Tatting Tea Tuesday 8/25/09

I was blog surfing last weekend and found this
Felt Tea Bag Softies Tutorial. You can click on the steps of the directions and they expand.

Well, naturally, I just had to try one ...or two...for Tatting Tea Tuesday! I couldn't find my white felt so I turned to the red felt and immediately thought of peppermint tea. It just so happens I have a huge peppermint cup to put them in! I think it's actually a soup bowl, but you don't know that from the photo, do you?


I couldn't stop at just one. And now I'm thinking...hmmm, I have gold and brown and black felt...nice Autumn colors. Maybe I should tat an acorn, or a mum or a tiny squirrel or Autumn leaves?


The space isn't really too large so you have to find small motifs. I decided to make an easy candy cane by tatting two short strips of the ricrac stitch (also known as Victorian set stitch and node stitch), joining the second color at the base of the first one before I tatted it. Then I twisted the two together and stitched it to the felt in a candy cane shape. The problem is, red on red is hard to see. If I were to do it again, I would stitch the candy cane on an oval of a different color and then stitch both to the "bag".


For the second bag, I attached a little motif I'd already made and tatted the "string" between bag and label. I used a blend of white and silver thread to blanket stitch around the outside. I really suck at letter embroidery but maybe if I practiced more, I would do better. I'd like to think so anyway.

If you have the motifs already tatted, the longest time is taken up stitching everything together. I think they would make nice sachets too. Embroider on little muslin bags and embellish with tatting.

Part of my surfing also took me to this intriguing blog named Embloggery. The stitcher committed to posting entries that were entirely hand-stitched. Many of the words are symbolic so you really have to think about them. See if you can figure this one out before you go to her blog. She's moved on to other things, but I thought it was creative and clever. If you click on the photo on her blog, it will take you to her Flickr site where you can see all of them with notes. You know what else is cool? She's in Indiana! Bloomington, to be exact.