Tatting Tea Tuesday 10-06-09

First - a tea quote:

Ecstasy is a glass full of tea and a piece of sugar in the mouth -~ Alexander Puskin

Just a little more about Tat Day in Ontario....

The evening after the last class when we were on our own for dinner, I was invited to share pizza and a beverage with several other ladies in someone's room instead of going out. It was one last chance for chatting along with the late night ending in the classroom before everyone left the next morning. It was great fun and made for a fond memory.

The surprise gift was from Kelly Dunn of Tatfully Yours. She gave me this lovely little organza bag with a celtic tatted heart attached.

Inside of the bag was a miniature Celestial Seasonings tea tin. Can you guess what was inside?

A bag of spearmint tea! Kelly remembered that I'd said Spearmint was a favorite and gave up one of her own stash just for me! LOL! There's also this little star container of pink beads. I thought that was really sweet of her. Thank you Kelly!

Oh, and she brought this delicious dessert called Skor Squares and anticipating that we might want the recipe, she included it in the bag!

I've been working on gifts of my own lately. These teapot bookmarks are going in thank you cards to some ladies at work who went together and got me a hibiscus bush for my birthday last summer. I've been intending to do this ever since July but didn't get around to it until those days I was off last week. I just finished them Sunday night. The two on the furthest left are Lizbeth Sherbert Delight which I purchased at FET (Fringe Element Tatters) along with a burgundy that matches. They are prettier in person. Just looking at a scan makes the dark really stand out in a disjointed way. I think I've lost the label to the middle one, also a Lizbeth thread. The two on the right are hand dyed threads from Karey Solomon. No color name. They are both size 20 but I think the smaller one might really be size 30. Very pretty subtle changes in color.

(NOTE: The teapot pattern is in Martha Ess's book, Tea is for Tatting. I just add a tail to make a bookmark. I keep thinking surely everyone knows about this book, but clearly they don't judging by the questions I've been getting. Get it! It's worth it!)

I also bought a Lacis shuttle from Karey - the turquoise one. (I know it looks blue here) I just love these translucent colors! I got the magenta one at ZigZag Corner this weekend.

ZigZag Corner is closing the fabric and quilt supplies store so there was a sale going on and I had a discount punch card full from prior purchases so I made a trip for tatting supplies. They weren't on sale but I had a hefty discount coming from the card and there was this Japanese book that I'd had my eye on for awhile. I ended up getting two other books, one of Iris's books and the Janette Baker beginning tatting book. The discount was so good that I basically got one of the books free! Not the Japanese one though. LOL!

And here is the bracelet from Rita's class. Now that I've got the bookmarks done, I can finish it. Can you see it's one long strand of fixed beads? I guess they are at the Dollar Store there. I've not seen them around here, but maybe I didn't really look for them. I think it's really clever the way Rita designed this - we started in the middle, worked up the middle, then down one side and now I'm going up the other side. I made a mistake when I attached the first side to the middle in one place. It's easy to get the middle strand twisted as you go along and by golly I did, even though I was watching. I even knew at the time that it was questionable that I'd gotten the twist straightened. I'll finish it and keep it for inspiration.