Saturday, April 10, 2021

Look at the size of those shuttles!

The women that came before me were and are quite skilled and crafty. Some of them knitted, croched, sew, did Romanian point lace, spun yarn and wove rugs and towels.

My mother claims she isn't too crafty, but she has done some tailoring and taught me how to sew by hand. I owe to her a good number of handy stitches, which saved my clothes on many occasions!

The only other one in my family I was able to see at work was my grandmother from my father's side. She did so many things: she spun wool, knit, sew and wove. I still remember her spindles, plain wood with two stripes, one green and one pink. She let me play with them. She also had a big weaving loom that took up an entire room! And she definitely had a few wooden shuttles, of course much larger than mine. Most of these are lost now sadly, after her death.

But let me get to the story about the big shuttles!

Last year we went on a small holiday to the mountains and visited an interesting place, the fortified church in Harman, here in Romania. It is a very well kept church, withe a dizyingly high tower and surrounded by a large wall that also held rooms inside. It is now open to the public as a museum.


Inside the rooms in the outer walls, they arranged the items still remaining from those times. The furniture, tools and daily items, some whose purpose I pondered over.

In the garden, they had a display of tools for working yarn. There was a spinning wheel in the back and in the crate there were some very interesting wooden items.


My imagination ran wild with me for a moment, thinking I was looking at spindles and various yarn tools, but the rounded pieces are just spinning wheel legs. The guitar shaped thing in the back made me think of a rug punching tool, but it is not split in two halves...

And last but not least, look at the size of those shuttles! Or is it still just my wishful thinking that the tapered items are shuttles? If anyone can recognise these things and set things straight, I would be quite grateful.

Thursday, April 8, 2021

Back to the old ways

Oof, it seems that lately I have been re-doing rather than doing and very few things are actually turning out well.

I have been making piles of botched and cut off tatting every evening, not really happy with the results, afraid of having too many ends to hide and just throwing away good thread... I need to snap out of it!

I guess after a longer pause, things don't come as easily and good old tricks are forgotten.

For example, I did remember that the best way of working an even ring would be to always clasp the knots tightly before pulling on the thread to enlarge it, so they don't bunch up against each other. The tension shouldn't be too tight or too lose, but consistent. Although I have been making tighter knots for the coasters (I don't like flabby coasters). And I had completely forgotten a good trick to closing a ring: bringing the two ends close together and holding the knots between my fingers as tightly as possible, so none of them shift away from the rest.

Another idea I was trying to forget (but was forced to remember) is that my preferred method of hiding ends is to sew them into the knot caps. There is less bulk for the chain or ring and it seems to come undone less easily. I was never afraid of hiding ends before and I'm slowly getting back to that "bravery". I have things I made that I put through the washing machine or even scrubbed with a brush to clean and no ends came out. One thing to avoid here... hiding two ends under the same section.

I'm also unhappy with the split chain, no matter how much I brag about learning it. I can't seem to be able to control the tension on the no knot part. Either that, or I don't get the length of the chain right. So I'll put my tail between my legs and grab that needle and whip stitch those thread ends, as I used to.

Here is another coaster I made that I am finally happy with. The pattern is part of the Veronica doily, by Tatting lace, Marmelo.

There are about 7 or 8 ends hiding in there!
 

Take care everyone and don't forget your tried and true methods!