Big long-time project

Since Darwin died I've been really sad and I cannot concentrate on reading or anything, which is quite unusual for me and a sure sign that I'm falling into depression.
After taking some time to mourn I decided to fight back and I'm doing it my way, with craft.

This happened before when I was at college and P was a baby and I was under a lot of (self-inflicted) pressure to do a good degree and rise a healthy and happy baby. During the second year I was quite fed up of everything and wanted to quit. But by that time I was very close to finish it anyway so, instead, I took some time off and taught myself to quilt and did a (bit wonky) but very pretty king-size bed cover that I still have. It took me months but when it completely took my mind of my worries and by the time I finished I was ready to go back to Uni and I graduated with a 2:1 and a prize for the best essay of that year.

So now that I cannot read I decided that instead of watch tv and get depressed I'm going to do something that I never did, something that it required learning new skills, concentrate and even design. And I decided to make a table cover with lace and fabric.

This picture from a sewing German magazine (Burda) is my inspiration and I'm loosely following their instructions. However, the fabric circles that I'm using are bigger than in the original and the thread that I bough is also different, so I'm going to need to adapt and design things as I go along.

Although I've been tatting for years, I've never done something that looks so complicated and sophisticated and it's a big challenge.

The first problem was that the magazine say to buy the fabric circles ready made and attach the lace as you go following their diagram. Well... I'm sure that you can buy them in Germany but not here. So I started by cutting circles that I previously draw in a very cheap fabric that I bought from the nearby Chinos where I also bought loads of white cotton thread.

(People here call "los Chinos" to the shops that are owned and run by Chinese people selling a huge variety of a motley crew of usually very cheap Chinese imports. You'll find everything there from cat food to clocks)

It took me a few days and many tries to figure out how to attach the thread to the fabric in an evenly way as I'm not very good at sewing and have none to ask. Luckily for me, there's a lot of people doing this sort of craft and publishing their works on the web so I found some ideas and finally one worked: I tat with the normal shuttle and pierce the fabric with it to attach the lace as I go.

This is the result. A circle with a round of 56 tatting circles and chains around. I chose 56 because is a number that can be divided by eight, meaning that each circle is surrounded by 4 others in a cross and then joined to them with 4 little doilies to fill the space between them. Does it sound clear?
The picture's a bit distorted by the scanner but the circles are quite even and the lace looks good enough. My idea is that any imperfection will sort of blend when the whole thing is finished and I can put plates and cutlery on top!

Now I'm doing loads of this circles in the same manner and when I have enough it'll be time to think on how to join them together and what sort of pattern I can use to fill in the gaps.

No idea yet about the size of the whole thing. It may be as smallish as the one in the original picture with only 25 circles or maybe bigger, I haven't decided yet although I'm aware that the bigger the project the longer it'll take and I don't want to finish this on time for P's wedding! (as he's just 10 years-old!).

So, I'll keep on posting on how this thing is developing. Which me luck!