks. Hari raya is a time of forgiveness. So, if any readers made it this far, I beg your forgiveness and wish you grace on this fine day. 'Selamat Hari Raya, Maaf Zahir Batin'.

Lost row

I lost the last row of my current doily to stupiditis (missed the first ring of the row), so no finished tatting today. Grrr...
I've decided to console myself with cookies or, since it's fasting month, just a picture of some cookies.


These are the cookies from my daughter's birthday goody bag last week. I bought pink sanding sugar because the little lady loves pink. Now I am spoiled for life. Making pink cookies is just sooooo much more fun making white ones. The baking goods shop has sugar in green! blue! purple! ...Sigh... I'll never be able to make plain old white sugar cookies again.

I was able to be a bit more crafty for the little lady's birthday. Here are her goody bags, made of wrapping paper.

And here's her birthday dress. She calls it her 'rodes' dress (she still has trouble with the 'zzz' sound).


I'm pretty pleased with it. It has box pleats on the bodice, a hand stitched piped neckline, roses on the pleats, and roses on the sleeves. She likes it too. She's worn it 3 times this week.

Everything's pretty

I made this thimble ring last week, just in time for Chloe Patricia's monthly 'Share your thimbles'. I wasn't very happy with the colours (not enough contrast). I showed it to my little guy and told him it wasn't very pretty. He told on "Oh Mak (Mak means Mom in Malay) I think it's pretty. You can make it any way you like, it's still pretty to me!". He's such a sweet heart.



The little guy turned 6 last week. For the past two years I've made him origami to give to his nursery friends. Two years ago, he even had little hand sewn totes as goody bags. This year, he told me he didn't want origami. He wanted normal plastic bags, with chocolates, jellies and sweets.

I was a bit sad, because, well, he's growing so fast, developing his own opinions. Sigh, sometimes we all wish they could be babies forever. I was also relieved. Origami takes time. He still wanted baked goodies though, and we had to negotiate a bit to get the baking down to acceptable levels (60 choc chip muffins and 12 cupcakes). Here's a picture of one of his birthday cupcakes. The silver balls are a compromise too. I hate them, but they are his favourites.

Motif 9: Snowflakes

It's already July and I'm still in single digits for the 25 motif challenge. Either I've got to tat faster or stop grouping my motifs. Oh well, I it is supposed to be a challenge. It wouldn't be fun otherwise.


Motif 9 is a trio of snowflakes done in DMC 80. The first is pristine white, but those darn colours were impossible to resist.

The first is Jon Yusof's 'Hearts in a Snowflake'. I really like working Jon's designs. Her diagrams are very clear. I didn't block it properly, so the hearts don't show. The second is a round snow crystal from 'Tatter's treasure chest' and third is Kira's Star by Birgit Phelps. I can't seem to find the pattern online anymore.

I'm contemplating a largish design in size 80 so these snow flakes are for practice. For the past year, I've tried to to do front and back side tatting. I do modern joins (as taught by Teri Dusenbury) and I post my shuttle back to front (as outlined on Elizabeth's Lace).

My tatting still doesn't look that professional, but I think the picots and joins are getting better, so I figure it's worth the effort. However, with these itty-bitty snowflakes, I can barely see the stitches. At this size, wonder if it's still worth the effort...

Thimble ring stitching

I was sad that I missed Chloe Patricia's 'Share your thimbles' last month. So this month, I'm starting early. I'm also doing a thimble ring post, just for my own reference.

From her blog post (third picture down), I think Chloe Patricia takes her stitches from the middle to the edge. One of the Japanese books shows how to stitch from the edge to middle.

I tried both ways, but for both methods, I kept turning the ring over and over to get the needle at the correct angle to take a stitch. To avoid tangling and needle pricks, I ended up unthreading and rethreading the needle after every round. This was causing shredded thread and frustration. Threading needles is hard on the eyes.

I really wanted to work out a way to keep my needles threaded between rounds. Here's the method that works for me.

So here's a bangle in progress. It has 6 paths. At this point, 4 paths have been started and I've secured the thread to start the 5th round. You can see the 4 needles stuck in the base fabric and the 5th needle waiting to go.

Here's the first stitch. The needle goes from the edge to the middle (right to left) with the thread under the needle.

Here's the second stitch. The needle goes from the middle to the edge (still right to left) with the thread still under the needle.


So I just go around this way to get a full path. With this method, I just hold the ring vertical with my left had, rotating the ring as I go and always taking my stitches from right to left. I leave my needles threaded and stuck in the base fabric as I stitch.

Here are the 3rd and 4th stitches.


I also found some computer aid to help me do base markings. I use this site to generate graph paper. I set the horizontal grid spacing to the height of my ring. I set the vertical grid spacing to the width of a section. Then print, cut and use.

Motif 8: Button bookmark

I wasn't able to completely give up the colour, but I did tone it down a little. This is Jane Eborall's elegant bookmark with buttons, done in DMC cebelia 20. Personally, I think it's much pretty to hide away inside a book.

The overlapping bits had me a bit worried, but it was a surprisingly restful project. The only problem was loss of portability. I had to sit a table so I could rest my shuttles on it. If I didn't I ended up with an impressive tangle.

It's a good think I like to untangle things. It was one of the first crafty things my mother let me do. She'd let me play with her knitting things and as punishment/reward, I'd get to untangle the resulting mess.