May Day 'Quet

Day 201: There are only a few occasions when I cut flowers from my garden to bring indoors, and May Day is one of them. When I was in elementary school, the custom of leaving May baskets on friends' and neighbours' porches was still in common practice. We usually made the baskets at school, sometimes simply making cones, other times weaving paper strips together. We'd fill them with whatever we could purloin, ostensibly from our parents' gardens, but often as not, they included things we'd snitched elsewhere, and nearly always, the baskets were augmented by dandelions or other flowering weeds. The idea was that you would hang the basket on your neighbour's front doorknob, ring or knock, and then run away to hide behind a bush or the corner of the house. The neighbour was always expected to exclaim, "Oh, someone has left us flowers!" or other appropriate phrase, as if they had forgotten the day entirely. It was such a simple gesture of thoughtfulness and friendly remembrance, but somehow the practice has faded into near-oblivion today. So, because I cannot knock on your door, my May basket for you comes as a photograph. Happy May Day!

A Tisket, A Tasket, A Little Tatted Basket

Day 169: A tisket, a tasket!
A little tatted basket!

These Easter/May baskets have been in the developmental stage for the last two weeks and finally, I'm satisfied with the pattern. I've used Lizbeth #20 thread to construct these two, a little finer than the cheaper crochet cotton I used while experimenting to get the flare of the bowl and handle attachment just right. In one earlier version, I'd tried a Fenton-style ruffle around the top edge, but in the softer Lizbeth thread, it tended to collapse even when heavily starched. There are a lot of things to consider when creating any type of needlework pattern, of which practicality (the intended function of the finished piece), style, fiber and ease of construction are only a few elements. I haven't entirely dismissed the Fenton-inspired design idea, but I believe it would be better made with a heavier thread. That said, I prefer not to use #10, putting it in the category of "ship's hawser," and don't keep it on hand. However, in the back of my mind is a stray thought about tatting a bath mat from strips of t-shirt jersey. Now that would be different, and it would get me up and walking as I pretended to be a needle passing back and forth over a cord strung from one side of my living room to the other.