Sidetracked by the Mail (and Motif #5)

Hello all!

 We're supposed to get mail only once-every-other-week here, but luckily it seems that something shows up every week...and sometimes multiple somethings, like last week:

Hurrah! I have pretty much doubled my stock of thread with this delivery!

Aren't they beautiful?

 As I mentioned in a previous post, I have decided that I need to get out of my "Perle 8" rut, to make smaller and more delicate "tattings" like everyone else, and I'm starting with that beautiful blue thread I found over the summer in Des Moines...

 Unfortunately, they only had one ball of that thread, and I wasn't sure if the project I wanted to do would take more than just that one ball...

Thank goodness for the Internet! A very quick search on eBay not only gave me access to multiple rolls of this beautiful thread, but multiple rolls of the same dye lot (as you may or may not be able to tell from the picture below, the colors are VERY slightly different) for my large project...

 And, luckily for me, my rolls of thread came last week, so I was sidetracked from the carpet-diagramming project in favor of "The Big Doily" from the February 1925 issue of Needlecraft Magazine.

Funny that "The Big Doily" starts so small:

Left: 1 Russian Ruble   •   Right: 1 American Dime   •   3 Dimes ≈ 1 Ruble

Of course, they always grow...

Motif #5

 I was originally going to make the third round in the blue, but my husband Chris talked me out of it. He thought it would look better as a white doily with blue accents, rather than the other way around...we'll see. Chris so seldom gives me suggestions on (or even takes much notice of) my tatting things that I thought I would take his advice if for no other reason than to show that I appreciated his interest. :) He's a good guy! :)

 Apparently I didn't take a picture after round four, but you can plainly see it in the pictures below...and the problem that arose in round five:

Whoops!

Can you say tension issues?

I have run into tension issues in my tatting before...it was actually a comment from a Fair judge last summer, and of course there is the still unfinished frilling doily from Falls Church...

I was given the advice to steam the frilling doily (which I have not done, as I stopped work mid-round and haven't picked it back up yet...thanks and sorry Margaret) but since I'm not sure how Chris' steamer works, I decided to try a quasi-blocking instead.

Thank goodness for the water distiller we have here! The local water takes on kind of a yellow tinge, and I'm not at all sure what it would have done to the pretty white of the doily, but the distilled water is crystal clear:

 After a thorough dunking (during which the thread relaxed beautifully) I put the ironing board to use and stuck pins into the picots of the outer-most ring (the one that is giving me trouble, naturally.)

Sorry it's hard to see...I didn't want to chance any cross-color contamination with a colored towel

 I checked it a couple minutes ago and the doily is still slightly damp, so I haven't resumed progress...maybe I'll get out that frilled monstrosity and finish my current round...and then see if I can get them to relax a bit after a dunking :)