Who Won?

Lace Mat Poll Winner Is....(I'm not telling)

If you haven't yet gone to see whose Norma Benporath Lace Mat received top honors in Jon Yusof's poll, what are you waiting for?

Thirty-five tatters submitted their lace mats for peer review and the poll results are posted. All in all, a great experience from start to finish!

Thank you, Jon, for giving us this opportunity to tat a fantastic Australian doily pattern from 1938.

More thank yous to all who participated in the Lace Mat Tat-Along and the Poll.

Finally (and most humbly), thank you to all who so kindly considered my lace mat for their top five votes. It was an exceedingly difficult choice.  All 35 entries were fabulous!

What?  You still haven't gone over to Tat-a-Renda to see who the winner is? OK, okay... the winner is none other than Martha Ess! *applause.applause.applause*

The mats that received the top 5 votes are listed on Tat-a-Renda blog as well. Go see!

A Star Shining in the East

Who out there is tatting Jon's latest offering, a lovely Johar Star?

It has been added to my Must Tat list, but I cannot start it right now.  Gingerbread Boy sits languishing unloved in my tatting corner. He has been thrown over for TIAS. I am certain he will require hours of therapy to recover from the emotional trauma.

Go Vote! Lace Mat Poll

Jon Yusoff has begun the Lace Mat Tatting Poll -- go vote for your top five!
(Please read the rules first, so you don't disqualify your votes by mistake.)

Lace Mat Poll Has Started

A Finished Lace Mat

2012 Norma Benporath Lace Mat Tat-Along
Completed December 7, 2012
Tatted by IsDihara

It is done!  My work on Jon Yusoff's Tat-a-long for The Lace Mat by Norma Benporath is complete.   The gradient yellows give the mat a cheerful look, like lacy sunshine!

Update:  I forgot to mention that this lace mat measures 6 3/4 inches (17.145 cm) in diameter.

The threads I used are:

• Rounds 1 and 2:  Lizbeth^®40 Pinapple Parfait #170
• Round 3:  Lizbeth^®40 Honey Drizzle #180
• Round 4:  Lizbeth^®40 Honey Drizzle #180 & Lizbeth^®40 Gold #611

Thank you, Jon, for sharing this vintage treasure from "down under" circa 1930s. It has been such a pleasure to participate in the tat-along. 

FYI - a tatting blogger expressed her fear of losing clovers which she had tatted separately while adding them to round four.  That is exactly what I did -- lost clovers.  Twice.  No idea where they have gone, perhaps the same place as missing socks? 

Since they never turned up,  I tatted replacements.  And I made a mistake with them that (to me) stands out glaringly in the photo. But I wonder if anyone else noticed before I sent you looking?

The perfectionist in me wants to cut them off and redo, but if it is really a case of "nobody will know from the 14th row," I won't trouble myself to correct the mistake.

Lace Mat - Moving Right Along

Round four of Jon Yusof's Lace Mat Tat-Along is progressing.  Now that those long chains (round 3) are out of the way I am having more fun. And I am pleased with the color progression.

The trefoil bits are attached as I go. Doing it this way allowed me to keep tatting while waiting for the Lizbeth threads to arrive to the Handy Hands warehouse from China. 

Otherwise I would have tatted it all in one pass.

This mat is a bit of a challenge to photograph. The golds in the second image are more true-to-life but the lighter threads are overexposed. Zooming in on the same photo yielded the first image.

Here is a scan. 

Please pardon all the loose threads.  The ends are "hidden" but I tend to not trim them until I have done a final steam press and/or blocking. See how the colors look different in all three images?

I am tatting more on round four of the Lace Mat today instead of the Gingerbread Boy. Variety keeps me from getting too bored or frustrated.  Looking forward to sharing "tidied up" images.

À tout à l'heure, mes amies!

Lace Mat Progress

Norma Benporath Lace Mat Tat-Along
Round 3

Hurray!  Round three is complete. The Norma Benborath Lace Mat is looking graceful, even before blocking. 

