Ingas doily

I am still around - at least a little bit - despite the silence for more than a month.
Below is a doily I did some weeks ago. Thread is a combination of Aida and a Lizbeth, both in size 20. Not the best colours I have chosen though, the original was done in a green and a blue and looks better than this. But that can happen when you choose colours, sometimes they work and sometimes they don't but you really don't know till the work is done.


It is designed by Inga Madsen whom I visited for some days in September.
She is such a great designer and a great person too. She shared some other stuff which will appear here as time permits. She even gave me a copy of her book "Fairytales in Tatting".

A search have ended - I think

A very long time ago - at least a year - I stumbled over a picture of a doily on the web and I fell in love with that design. Unfortunately there was no pattern and I myself and others asked around but noone seemed to know where the pattern was from. So I was not able to purchase the pattern but I did have the picture and because the design was a bit familiar to me I have tried to make my own. I think I have managed to make a good doily out of it.
Thread is Lizbeth size 40 and diameter is around 19 cm. Two of the rounds on this reminds me so much of the bookmarks I have done several times - maybe that is why it was not so hard to reconstruct the patern, lol.
If someone knows where the original pattern can be found for this doily I would still love to know so I would also be able to credit the designer. But for now my search have ended - at least for this design ;-D

Two tatters touring, part 3

When we went to Zealand we of course also had to be tourists in the capital where we spent an entire day and among other things took a boatride to be able to see as much as possible.

The first picture is a statue of the warrior-bishop Absalon who more than 800 years ago founded the city. The next picture is the pretty area called Nyhavn with all the colourfull houses earlier owned by sailors. Third picture is the spire of the church belonging to the navy.
Next row is the stock exchange from 1640, the marble bridge to the parliament which is the 3rd castle there and this previous was royal and to the far right the new opera donated by a very wealthy business man.
Third row is the town hall, the royal palace where the Queen lives in winter and to the far right the Rosenborg Casle where the crown juwels are guarded by the royal guardsmen.
Bottom row is the old royal library, part of the naval quarters at the old fortress and finally the entrance to the brewery called Carlsberg.
When you visit Copenhagen you can not leave out a visit to the Tivoli. The pictures here show the main entrance and the Pantomime Theatre. The rest of the pictures are just from around the Tivoli by day or when all the lights has been turned on.
It really is an amusement park and I believe it is one of the eldest in the world (if not the oldest) and it is situated right in the center of town, actually almost next to the Town Hall.
It is a must-see for all Danes, at least one visit, and also very famous worldwide.
After a long day in Copenhagen we jumped on the train and were back at my place almost 4 hours later. I was very tired I have to admit, lol. But I hope Liyarra got an impression of the place, actually we had taken so many pictures of all the places we saw that it was hard to choose which ones to show. I hope you do not think there are too many here.
I didn't get much tatting done during Liyarra's visit but afterwards I have been able to tat quite a bit. Above is a small doily I have done in Lizbeth threads, the pattern is from AnneB's website.

Right from the shuttle

It is coming right from the shuttles because it was finished last night, lol, so the ends have not been hidden yet or anything.
Pattern is from a Danish magazine some years back, the thread is Lizbeth size 20 both the white and the variegated called Springtime.

Two tatters touring, part 2

A few days after the trip to Skagen Liyarra and I went east to Zeeland where we were staying for a few days. One of the places we visited were the town of Roskilde where we visited both the Cathedral and the Viking Ships.
First picture shows some houses from the area close to the cathedral. It is an old town founded more than 1000 years ago and it's got a lot of old houses from within the last 3-400 years.
There are a couple of older churches in Roskilde but the big cathedral dominates the center of the town. It can be seen on 3 of the pictures to the left.
The building started around 1170 AD and it is the only Danish cathedral build in the genuine English style really. It really is both big and beautiful, and it is a very significant landmark in our national history.
The pictures to the right shows some of the inside of the church. Since 1536 all Danish monarchs have been buried in this church and all in all 2/3 of all the known kings in this country are buried here in seperate chapels with paintings and ornaments by artists.
The last picture shows a little brown squirrel which almost ran me over while was sitting on a bench and I was so lucky to be able to catch it with my camera, lol.
In Roskilde is also the museum with the 5 viking ships that was discovered in the fiord 50 years ago. In the picture above you see first a reconstruction of one of the ships that a couple of years ago sailed all the way to Dublin and back the next summer and some work in progress.
The museum is also the national center for reconstructions of ships and therefore have a sort of a harbour and a ship yard where they make the vessels with the tools from that time (the middle pictures). At the bottom pictures of the original 5 ships in the exhibition hall.
And finally a picture of some tatting. It is the the bookmark pattern that I never seem to get tired of doing. These 2 are done in some new Lizbeths size 40 and size 20.

Two tatters touring, part 1

I want to share a little about the things Liyarra and I went to see while she was here. First I want to tell about our trip to Skagen which is located at the top of the peninsula called Jutland and 2-3 hours away from where I live.
We had hired a car and Liyarra was courageous enough to be our driver. The picture below show 4 things we saw there.
From around 1880 and some 25 years on the small town of Skagen was a place where some famous Danish painters went for the summer and they have done some incredible expensive paintings from the area that today is a part of our heritage. The first picture is taken from outside the museum which we had to visit so Liyarra could see some of the paintings she had become familiar with.
The second picture shows the northern tip of Jutland where two seas meet - the Kattegat and the Skagerak - and it is a custom to go there and stand with one feet in each sea. So we of course had to do that too and we were so lucky that the weather was so sunny and a bit warm, so it was a nice experience.

The third picture shows a typical house from Skagen. In the center of the old town almost all the small houses are painted in a specific yellow colour and have red roofs. The streets are so narrow that 2 cars can hardly drive by each other.
Skagen is definitely a fishing town. There used to be more than 200 fishingboats in this small town but today there's 35 left. The boats of our time are of course bigger and there are also a lot of boats from foreign countries loading their cargo of fish in that town. The picture with the red houses shows where the fish is brought on auction and some have been turned into restaurants today.
Skagen is a very lovely little town to visit and the light up there is so special because it is surrounded by water on 3 sides. Definitely worth a visit if you're in the neighbourhood. And I can assure you that the fish taste very good.

Pattern designed by Lene Bjoern and done in one of my new Lizbeth threads size 40.

Tatting time after a lovely visit

Liyarra have gone home after almost 3 weeks at my place. It is so weird here now without her, :-( Thank you very much for coming and I hope you'll come back some other time if you're able to.

I think we had a lovely time together and we certainly were busy running around to see some of the sights here, so for me personally there was not a lot time for tatting and unfortunately not enough for learning all the stuff I had hoped to, so I will have to manage tatting with the knowledge that I have.

This first week on my own I have manged to do some stuff and 2 of the items are shown below. The square is from a Workbasket magazine and the other one is a Stawasz design - the purple one on Liyarra's blog actually. The white one is DMC size 20 and the coloured one is a combination of a variegated Lizbeth and a white DMC, both size 40.

There's a couple of more things to show, both tatting and some lovely gifts and purchases. There's also some things to tell and show about from the 3 weeks my guest was here, so I hope I will be able to blog here a little more than I have done for the past many months. As time permits I will share some of the memories and the things at this place. So stay tuned and I will try and be back very soon.