Tuesday, June 12, 2007

More FPs than WIPs

This little amulet bag is one of the designs from the latest TLPC newsletter. It was such a stinker to do mostly because I was working in black thread, doing split rings and adding in beads. I have no idea what someone would use one of these little bags for, but a while ago someone said they were interested in a pattern for one, so I designed one.

Actually, the bag itself wasn't that hard to do except for the first bottom row where the front and and back are joined together. The first time around I tatted all 4 rings of the first pattern repeat and then I couldn't climb up into the next row. The black thread was hard to see and doing the bead joins with a teeny tiny hook, I kept splitting the thread and having to carefully untangle it without shredding the thread.

I created it with a fold over closure and to keep it closed I added a see through dome fastener which doesn't show up in the picture. The pointed section could be omitted and it would just have an open top.
The fringe was added at the end. I simply took a long length of the thread, strung on the blue beads, added one black bead at the end and then ran the needle back through the beads. I played around with doing a design in the fringe and after drawing up a few possibilities I scrapped them all and went for simple.
I make an effort to create new and different things for the newsletter. Several people have said they really like doilies so I design some doilies, but other people have said they don't care for doilies at all so it becomes a challenge to come up with new interesting and different things for each issue. A number of people in the 25 Motif Challenge decided to join the challenge just to see if they could tat that many items in a year. Doing the newsletter, I know what I do each year as many of the articles find their way into the newsletter.
Some of the things I create are intended to be gifts, but other things, like the amulet bag I have no use for, they were created solely because it was a pattern someone requested. They go into my stash of completed items and when I find an appropriate person to gift it to, it's gone. Consequently I'm getting quite a collection of Finished Projects rather than Works in Progress. The only WIPs I have are the ones I am currently working on and as soon as a WIP becomes a FP I start another one.
By the way, if anyone has ideas for patterns they'd like created, let me know. As soon as my current WIP is done I need another idea!

1 comment:

  1. I love the patterns in this newsletter. The beaded bag is lovely and I hope to try it next. I am working on the daisy hatband right now. Thanks for your lovely designs!

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