It's been awhile......

I was up early this morning. Picked up Katie and we were off to Greenfield. I hoped to miss much of the race traffic - I think I missed ALL of it. There wasn't near as much traffic as there usually is on a tatting guild day, even coming home! In fact, I was early for a change.

There were quite a few of us - 10, not counting Kaye. There was show and tell.....with Mary leading the group...(pssst! She's been practicing the fan tat-off for Palmettos) Helen was wearing a top trimmed with tatting. Jennifer showed us her tatted teapot that she is putting on a quilt piece. Nicole featured tatting in a school presentation. I showed my decorated shuttles. Then we went to work on Kaye's Shooting Star. We did the star last month and this month she had the shooting streamers worked out for it. I actually got mine done in class! Mostly because Kaye was helping Katie, who didn't know how to make a picot, let alone a double picot, and (YIKES!) a split ring, a lop-sided split ring at that! Unfortunately, Katie didn't feel good with a sore throat and was tired from being up a good part of the night with her cold. She's is usually very bouncy but not today. She did say it was fun and she wished she had felt better. I have to say my Shooting Star is not nearly as effective as Kaye's was in solid bright yellow. And I'll bet some sparkly filament in there would really set it off. But for what it's worth, here it is. Did you know you could use a hairdryer to dry something you wanted blocked NOW? LOL! That's how I ended up with those pointy ends......it dried faster than I expected.



After I droppped Katie back at home, I went on downtown to Lafayette to see the 'Round the Fountain Art Fair. Lots of nice artwork, pottery, glass work, and of course, the Frog Follies which you can learn more about here.

I'll bet you didn't know you could go to an art fair and come home with antique shuttles, did you? LOL! I was parked at the library so on my way back to the car, I stopped at a little antique store - lots of stores were having sidewalk sales, and lo and behold, I found these 2 shuttles together for $6. There was some nice vintage clothing too, from the early 1900's, at a very reasonable price, but I'm kind of pinching pennies right now. The black shuttle isn't unusual and it looks like something was glued to it at one time - I wondered if it was a label or something. The other shuttle though, appears to be aluminum. It's very light and has scratches that show the bright metal underneath that sort of grayish/green coating. It has a very coarse thread left on it...so I unwound it and find it has a huge knot on one side of the post hole. Let me see if I can scan it.




I think that's unusual Typically, people loop the thread around the whole post and tie it or thread it through the hole and then loop around and tie. Ever since I learned to do the slipknot and just loop it around the post and tighten enough to keep from having a long tail, that's what I do. Sure saves having to cut the thread and fish the end out. It just pulls loose when you get to the end.

Here's the project I'm doing for the chain-link cord. The thread is size 80.


I wanted to show one of the methods in a tiny thread as well as the larger ones. It took me 2 hours to get the little bit of it that I have done. The other cords go way faster. I'm sure I won't have it done by next weekend, but at least there is a start to show as a sample.



I just realized I have 8 shuttles tied up in 2 samples-in-progress with this one. I better get busy and see what I have available.

Here's the butterfly - she worked out very nicely, tatted in Olympus thread,M9,#40 - which I believe I purchased at the Zig-Zag Corner in Greenfield. I really don't know what size the thread is. I assume the #40 means size 40 but I think it's bigger than that. I did expect the color variation to show up in smaller blocks, but it turned out very pretty. That's the lure of variegated threads - wondering how they will look worked up.




I was playing around with the "effects" of microsoft photo editor and got this when I tried "negative". I really like those glowing colors!

I have a lot to finish up in the next few days so I probably won't be posting much.

Countdown!

I wrapped up a lot for my lesson plans this weekend, but I still have 1 part to scan and document. This is really kinda fun, the getting ready part. I finished the butterfly tonight that was the original inspiration for this project. It came from Needlecraft, December 1915,the "Necklace with Butterfly Slide by Sarah Ethel Compton." I didn't like the cord for the necklace so I was looking for something else. The lockstitch chain and the spiral stitch were too thin. And then I remembered the "false plait" I'd seen in Ring of Tatters 2000. I had always wanted to try it but .......like so many things I want to tat, the effort eluded me. Once I worked up a sample....I knew that was it.

