TIAS - Day 2 and other ramblings

I've already sent this onto Jane and she has posted to the TIAS blog but I thought I'd go ahead and post the picture here as well. I've been haunting the TIAS blog this evening hoping that the time would hurry so that I could do another of the exercises before heading to bed for sleep. Of course, it would be very early for Jane (~2 AM) as I write so I don't think she's about yet.

So I'll spend some time on my "infamous" soccer tablecloth. This is a project that I started a number of years ago ... probably as far back as 2001. The picture of the lace was taken in 2005 when my mother was visiting from Texas. The size at the time made it an overwidth tablerunner. I've since added another 9 rows of medallions along the length and need to add another nine rows to the length.

The name of this piece salutes the hours that I've spent with my boys at practices, games, and tournaments through the years. I could tat a stack of the individual medallions. When I would get home, I could then pay a bit more attention to the work to tat the medallions together into strips (usually about 8 long) and the tat the strips into blocks and then join the blocks. At the time the picture was taken, I figured that I had nearly 300,000 ds in the fabric itself.

I've challenged Ruth Perry (this medallion is her original motif) to design an edging to complete the cloth. I'm really excited about the prospect because Ruth is another of the designers whose work I love to tat. She uses negative space so well; her designs are really pleasing to my eye. The second picture is a closer picture of the way that each medallion is joined to the next. Originally, Ruth's suggestion would have joined the medallions on the corners but I wanted a more substantial (takes a lot longer too ) cloth. I plan to clean off the table this weekend (I really need to chase the dust bunnies!!) and lay out the lace onto my table again. This will really allow me to check to see whether or not the cloth needs to be bigger before I start the edging.