Colour makes me happy

I have an enormous delphinium in my garden that stands over 6 feet tall. During the growing season my sweetie has often said 'can we pull that weed out?' referring to the delphinium. It isn't much to look at most of the year. Then it blooms. Two foot long flower spikes covered with purple/blue flowers that just shout with rich vibrant colour.

My mother had a light blue delphinium in her garden and when I bought one for my garden I expected the same light blue flower on a plant 3-4 feet in height. Surprise! This one towers over my husband who is 6 foot 3 inches tall. The flower spike at the base is over 6 inches across, with the individual flowers over 2 inches across tapering at the top of the spike to over 1 inch across. In other words it's one huge mass of flower. You can see that the flower spikes are way over the top of the fence.

Every year I put it inside a tomato cage hoping that it will give the flowers the support they need. Every year it stands straight and tall, looking glorious. Until the first heavy rainfall. Then I wake up to purple branches laid across the lawn as the weight of the water and the wind topple the giants over. What's still out in the garden looks like a lot of flower. But the largest spike just broke off from the weight of them and I brought it inside. See. Huge. Colourful. Mass. Next year I'm putting in a 6 foot pole to hold them up.

Something else with colour is this. You saw it as it was being worked. It had skinny little spaghetti chains. Then it had ruffles. As it was worked it looked like a ruffled mess. Now it just looks like glorious wonderful colour. I love it. I also don't have a table to put it on and show it off. The dining table is used all the time so it isn't a good option. The speakers which I thought would hold it nicely are too narrow. It does fit on the end table, but the only table currently without a doily on it is kind of hidden in the corner where I can't see all the lovely colour. I think it's time to persuade my sweetie to make me a table.

The finished doily is about 12 inches across and I like the colour, the shape and everything about it. If I were doing it again, (not going to happen) I'd change row 4 so that the side by side rings are joined to each other and I'd use a single ring instead of a cloverleaf in the corner of the row. It's the really dense row of ring and chain that outlines those spaghetti chains and makes that lovely negative space stand out. I've designed about a dozen doilies and this is one of my favourites, but it still needs tweaking, which it isn't going to get. However, working on it has me thinking that I should go on a tatting binge and create enough new designs for a book. I have a couple that haven't been documented yet and this one has me thinking I should just go for it. Making doilies could go through thread stash in double quick time.