Tatting Tea Tuesday 6-29-10

I just finished reading The Lace Reader. I won't reveal the ending for those who haven't read it yet, but for a book that appeared to be lightly entertaining, with a bit of mystery and romance, with fun if completely fictional references to lace-reading, it had an unexpected twist at the end. Part of the fun of a mystery is trying to figure out "who did it" along the way. In this case, I wasn't even sure what the crime was. That's what made the ending all the more of a surprise. I feel like I need to read it again to bring all the pieces together. I was so close to finishing Sunday night but made myself put it down as I knew I'd be sitting for an hour for some routine car maintenence Monday morning. Even that hour wasn't quite long enough! I finished up the last 6-8 pages during my lunch!

Now I'm getting ready to read another book, The Red Book. It's about creativity, discovering it, inspiring it, following it. A more practical book, to be sure, but I'm excited about reading it. I'm also reading a book by Bill Moyers, the companion book to the documentary series having to do with healing and the mind, a subject dear to me ever since I can remember. I did get to watch a few of the documentaries but not many. I've checked this book out of the library before but never had time to read it. Since I bought this one for a dollar, it's mine and I can take as long as I want to read it. LOL! So enough about books for now.

Well...almost. I decided I wanted to make a RED bookmark for The Red Book! Also, after posting the interwoven picot bookmark the other day (which went to someone else a long time ago), I wanted one for myself. So I got out some clear bright red thread in size 40 and wound two shuttles. Now...I have the directions sent to me by the original maker but it only tells the stitch count on the chains, not the final bookmark I tatted. I also have Riet's pattern, or the lady who originally designed one she taught. I really prefer the clovers I used in mine though so I sort of redesigned what I tatted before. The only thing I didn't like before was the ends. So I tatted right along last night and I have to admit I kept wondering if those picots were too long, even though I used a smaller picot gauge than the first one I picked up.
As you can see, they are way too long! Definitely shorter picots will be fine. I have no idea how I might salvage this piece. I'm certainly not going to untat it. I guess I could cut the picots fairly short and fray them. It might be a nice embellishment on something after that and cutting the end off. I'll try again tonight. See, if I still had the old one, I could measure. You better believe I'll be writing measurements down this time!

And drinking tea.

Here are some tips for a nicely brewed cuppa!