The finished hanky!

Except for the blue ribbon. The bride didn't have any blue for the traditional "something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue" and asked if I could incorporate blue into the hanky somehow. I have 3 different kinds of blue ribbon that I considered. I really like the sheer organza ribbon on the right but it barely shows up. The blue at the bottom was too bold but the blue on the left looks appropriate. There's not enough to go around the hanky so I'll pick some up tonight and hopefully find some just a smidgeon wider. If the organza looked good, I was going to make an organza rose to hide the start/end of the ribbon weaving in the embroidered corner. I think the satin ribbon might be too bulky for that but I may make one anyway to at least test out. I'll probably disguise it with some pearl beads and a tiny bow. I'll show Tami's card with it when I'm done.

I decided to add some stats....The hanky is tatted in DMC cordonnette size 50. It took 15 minutes to tat each curlicue part on the top half of the edging and there were 10 on each side plus a bigger one on each corner. The bottom half of the edging was less involved and I didn't really time that but I estimated 7-8 minutes for each segment which again involved 10 on each side and a bit less in the corner. So the tatting involved around 17-18 hours, not counting winding shuttles and retro-tatting mistakes. Then there was the blocking and sewing on to the hanky and pressing (plus a soak in oxyclean) so it ends up being a minimum of 20 hours involved and probably closer to 25. If I were to charge mininum wage for my time, it would be over $100 for this hanky and that doesn't even include materials. That's why I don't sell my tatting.

I could make a simpler edging that would go quickly and perhaps that would be more feasible if I were trying to sell them. For now, I just think it's a really really nice gift.