In the Course of Antiquing, some Tatting was Found...

Antiquing is a fun pastime on a rainy, cloudy, cold day...and my Birthday earlier this week fell on such a day.  So...I got to pick what we did...and antiquing we did go.

I enjoy browsing and looking at all manner of things old...the depression glass, tea cups, hankies, furniture, and many many other lovely things are just thoroughly pleasurable...but edgings and embroidery on linens have always been something I have loved.  This time it was with more interest perhaps than ever before.  Becoming a tatter myself has made me value even more what I see...and I looked more for that specific type of handiwork than I have in the past.  There were a few things I ran across that simply had to come home with me.

The first of these was this lovely dresser scarf...

The edging on this is simply lovely...very delicate, quite small thread...and the pattern resembles little flowers.   

In the picture above you can see the hand rolled edging, and the pretty detail of the openwork inside the edging is more visible below...both are beautifully done...

I think I would like to try this delicate little floral edging someday...it would be perfect on a hankie I think, it is simply a beautiful edging pattern.  The embroidery on this piece is noticeably less delicate.  While I like the embroidery, I don't feel that it matches the edging in style nor in color quite as beautifully as one might like (perhaps it was even done by a different person).  This is still a very pretty piece...something that someone, or perhaps a couple of someones, spent a great deal of time and effort on.

I truly like this...but I will say that the tatting is really what drew me in more than anything else.  I'm afraid I wanted to buy anything that had tatting on it...simply because it was tatting! 

I have another purchase to show you tomorrow...but first, here is where I am at with my own tatting...it is more than a little hard to admit that I have not made much progress with the hankie from Michelle, but in the course of my work on pruning back my roses I stuck my fingers with thorns and broke the nail on my left thumb clear down into the pink.  It actually hurt to tat for quite a number of days...does anyone else use their nail to hold the previous double knot and mark the lenth a picot is to be?...because apparently that is my way of doing things.

So, that is where the hankie is to date...I sincerely hope to do better this weekend...6 and 1/2 repeats is simply not much to show, even if I had to cut off the first two I showed you all previously! 

I do have one other active tatting WIP which I will try and show to you tomorrow though...something I'm working on for my little Rosie Posie.  My beautiful little daughter, who is now 2, calls the tatting I do for her "Wow Wow".  I think I would do anything for a "Wow Wow" fom her...