I made the necklace for necklace exchange so of course, it's long gone now, but it's been my intention to make another, this time with a heart motif, but for the class, I'm also using the original butterfly. You know, the more you tat something, the easier it is. That pattern was difficult for me to follow the first time (for a butterfly exchange) and the second time, for the necklace, but this time it flowed easy as water. I still need to streamline the written instructions, but they are correct. A lot of the old patterns have mistakes or a lot of cut & ties....this one didn't. It's tatted completely in 1 pass. So my sample for this is currently on the blocking pad, also drying with stiffener on it.

I hope I get all my paperwork done in the next day or too so I can play and come up with more samples!




I've been playing with shuttle decorating again. It's getting addictive. I still need to finish details on the green shuttle and I'm working on a dark blue one too.

Well, it's late and I'll feel it tomorrow if I don't get to bed.

Mary M's Original Crochet Tatting Designs and Tutorials. I can't get into the Cro-tat thing myself, but this person has some beautiful work and designs.

Want to make a personalized box for a deck of cards? Find out here.

Wanna feel better about a stupid mistake you made? Go here to the discussion "Stitch and Botch" about other people's botched projects. Check out the duct tape corset and the unfinished kitty sweater, as well as the egg shampoo.

Whoo-Hoo! The Boogie Bra page is back up.

Tip: Some plastics have a smooth surface finish that can be sanded off with a 120 grit sand paper, for better adhering properties. From This to That, a site that recommends what kind of glue to use. NOW I know what to do with the laminated sheets on the Lace Jeopardy board. Just a light sanding might do it!

The Knot Plot site. Tons of inspiration for some celtic tatting here!

I once mentioned I was looking for a quilt pattern that had a Southern Belle type Sunbonnet Sue. Here is part of it. Sort of. The one I saw also had pantaloons and there were actually several different, though similar poses.

Here is a vintage pattern lending library. You have to become a member to access most of them, but if you do a lot of reenactment - it might be worth it.

Need to get organized? Here are some printable daily planners - groceries, a to-do list, online memberships, goal of the week (good for tatting projects?), etc.

Want to compare prices on books? Put the ISBN in the search box and this site will list the various sources and do the comparison for you.

Want to buy or rent an island?">

Type in a word to find its rhymes, synonyms, definitions, and more!

Sites about creativity and how to foster it: Creativity Portal; Creativity Pool; Creativity for Life; Women's Creativity.

Ahhh....much better!

I still need to block and starch it but you can see already what a difference minor changes made. I did everything the same until I got to the final round, plus I also used a size 50 Altin Basak which is actually more like size 20/30. On the last round, I did not use the fishing line. I kept the picots as in the original pattern and I also added a bead from the ring thread onto the chain between picots. It added an extra stitch, but you can see the loops curve very nicely now and the picots add that delicate touch that was missing from the last one. So...anyone want to count how many hearts in total there are?




I slid it on the cord too, just to see how it looked. The variegated thread in the heart kept it from being a stark contrast. BTW,t he beads are also a variegated mixture. Some are dark pink and some are almost transparent and then there are those between.



And here's a shuttle I've been working on. I'm going to add some paint embellishments too.

Today was a full day. I DID work this morning until about 10:30 when I needed to head over to the Co-Rec to help serve drinks with the meal. I spent an hour filling paper cups with ice. We have close to 20,000 employees. Even if only half participate, that's a good size crowd. Immediately after serving, I went to the food line, thinking I only had 1/2 hour to get my food and eat before the softball game started. After eating, I saw Kim on my way out of the building and she stopped me to tell me the game didn't start until 1:30!

The sun was shining brightly but it wasn't too warm - a magnificent day, indeed. It was a co-ed team, meaning it had to have at least 3 females. We didn't do badly. We lost 7-8 and actually, it was called because of time. You play 5 innings or 50 minutes, whichever comes first. It was great fun! Then we socialized a bit and eventually I came home ......and mowed until the raindrops started falling. That was my cue to come in and fix dinner and tat!

Experiment = start over

I absolutely love this heart from Iris Niebach and wanted to use it for this necklace ever since I saw it. I thought I planned it well - I looked over the diagram closely (for a change) and counted how many beads I needed and figured out exactly how to proceed. I wanted to try fishing line for the core thread on the last round, hoping it would help the heart keep shape which meant I would have to switch shuttles every time I made a ring on the last round, which also meant all my beads had to be on my chain shuttle.

