Or, I should say, Здравствуй! (It means hello in Russian...or if you're among friends, Пяивет!)
I apologize for the lack of blogging lately...
You see, I have been quite busy the past two weeks, attending Russian language classes. And I have to tell you, learning Russian is TOUGH!! (If you really want to know more about about it you can click here and read more about my first two days of class.)
The class is 5 hours of in-class time and 1 hr of lab time each day, and at least 2 hours of homework each night. It's nice, but SUPER stressful...I'd like to say that I'm coming home at night and decompressing with tatting, but I'm honestly just too mentally tired to pick up a needle (or shuttle, since I can do that now, too. :)
I'm thinking I need to change that, though, because I miss tatting...hmmm...
Although I am very happy to have the opportunity to learn Russian, sometimes when I am really tired I think back to the glory days "BR" (Before Russian)...
...One of the lovely things about "not having anything to do" during the day and being within a 30 minute Metro ride of Washington DC is the access to all the museums...and so I decided to visit as many of the Smithsonians as I could, not only to soak up all the history and culture, but also to see if I could find tatting...
And after A LOT of looking I did! :)
Behold, two instances of tatting found in Faith Bradford's "Doll House" at the National Museum of American History:
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| Cute. Table topper! |
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| (It's on the towels) |
However, I had actually started a new project before "BR"...it's another giant doily, but instead of my usual Perle 8/size 5 needle I'm trying something new and using the size 7 needle and size 30 thread.
Motif #8 is the small motif that starts the doily:
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| Notice I'm branching out in size but not in color...I love my ecru thread! :) |
And then the doily started looking like a fluffy skirt or frill...not like a nice flat doily...
So I'll ask the question...what do you do when your doilies decide to be 3-D instead of lie flat? Do you iron and block between each row to keep it flat or do you wait until the end and hope it relaxes with moisture and a LOT of straight pins? Or, did I do something wrong? Is it a tension issue?
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| Something about this "doily" just doesn't seem right... |
So that's where I'm at...I have A BUNCH of Russian homework to do this weekend but I hope I will be able to sneak a little tatting-time in between...we'll see! I had a nice run of tatting book-buying "BR" and I am anxious to test them out and find my next fun project!
Have a great weekend!
KF
Sounds very stressful this Russian, we have just come back from Greece and there were loads of Russians on holiday, it's a very different language and sounds hard so I don't envy you in learning it.
ReplyDeleteYour doily looks lovely, I would try to steam it and see if it will lay flat if not then you have too many patterns per round, it may not be your tension as such, try the steam iron first.
Margaret