TTT 1/19/10 & Winner!

Before I say anything else, I want to note the passing of Mary Konior. While Mary hasn't contributed anything new for many years, her books have been a source of inspiration for all of us and will continue to be long after most of us are forgotten. I checked my blog and found 209 entries about her patterns. Some are probably referencing more than one statement in a single post but in some posts, I know there were several patterns by her and in some cases, I might not have mentioned her at all. That's about 20% of my posts so far. I think that's a lot and she deserves the credit for every single one of them. I love her books. The edging for my daughter-in-law's bridal hanky came from one of those books. It's not the most recent thing I've tatted from her but one of the biggest projects.

So last night I took a little time to empty some shuttles and tat another of my favorites from her books. This one is in a section from Visual Tatting called "Fragments and Doodles". I love this rose and have framed many of them alone. It's perfect for emptying a shuttle and it's feminine and delicate and all that tatting is. Her patterns are not complicated and to me, that is the genius of it. She created so very many edgings, doilies, collars and other pieces that are beautiful without a single split ring or split chain or self closing mock ring. Her book on Visual Tatting made diagrams almost a standard in tatting. In fact, the only reason I bought that book was to learn how to tat from a diagram. It remains my most referenced book.

I said in the last post that I would show you the miniature fansticks I bought from Ann Keller during my first visit to Ireland in 2000. My sister and I took the train from Tara station to the other side of Dublin where Ann had her studio. She met us at the station and drove us to her studio, telling us lots about the local history along the way. At the time, Ann was the ONLY tatter I was able to find. Wish I'd known about Pamela (Tatskool) then as I would have made a special trip to meet her too. Since Ireland is known for lace, I was totally flabbergasted that it wasn't brimming with tatters! Where are they? But tatting is not the lace Ireland is known for. I finally figured that out. LOL!

As you can see, the fansticks are quite small, shorter even than my shuttle. Ann painted the outside sticks on both the outside and inside. I also bought four shuttles from her and picked out a scene on each side for her to paint. She painted them and then sent them to me after I'd returned.

Here's a scan showing the fan closed.

This one shows you a close up of the outer side of the fanstick. I also bought some tatting patterns from Ann, including one to make the lace for this size fanstick. They are by someone else - and not really easy for me to look up right now, but I think that's going to have to go on my "to-do" list for this year. If you would like to know more about Ann or perhaps even order from her, check out her website here.

Another thing I've uncovered in all my cleaning is tea stamps! I ordered the set on the left from someone at work and I won the set on the right during a silent auction in Hector a few years ago. Yea.....another thing to put to use!

And now...drumroll.....the winner of the tea cozy pattern...is......commenter #2 from the random number generator which is Katie! Katie, I left a message on your blog to send me your mailing address at ginab6 at yahoo dot com. You should have it by the next Tatting Tea Tuesday!