I had to block it but it's still flimsy and I don't like the lack of picots around the outside. Plus - you can't see all the hearts within the heart which is much of the charm of the pattern. Hey,all that dimpled ring practice really did help!

So I'm probably going to have to stiffen this one if I want it to stay in shape and I was trying to avoid that because it dulls the sparkle on the beads. Even if I paint the stiffener on, it seems to get on the beads.

I will stiffen this one to see if it helps. I want to make another one now with picots and without the fishing line. I still like the beads, but I may put them on differently. In fact, I think I could put them on the chain from the shuttle and it would be more stabilizing and I could still make picots with the chain stitches.



Here's the heart on its own. By using the fishing line, it makes the edge a bit too inflexible. The front center overlaps itself and the curved edges are supposed to curve more sharply. So I think I didn't help the pattern too much. I did like the dimpled ring hearts where I used a bead in the center. The center dimple section is 7 ds so I just substituted the center ds with a bead.

I still need to make a butterfly for this like the original has. This particular thread is a softer thread - it's a Venus, size 40. A crisper, tighter twist thread would probably not be so floppy either.

Actually, it went pretty fast. I was done this afternoon but had errands to run. I may start experiment #2 yet tonight!



I just figured out part of the problem. This square motif is one of Iris's patterns from her book, Tatting Fantasia. It's made in a size 20 thread and I think I could get by with just a heavy starching on this one. Since the cord is somewhat doubled by the split rings overlapping, the single size 40 thread is overwhelmed by it. I need a bigger thread! I don't have a matching pink in size 20 but maybe I could use one of my variegateds and get a nice complement of color.

Sigh....too late now...I have a very early morning training tomorrow.

My shuttle arrived yesterday. I couldn't remember a few weeks ago what I had ordered but I found the email yesterday. A design of Ben Fikkert's, I believe. Since it's not on the Shuttle Shop page, I couldn't figure out where the offer came from but then I found the original email and saw it was associated with Ben Fikkert's group, so I think it was an offer to group members.

hmmmm....I wonder if they could put the colored goddess logo on a shuttle? Bet it would cost a mint though. I remember seeing one they had for a tatting group in the South that had a crinoline lady etched/stamped on it. You had to be a member of the group to get that shuttle or go through them. I would love one but never got around to contacting them.

I got the cord done last night and today I'm working on the heart that will be the motif part of the necklace. I'll also make the original Home Needlework butterfly. I had an email earlier this week saying if handouts hadn't already been turned in, that meant they were late. LOL! I don't remember ever seeing a deadline, but I've never sent any in that I know of. I'll just have to do them on my own. I don't have them put together yet anyway.

Yesterday I went on a walking meditation near Delphi at a trail along the old canal. It was lovely. We were originally scheduled for 10:00 a.m. but it was still raining when I got there so we postponed it until 1:00 p.m. and it was dry and sunny by then. I met some interesting new people and found some old friends were there too! I had my tatting with me in case I needed to wait anywhere but the one time I took it out of my pocket the conversation got involved and I put it back in rather than make a mistake - which is far too easy to do with 4 shuttles. Friday night found me doing a lot of retro-tatting until I got smart and went to bed.

It's not very warm so far today. The furnace kicked on a few times. I need to mow but it's too cold. LOL! But it's still morning and might get nice and toasty by afternoon, so I'll get busy and finish my chores inside, just in case....

The only tatting I'm doing is my 2nd project for Palmettos and I haven't had time to do much of that. Tonight I plan to tat the majority of the evening. It's cold and rainy out so I won't be doing anything outside or up at the school walking.

hmmm....I did pull a bunch of winter things out of my closet this morning with the idea that I'd put them in storage tonight. So ...I might not tat ALL evening.
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Well....I've slept since then. LOL! I did tat - waited until today to put the winter things away and I still have bunches in my drawers to get out. I really made progress on the cord between last night and today. I should finish up tomorrow night and then start on my samples which will be much shorter. I found a couple of things to enter into the competition -well, one is for the competition, the other is a vintage piece for showing. I have lots of motifs but the requirement is for a pair and I haven't done 2 of anything - not the same way. I do have a fan I didn't enter last year, but while it's pretty to look at, the tatting is not very good. It was my first attempt with rayon floss AND it was a new pattern, in Spanish. Took me awhile to figure it out.




