I was so happy. I had just put the final stitches into my border for Desdamona's hankie. In working on scenes for Othello (placed in the 1940's, because the twist is the thing) it occurred to me that the hankie has to be special. It can't just be a random prop. On the other hand, it gets tossed and shoved into pockets and gripped throughout the scenes, so granny's heirloom was also out of the question.
A few weeks before the audition I had purchased a few crochet thread spools to start experimenting with tatting. While I'll have more on that later, let me just say: The only thing I need to get started on a new method or medium is to have clearance priced tools dangled in front of me. $2.00 tatting shuttles from the craft store? Yes please! Back to the thread, while I hadn't worked with it before, I had worked with tiny crochet hooks and embroidery floss to create delicate flowers. I went to my handy Crochet Borders book (I'm not paid to mention this. I just really like the book) and found a pretty border to work up. I kept in mind the first rule of crocheting in the round. DO. NOT. TWIST. Despite repeating this like a mantra, the $*&@(#! thing became twisted. The biggest issue with this error would be the 10 hours of work I already had into the piece. As I was happily pinning it to block out the stitches (see photo above) I started muttering "no, no, noooooooooo," as I slowly realized that it wasn't just twisted once, but twice.
What is a girl to do? The little devil, hmmmmm, maybe rather the sloth on my left shoulder said "meh. It's a prop. tack it down and no one will notice." The angel, er, OCD perfectionist on my right said "rip it all out!! You must make it perfect! YOU will notice!! If you work all day and night and ignore your children and call out sick from your job you CAN get it done!!"
Fortunately, cooler, MacGuyverish heads prevailed and I found a happy, if rather frightening middle ground. I grabbed an arch a few in from a corner and CUT THAT SUCKER IN HALF. On the right side, I found the lead loop and knotted it off after backing it up to the beginning of the arch. On the wrong side, I picked out all the stitches to the end of the arch. I took a deep breath, cursed my hatred of finishing work which was now about to quadruple, and patched that sucker back together. it's messy for now.....
...but after all the threads are stitched in, I think my OCD shoulder will be relatively pleased. Now all I have to do is get it on to the actual hankie. I don't think Desi can sob into just a border.
