My newest granddaughter will be one year old next month. Unbelievable!

I was on Ravelry.com a few months ago and saw this adorable bunny hat so I printed the pattern out and thought I might make it for Ellie as Easter neared. A few weeks ago, I realized I better get on it if I was going to make it this year. I was sort of in the middle of other projects so it got strung out a bit and once it was all crocheted, it sat still longer until I had time to put it together.

Somehow I couldn't make it without adding a big floppy flower so I crocheted that as soon as I put the ears on. This is a doll - an adorable doll, but it's almost creepy the way it resembles a real baby. The body is stuffed and has enough weight that it even feels like you are carrying a real baby around. I think she is a bit smaller than Ellie right now but she's the best model I've got for now. I turned the edge of the hat up but I don't think Ellie will need to do that.

This view shows you the flower better. I'm thinking you could pretend these are puppy dog ears too.

I know some people tat with yarn, but crocheting is so fast in comparison that I think for projects like this, I'll stick to crochet.

Archived books online & Tat Days

There is an online resource besides the Antique Pattern Library that offers several vintage books about Lacemaking. It's at The Internet Archive and is also where you can find "the Wayback Machine" to find websites and pages that no longer exist. There are other books and videos too,that are about other subjects entirely. I did find a few publications that I'd not seen in the Antique Pattern Library, so far anyway.

This link is all tatting and it uses lots of the decorative braid from the era.

This one is more crochet than tatting but still a nice assembly.

I was browsing the Interweave Magazine site when I found that corrections to Piecework Magazine projects can be found at this link!

There's been lots of talk lately about lace days, such as I.O.L.I. (International Old Lacers, Inc.) who held their annual convention in Portland last week. There are two more specifically tatting-related events coming up too! Both have "Fall Into Tatting" as their theme though I think the Fringe Element Group always uses that logo. The Palmetto Tat Days are being held in Toccoa, GA on August 27-28th this year.

For our tatting friends in the northern part of the hemisphere (a good location for those in the east too) there is a Tat Day in Cambridge, Ontario on September 24-25th hosted by the Fringe Element Tatters! Actually, I think it's really nice of them to space them out like that. Go to both!

hmmmm...did you know that if you hit "enter" when you are in the "title" box that it publishes your post????

And now for the tatting.

What do you mean this isn't tatting?

Oh, oh...this is crocheted? Irish crochet? Well, what do you know? LOL! Well, we've all had our share of explaining which lace is which, but what I'm really trying to do here is inspire you. Can you see this piece tatted? It's one side of a hexagon bag in a Leisure Arts publication. I was a bit bamboozled about which color to use for the outside, considering ecru, white or a solid to match one of the colors in the flower. Why oh why did I not think of black???? I will do the second half with black and then, of course, I will need to crochet yet another one. I suspect I will like the black better. The nice thing is I can simply pull a thread and all the ecru will unravel, ready for use again.

Oh...you want to know what I meant by "inspire you"? Okay, just think of how easy this would be to convert to tatting. The center rosette is already available in many different patterns. I'm thinking of #3 in Lene Bjorn's snowflake book. Now for the outside, it might take a bit of trial and error to get the stitch count right but it's practically all chains and picots. You can change the crocheted clusters to clunies or even rings if you prefer.

This is crocheted in Lizbeth size 20 in jellybean and ecru.

I'm experimenting!

I started this late last night to wind down after our trip South and back. HOT and steamy but we didn't get rained on.

I picked up some souvenirs which I will use for a tatting project I have in mind. This experiment ties into it. I just realized I tat from left to right in most cases and crochet from right to left.

Well, I'm really tired already so will close out and go home.

I did it! I made Mark's Elegant Heart! If I'd known it was really going to work out, I would have used a more color-suitable thread. LOL! I would also have used the same color for the 3rd thread that is needed to do purl tatting, sometimes referred to as "pearl" tatting. But it's okay since I really don't have to hide these threads, although it would make a nice motif if I did.I think the remainder of the Wintery Tree will be much easier since I don't have to come to a point anywhere. When I make the real tree, I'll just put a beautiful star at the point and any little boo-boo's will be moot.



I had quite a bit of fun looking through http://whatnottocrochet.wordpress.com/ yesterday. Some images are NOT suitable for children, btw. There was once a blog about things that should never have been knitted. It was so successful that they wrote a book and I've never seen them again! Actually there were more things I would have knitted that they made fun of than what I would crochet from this site. I had to agree with 98% of their choices. Sometimes it wasn't the pattern but the color combinations. I was never a big fan of the 70's colors anyway.

There's a wonderful giveaway going on over at Brynwood Needleworks if you like embroidery and other needleworks. I actually got there from another site that I'd been sent to about an embroidery idea I have but can't post about just now. You know...secrets, santa, all that stuff!

My sister & I planned to go to the Bloomington Handmade Market in Bloomington, Indiana for weeks and made it there Saturday. It was held at the John Waldron Arts Center downtown and our handy dandy gps system took us right there. The first thing we noticed when we went in were the Christmas decorations! I saw on Facebook where some people were complaining about how soon decorations were going up. I wonder if they realize that Christmas is barely 4 weeks away???? This Santa was huge, probably 8 feet tall!

We loved this cozy spot too.

My sister next to this very creative tree.

I loved the teddy bear pulling down the tip of this tree! My sister liked the Santa mailbox.

I bought some organic healing salve and lip balm at the market. My sister got some adorable miniature handbound book pendants and a few other things. We both got lots of ideas! We then toured the art galleries in the building, had lunch and visited a few other stores. I'll post about one of them for Tatting Tea Tuesday.

I got to sew a bit this past week. The back on this chair had ripped to the point of no repair and I debated on whether to just get rid of it or redo it. I realized I had a piece of canvas that would work perfectly so I decided to keep it. This is the new back. I have the seat done now too but forgot to take photos! The fabric only cost me $1.00!!!

This was a crochet pattern I wanted to try out and needed to do something mindlessly the other night. It was the same pattern every row so it was easy. It still didn't turn out the way I expected and appears to be newborn or preemie size. I thought that was what the fine yarn was for. I thought this one would be bigger. Oh well...my son gave it to a friend with a 3 or 4 month old baby.

I couldn't believe that I got to the VERY END before I knew that I had started out with too many picots in the center! What can you do? it was that very first ring....

I wasn't about to pitch it, so I chained a loop and added a metal split ring. I can stiffen it for a pendant or ornament or even a gift tag. The pattern is from Denise Munoz, a book of snowflakes with rosette centers. It is tatted in Aida size 20 and I used size 11 seed beads.

If you have a chance, go see what Chris over at http://www.dantelezenn.com/ has done with one of the ricrac motifs in my pattern gallery. You can see it started HERE! Chris translated this one into French. She has added beads and used some gold, black and red so far. I love seeing how different people interpret a pattern differently!