Here is a photo of it pinned onto a round blocking template.  Hmmm, it might be time to print out a new one  (judging from all the pin holes).

Many thanks to LadyShuttleMaker for offering these free printable templates on her blog.  They are so handy!

Today (Veteran's Day in the USA) will mark the beginning of round four.  I have tatted all eight finishing clovers separately so they are ready to attach as I tat. The finishing clovers are tatted in Lizbeth^®40 Gold #611 and (crossing fingers) will draw the eye outward to the edges of the mat.

So far I really like how the Lizbeth^®40 Honey Drizzle #180 complements the first two rounds. (Lizbeth^®40 Pineapple Parfait #170, for those who like to know).

Fretting over Flop

Norma Benporath Lace Mat Tat-Along
Round 3 in progress

Having already griped over the liberal picots in this otherwise graceful design, I turn my attention to the really long chains in round three.

Nineteen tatters are listed on Jon's blog as participating in this tat-along.  Several of those tatters have already completed this project and posted their lovely results.

So why has no one mentioned their experiences tatting the long, floppy chains in round three? Surely I cannot be the only one to approach them with prejudice.

EDIT:  Oops, I stand corrected. Tat-ilicious Jess had a fair amount of success with tatting her chain stitches unflipped, using the second shuttle.  I will give that clever trick a try.

My dislike for long, floppy chains can be traced back to my participation in the 2009 Design_Tat online course. The class discussed my long floppy chains at length (see the picots?). It was a great learning experience.

Determined to overcome floppy chain syndrome, I reworked the assignment.  The "onion dome" shapes were lost in the process of retro-fitting stability into the design.

EDIT: Two bits of wisdom I took away from that particular lesson were "don't retro-fit stability into a design" and "designing takes patience and PERSEVERENCE."  I guess an unexpected thing I took away from that lesson was a (perhaps unhealthy?) dislike for long chains with regularly spaced picots.

Ever since, I have avoided long floppy chains, especially ones with lots of decorative picots.

But I digress!

If no one else was willing to tackle this issue, I was going to give it a try.  Substituting the Double Double Stitch didn't work because the resulting chain was too long. Adjusting the DDS stitch count was a bit problematic because of all those picots, so in the end I decided to just tat it as written and forget about stabilizing those floppy chains.

But I can't stand it. It is driving me crazy!

Those of you who have finished the doily, does your doily stand up to the flop test?

Gentle tatters, I ask for an open discussion of long, floppy chains.  Help me to learn how to use them advantageously and without prejudice.  Whaddya say? Will you weigh in on "flop?"

Lil' Black Border Revisited

Maybe because Jane from South Africa is tatting an edging?  Today I have been thinking about the Lil' Black Border pattern I learned to tat back in the 1980s.  (And a slew of other projects...)

Alas, too many tatting To Dos are already queued to start an edging. Unless, of course, it is Be-stitched's Tatted Holly Edging.

There is also Tatman's Back to School Apple, Gina Brummett's Gingerbread Boy, Yarnplayer's Small Maple Leaf earrings and a paperclip horse designed by Ineke Kuiperij.  (The design comes from her Chess Set booklet.) The paperclip horse was shared with the Palmetto Tatting group by Pam Freck, Katharine Buckner and Riet Surtel-Smeulders.

See what I mean about distractions?  *whine* But I have Norma Benporath's Lace Mat to finish. And at least one more charity project snowflake to complete before November 3^rd...

Hand-dyed threads (HDTs) are whispering too. 

• Karey Solomon's Hobbit (pictured left)
• Lady ShuttleMaker's Witches Brew 
• Yarnplayer's Sugar Maple
• Tatskool's Brackin Crunch 
• Tat-ilicious' (I have forgotten the name.)

It is not "4-Eva," not Fancy Fields, not Blue Tango...

All these HDTs are vying for attention. Oh, good grief!

Maybe I'll tat a football instead:  Tatman's Superbowl Shuttle & Pattern