I picked up my shuttle display case yesterday. It's very nice now, with heavy polished glass and a lock. It's full and I don't even have all my shuttles in there. It holds 50. I've doubled up in some of the spaces so there are 60 in there. I just counted another 46 that are NOT in there and that doesn't include any of my colored Clover shuttles which are my utility shuttles. Seems like I had 40 or 50 of them at one time, but I sure don't know where they are now! I can only account for about 20 off hand. I tend to give those away too though. I had a bunch emptied for Hector, but there are only about 6 or 7 that are empty now. This cord I'm teaching sure ties up the shuttles, because this one uses 4 shuttles and I have another one that I've been working on since Christmas, but I think I'm almost out of thread on that one. Wish I could come up with something real fast to use it like a Battenburg tape, like Georgia & I had talked about once, but I don't think I'll have time to pursue it right now. I'll be glad to have the cord done....after 36" of it, I'm pretty bored. I need another 6" or so to fit comfortably around the neck. I'm using a smaller thread than I did with the original so it's taking a little longer to get the same length.

Tomorrow I'm going on an organized walking meditation. The forecast says rain, but I hope it waits until I'm done.

Lace Day - Now History

A few pics from Lace Day: Unknown lady & Helen Raub working on some bobbin lace; Kaye Judt vendng the Zig-Zag Corner...and tatting, of course; Laura B & Carol A shopping; Carol Aebi, vendor

BTW, I got to see Carol's red dragon and her celtic doilies up close and personal!

Lace Jeopardy was great fun. I'm gonna have to think up harder questions for these gals!

I bought several balls of size 50 Flora thread that I'm told is now discontinued. I just wanted some size 50 thread that really was size 50. Altin Basak is more like 20/30. I also got a shuttle. Sigh....do I ever leave these things without a shuttle and thread? I was hooked by the little tool with it.



HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY

I had breakfast with all of my sons and my DIL, grandson, and her mother. Later in the afternoon, my daughter and granddaughter came out with a lovely outside side garden fairy globe/light and a candle lantern. There's still some daylight left so I should go out and mow. Yes, I LIKE to mow.



Here are the bits and pieces I received with some ebay shuttles last week after soaking and blocking. Nice trim for some quilt blocks I think.

Cinco de Mayo!

(started Tuesday) I really felt crappy most of the day. Nothing specific - if anything, I was depressed. I left work a little early, intending to come home and take a nap because I felt worn out, on top of depressed. That's really unusual for me but fortunately it never lasts too long when it does occur. I did some things on the computer and checked my snail mail and finally decided to go lay down although it was going on 7:00 p.m. by that time. It really would not have taken much to go to sleep but I kept thinking about how I'd then be up half the night so I got up....and went up the road to a station where I bought a big fountain diet pepsi. That was probably my lowest point, right there. After I got back home, I called my DIL who was trying to arrange something for Mother's Day and we got that taken care of. As I was talking with her, I started sorting through some stuff that has accumulated on the microwave cart that I no longer use for the microwave. After I hung up, I just stuck with it....feeling a sort of accomplishment when I was done.

Then I decided to gather together the things I needed to take with me on Lace Day. That ultimately led to another little sort-through on my sewing table though I still have much to do there. Anyway, I'm feeling back to normal now....far too wide awake for this time of night though so I'm going to have to find something to wind down with. Probably tatting....it's good at making me drowsy.

(today) It's been a busy week! Yesterday I got a painted feather that I won on Ebay.

That reminds me that I have a painted leaf "in a safe place" that I bought once at a garage sale. It came from someone's travels to India, I believe. I love unusual painted objects.



Today I got these shuttles from another win, along with some tatted bits of lace that I have soaking in some OxiClean right now that I will pin to the board before I go to bed. I have a few of the black shuttles already but the large ivory is a new one to me. The brown one is unusual too, and appears to have some damage, perhaps from heat. Not badly though.

I remembered to take my shuttle display box in today to get the glass front. My son finally drilled the holes needed for the hinges. When I had gone to the glass shop a few weeks ago, I was told they could do it in the same day, so I anticipated that it would be ready for pick-up tomorrow.


