The "Big Doily" Gets Bigger plus a Bracelet

Greetings!

The past two weeks have been polar opposites for me in terms of tatting:

Two weeks ago I was very productive, as you will see below, and this past week I have been very unproductive, due in part to this:

Ouchie! My finger met the slicer side of my cheese grater and made tatting quite difficult for a few days!

However, I have managed to make a bit of headway on "The Big Doily"

 It amazes me how much nicer the circles look with the centers filled in!

You perhaps notice the big spaces between the first large blue round and the (for now) most outer white ring...the pattern suggests inserting Sorrento Bars, the concept of which is totally escaping me.

I've done Google searches on the topic, and the best help I've found is this from Project Gutenberg's eBook of "The Art of Modern Lace Making" by The Butterick Publishing Co:

 I'm still not quite sure how this is actually going to work...do any of you have any experience with Sorrento Bars or suggestions on how to use them in this pattern?

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Sometimes before bed my mind wanders and I start thinking about what I would tat if I could find the pattern. If I fix on something I try to write it down before I forget about it...

I really, really love the doily that is the heading of this blog. It is the "Celtic Sugar and Spice Doily" from Tina Neudorf's Needle Tatting From the Heart. Two of my favorite parts are the center motif with the overlapping motifs and the overlapping chains about halfway through.

I was thinking about this doily and decided to try to come up with a bracelet based on those two elements...and here is what I came up with:

The insides:

The outside:

The bracelet:

 The original drawing:

And then of course I got a brainwave...and remembered these long-neglected beads in just the right colors for this bracelet!

So I decided to add some...I wanted to put in the overlapping chains, but they didn't look the way I wanted them too...tension issues again :(

 So I cut them out and went to my old standby and personal favorite: Josephine!

And here is the finished product:

And wasn't Pip nice, he helped!

 

 

Maybe someday I'll come up with the pattern, but for now I want to tweak it a bit more...it's the type-A perfectionist in me, I think.  :)