Fall Flowers Finished

Flower Pot I from the book Tatted Treasures by Jan Stawasz. Thread colors listed in previous posts.

Happy as I am with this outcome, I do have to say that those double picots are a right pig to sew down. You want a single stitch to hold the thread in place-- not too loose or it won't work, not too tight or it will pucker; not too large or it will be visible, not too small or it will make a compressed spot in the tatting thread; and in just the right place so it doesn't pull the picot out of its natural shape. I have to admit, I don't bother sewing down the inner strand of the double picot; I figure it's going to end up behind glass in a frame, so I'm not too worried about it being dislodged. I also don't bother sewing down the regular picots in a piece like this, for the same reason. If I were sewing the tatting to a garment or household item that would subjected to a lot of laundering, it would be a different story, but for something that is going to be protected in a frame, just a few stitches to hold the whole piece in place are sufficient.

Here's day 8 of the TIAS, which I posted on the TIAS blog a few days ago but haven't put here yet.

From this angle, it's a hair dryer, but that seems like a less likely guess than cuttlefish was. Or it could possibly be a ray gun or a megaphone.

Rotated this way, it's the shoe that the old lady lived in.

However, I think the most likely guess so far is, as several people have suggested, a steam locomotive. The tall part is the smokestack, and we have now started the front end. One person even specifically suggested The Little Engine That Could; that individual happens to be tatting in a light blue thread, just like the color of the engine in the book.

Then again, I was convinced for a very long time that Jane's goat was going to be a locomotive, so what do I know?