A Tatted Doodle

Sometimes while reviewing my accounting videos I’ll work on a piece of tatting to keep me from getting distracted.  If I’m not doing something with my hands (either tatting or taking notes) I tend to find myself checking email or rearranging things on my desk and not fully paying attention to the videos.

Of course, it can’t be a very complicated piece of tatting since the whole point is not to get distract.  This garland has been perfect.  It’s a simple single-shuttle edging with rings of 3-3-3-3.  No need to think at all so I can keep my hands busy and my mind on the accounting.

I had three balls left of this size 10 DMC thread and originally I planned to use all of them on this garland, but I’ve got two more starlit shuttles full of thread before I’m finished with the first ball and it’s already probably long enough to put on the tree as it is.  I think any longer and it might be a bit cumbersome to put on and pretty annoying to take off.  I do think that I’ll make garlands out of the other two balls (I have one other garland I’m working on from the same color), but maybe I’ll pick out a different edging pattern to use for each of those.  4 garlands of matching colors, but different patterns sounds fun.

Unfortunately, I’ve discovered that this thread bleeds a bit as I’m tatting with it.  I find it coming off on my fingers.  It doesn’t seem bad enough to toss the thread, (I have to tat quite a lot before I notice it) but I decided it would be best to limit what I used it for.  These garlands seem like a good project for it.  They take a lot of thread and will be well packed up and stored for most of the year.

I’m looking around for other pattern candidates for the next garlands.  Right now I’m feeling partial to single-shuttle patterns so I’ve been flipping through some of the Reigo books and trying to re-imagine what the the 1840s pictures would look like in real life.