Tatting Tea Tuesday 6-29-10

I just finished reading The Lace Reader. I won't reveal the ending for those who haven't read it yet, but for a book that appeared to be lightly entertaining, with a bit of mystery and romance, with fun if completely fictional references to lace-reading, it had an unexpected twist at the end. Part of the fun of a mystery is trying to figure out "who did it" along the way. In this case, I wasn't even sure what the crime was. That's what made the ending all the more of a surprise. I feel like I need to read it again to bring all the pieces together. I was so close to finishing Sunday night but made myself put it down as I knew I'd be sitting for an hour for some routine car maintenence Monday morning. Even that hour wasn't quite long enough! I finished up the last 6-8 pages during my lunch!

Now I'm getting ready to read another book, The Red Book. It's about creativity, discovering it, inspiring it, following it. A more practical book, to be sure, but I'm excited about reading it. I'm also reading a book by Bill Moyers, the companion book to the documentary series having to do with healing and the mind, a subject dear to me ever since I can remember. I did get to watch a few of the documentaries but not many. I've checked this book out of the library before but never had time to read it. Since I bought this one for a dollar, it's mine and I can take as long as I want to read it. LOL! So enough about books for now.

Well...almost. I decided I wanted to make a RED bookmark for The Red Book! Also, after posting the interwoven picot bookmark the other day (which went to someone else a long time ago), I wanted one for myself. So I got out some clear bright red thread in size 40 and wound two shuttles. Now...I have the directions sent to me by the original maker but it only tells the stitch count on the chains, not the final bookmark I tatted. I also have Riet's pattern, or the lady who originally designed one she taught. I really prefer the clovers I used in mine though so I sort of redesigned what I tatted before. The only thing I didn't like before was the ends. So I tatted right along last night and I have to admit I kept wondering if those picots were too long, even though I used a smaller picot gauge than the first one I picked up.
As you can see, they are way too long! Definitely shorter picots will be fine. I have no idea how I might salvage this piece. I'm certainly not going to untat it. I guess I could cut the picots fairly short and fray them. It might be a nice embellishment on something after that and cutting the end off. I'll try again tonight. See, if I still had the old one, I could measure. You better believe I'll be writing measurements down this time!

And drinking tea.

Here are some tips for a nicely brewed cuppa!

I spent Friday and Saturday in a workshop to get my CEAS, a certification that is not currently required but probably will be in the next few years. At any rate, it's helpful for my job. I have been doing ergonomics, mostly office ergonomics, for nearly a decade now. I was pleased to find there was only one new thing I learned about office ergonomics and it was more of a personal experience advice thing. I did learn a little more about Labor ergonomics, which is the weak area in our department for the simple reason that there is not enough manpower and resources to focus on it pro-actively. It's in the works though.

I brought way too much with me to do. I didn't feel good after sitting in a freezing room all day and my back has been hurting from something I did while mowing (???) and the conference room chairs were far from comfortable. I tried knitting and it looked like a 6 year old had done it so I abandoned that. I looked through some beading magazines I brought with me because I wanted to try some simple projects but couldn't bring myself to pull anything out of the bag and sort. I didn't even feel like tatting. So I read. The night before I had finished up a book, High on Arrival, by Mackenzie Phillips,a disturbing memoir. When we're young, we often dramatize the events in our lives because they ARE high drama to us, but reading about someone else's life and drama certainly puts it in perspective and makes one grateful for the simpler challenges in life.



So my next book (can't believe I'm getting to read this much!) is one I picked up at the Half-Price Bookstore a few weeks ago. It caught my eye with the title The Lace Reader. It was fiction so I knew it wasn't a how-to book. The website says it was on the bestseller list but obviously I never knew that. LOL! The character reads lace like some people read tea leaves. Now for those who think it's all woo-woo stuff, I've always viewed tea leaves, candles, bones, stones and such simply as tools of focus. The Rosary in Catholicism serves the same purpose, as does prayer and meditation. It's a way to focus inward and connect. Prayer has been called the state of asking and meditation the state of receiving an answer. Many people are able to do both but you can never do both at the same time. You can't be in a state of asking and receiving at the same time. One will follow the other and often very quickly, seeming instantaneous, but there is a gap between one and the other. So...I'd never heard of "lace-reading" though the overall concept is familiar to me and I found it intriguing. I've only started the book. In 2003, I made a trip to the East Coast, meeting and visiting friends I'd met online. Near the end, I stayed with a friend in Cape Ann (mentioned in the book) and one day we drove through Salem on the way to his doctor appointment. My friend was a wealth of information about the "witch" town as well as Cape Ann's former glory days so I'm finding the location exciting in this book too. The lace seems to be bobbin lace and already I'm learning new stuff about that. I wonder if the author makes lace herself? Well, it turns out she made up "lace-reading" but really...think about it....how many AHA! moments or wonderful insights have you received while making your lace? I think I'll enjoy this book much more than Phillips' "High" book.

I got home last night, still not feeling 100%, but I wanted to do something besides unpack. LOL! For a long time, I've been wanting to go on a dragon rampage. A tatted dragon rampage. Anne's pattern sort of popped up in front of me last night so ...why not? I tatted a dragon. Started it anyway. When I realized it was after midnight, I stopped and left the rest for today.

I don't know why I keep trying to put eyes in the ears of these dragons! When I was done, I realized my beads were in the ears or head of the dragon so they weren't eyes at all. So...it just means this is a female dragon and those are earrings! She's got all the fluffy picots so that means she's a girl, right? You can find the pattern on Anne's blog! I hope to make more soon but I have other commitments still in the works.