It's been another busy week. Most of my evenings were free for a change, but I tried to focus my energy on getting the basement cleaned and ready for painting. I learned that I'm pretty much done, energy-wise, by 7:30 or 8:00 p.m. so if I haven't started before then, I might as well wait for another day. We did get most of the stuff OUT of the room I'm working on. I just have the rest of one wall to wash down and then paint (hopefully today) and then move storage from the east side to the west side and begin over there tomorrow.

But I'm sitting here blogging.....

LOL! I do have to run into town and drop off a package to the phone company. We switched out the modem to a wireless one which allows both of us to be online at the same time on our own computers. I have a new printer/scanner too but will not hook that up until I have the basement project done. Why? Because it will involve another major cleanout, in my craft room. I don't have to, but I need to, and installing new equipment gives me a reason to get at it.

I also have to pick up paint and some other supplies so I'll be on my way soon.


I haven't been posting my homework for the design class but this is lesson three. Not real exciting yet, is it? LOL! That's why I haven't been posting it - but first basic steps are necessary and get us to thinking about what we're doing and why and where we're going with it.


I was playing with some thread this week too and tatted Heather's Blue Jay pattern again. It was called blue jay because she tatted it in that colorway of her HDT thread, but it looks nothing like a bluejay! I think of it as a spinning star or a whirligig but if I call it that and you go to look for the pattern, you won't find it under that name. This is from the book of patterns I won from her, Motifs-A-Many.

Th motif on the left was tatted from some white DMC, size 30 that I had on a shuttle and the varigated is some I bought online from an unknown maker. Honestly....I don't remember where I got it but the person wasn't known to me at the time anyway and I didn't bookmark it. The motif on the right is from Marilee's Summer Trail.

I should probably post a disclaimer here. I try to give credit where credit is due and if I neglect to mention where I got a pattern or what thread I was using, someone, somewhere, always emails and asks. For instance, even though I've mentioned that I'm going through Sharon Briggs book, Transitions in Tatting, when I stop mentioning it 3 or 4 posts later, and someone just newly reads my blog, they don't know what I'm talking about. Sure, they could try reading a few entries back, or google the designer's name or employ some other form of research but time is often an issue and I do try to remind myself to mention what I'm using and where I got it.

Another reason is that much of what I'm posting about is not something you can go to the store and look at. It's only available online, so not only is the reader interested in what I'm experiencing myself, they want to know where they can get it too. Someone who is new to tatting usually doesn't have that information at their fingertips.

So...I'm not advertising for anyone, but I want you to know where you can find the same things.


So what do you do with your shuttle endings? You know - that last less-than-a-yard that is left when you finish a project. I usually just make a ring with picots and save them up for ebellishment on a card or something.


This was a shuttle ending but I skipped ahead in Sharon's book and was looking at a project - the point of which really intrigued me - so I tried to tat as much of it as I could before I ran out of thread. It made an interesting motif, didn't it?


I also got to playing around with one shuttle ending thread that was long enough for several blossoms. Can you tell what is different? The ring in the middle is tatted differently from the outer ones. It's just a regular ds-picot sequence.

The outer two were inspired by Vickie's ruffled heart and the way we do ricrac/node/Victorian set Stitches. They are rarely done with picots, or at least I don't remember seeing picots. The only time is when I've made layered picots which means I leave the picot space, tat the 1st half ds twice, then leave another space and tat the 2nd half ds two times and continue that sequence. It leaves picots on both sides of the cord if you fold it out flat but when it is a ring, it makes 2 layers of picots, very fluffy looking. So...what if....I tatted a series of picots and only used the 1st half of the ds? Well...the outer rings are exactly that. I started the ring with a regular ds, p, 2 1st half ds, p, 2 1st half ds - repeat for as large as you want the ring to be and then close the ring. I found that the picots sort of lay right up against each other, slightly overlapping, while the center ring lays more flat.

Fun, huh?