Unfortunately, they are now getting into their busy time and it will be Tuesday before I can pick it up, so I won't be taking my shuttles to Lace Day. But I might take them to Palmettos. I haven't decided yet.

I took the box there during my lunch hour and on the way back to the office, I decided to stop at a little antique/used goods store I had noticed on the corner whenever I happened to be in that area. Once again, I had procrastinated too long. Sort of. It turned out to be the very first day of opening for a different little store. This one has handcrafted items and also cookies and candy. I recognized the woodturning of a fellow in the area but the other names/items didn't ring a bell. At any rate, I bought these two small bags.



The leaf bag was $2.99 and the green heart was $1.99. I love the shape of the heart bag when drawn up. It's the perfect shape for a shuttle! These are hand stitched with beads and sequins. I'm guessing the leaf bag is also stamped or painted because the back side is plain. The inside seams were not zigzagged or finished, which disappointed me because they will ravel and considering all the hand-stitching with the beads, I'm surprised. I will have to be careful what I use them for. They didn't cost that much so I shouldn't complain, but it does seem a shame with the beadwork.

Last year when I went to Palmettos, I stayed at a hotel the night before just a few miles away and I had a little time to kill, which I spent at the library (which I later learned is where Palmettos has their monthly meetings) and I stopped in a Tuesday Morning store. I bought (amongst too many other things) some shower gel, "Lavender & Rosemary Essential Oils" by Adra. I adore the scent of this and have used it sparingly but it's down to the last drop, so I did a google on Adra and found an online order site. They have a handsoap in the same scent but I didn't find the gel in that same scent combination. I have an email to them asking about it though. If nothing else, I can buy the foaming hand soap and shower with it!

My son went mushroom hunting tonight and found quite a few tiny ones. He left me with about 30. These wild morels are only available this time of year and it's really quite a big deal in these parts to hunt for them. They're soaking in salt water tonight and tomorrow I will bread them with flour and fry them in butter and olive oil.


Good Night All!

A coworker told me last week that she had some crocheted motifs from her aunt's belongings that she would bring in for me to see. She said they were circles...and I offered to put them together for her. Turns out they are tatted! But her aunt didn't tat so she doesn't know who made them.



The thread looks like it is around a size 30 or 40. It's bigger than 70 or 80 but not as big as a 20, but I can only see a tiny section at the joinings. I'm not sure yet how I'll put it together, but it will have to wait until after lace day now.

The May issue of Anna arrived today with the Tatting Course. I tried to make a collage out of the project photos but I don't have a program to do that effectively. The theme is red and white and shows tatted lace on various items, like cloth bags, pieces frames almost like a sampler, cards, and on top of boxes.
Oh....one of the motifs on the boxes is exactly like this little doily I have under my swan penholder. uhhhh....without the error, of course. LOL! This is an early tatting of mine. I don't even remember where the pattern came from. I was thinking the Blomquist book....and there it is! The Flowery Meadow..minus the last round which I didn't finish...ah, it's coming back to me...because I screwed up and didn't know how to fix it at the time. I neglected to finish a clover, it seems. Or maybe I just ran out of thread. LOL! That was kind of dumb. Oh well....

mine from Anna

But you know what?????....this is spooky...there is a doily in this book called Eye of the Sun and it is a fabric center with these circle medallions edging it and the medallions are exactly like those black medallions above! No, that's not true, the black medallions have 14 picots on the outer rings and the one in the book has only 7, but otherwise, they are the same. It's on page 57 and the Flowery Meadow is on page 58.

A productive day!

The metallic looking shuttle I made for our Lace Day raffle popped off a stone and paint when I dropped it at work so I decided to redo it completely rather than glue the piece back on. The stones were ruined when I removed the paint and polish so I decided to do it completely differently.

I've been working on samples of the technique I'm teaching at Palmettos today.


And lastly:

The Lace Jeopardy Board!!!! I painted a new one since I didn't like the way the first one turned out. I had used green and it looked like camouflage. I may end up using pins to pin the categories and point value cards on. I have another set of categories and if we like this, then next time, we might do double jeopardy which involves more points. Now, I just need to work on the questions. We had a run-through during our last lace meeting and I found I needed to make some changes. The wording was too vague at times. So if you're in Lafayette, Indiana on Mother's Day weekend, make it even more special and join us!