In mid-January, I tackled some silk hankies:
which I bought in December at Pam’s store. Hankies are single silkworm cocoons that have been prepped and “spread out” into squares that are about the same size and shape as handkerchiefs.
I spun them on my drop spindle, into this lovely laceweight yarn:
There’s all of 2 grams there, but silk is super lightweight, so there’s actually a lot of yardage for its weight.
Last night, after tatting through the Superbowl, I decided to start another “Small Round Medallion” from the Priscilla Tatting Book #3. I made one of these before, as you might remember, but I wanted to make a second one. This time for me, but also because I wanted to use a familiar pattern when working with such an unfamiliar thread:
I think it’s pretty, don’t you? What’s exciting about using handspun is that it’s not evenly consistent. There are parts where the thread is very fine, and parts where it’s downright slubby, but I just tatted them along as best as I could. I think the only place it looks a bit weird is the last cloverleaf, which is shown in the picture in the upper left– it looks like two of the “leaves” have overlapped. That’s really just a positioning problem on my part. When I push them into the right places, they stay, and if I block this firmly, I am sure it will come out very nicely.
2: Small round medallion, in peach
3: ATC with medallion motif piece.
5: Small round medallion, in handspun blue, shown above.
Wow, you used handspun for tatting! I’ve thought about doing that but never got around to it (I am a handspinner as well). Congratulations on making it work!