What? August!

It's hart to believe it's the end of November already -- I've been AWOL for 3 months!  I don't even have a really stellar reason.  It would be nice to say I won the lottery and have been on a world cruise and just too busy playing to blog.  Nope.  I didn't win anything; I've been right here at home; and I've been too busy working to blog.  Borrrrrrring!  On the good side of that my assignment at work has changed so that I just get to do the part I like -- all the rest of the stuff I used to do someone else is now doing.  Lovely.  Now I have to step into the Wayback Machine and show you what I've been doing for three months -- because I have done some tatting.  :)

How about the Fair, for starters?  I got some blue ribbons (1st), some red ribbons (2nd) and some pink ribbons (4th).  In ascending order then, I got a 4th place ribbon on my ankle bracelet and my hat (which for some reason shows as a pillowcase on my "premium statement" from the fair).  The ankle bracelet is the same one I entered in the county fair.  The hat is all new.  I made the initial just for the hat, but the top is decorated with one of Jon Yusoff's snowflakes.  Both are made in size 80 thread hand-dyed "Oh, Baby" by my sister.  The judges comments -- that I was hoping would be helpful -- just said "nice" and "precise tatting" for these.  *sigh*

The Heart's Desire bookmark is also the same one entered in the County Fair.  It got a second place ribbon at the State Fair.  I also entered my little crocheted Cthulhu toy which got a red ribbon.  The funny little guy has wings, arms and legs, but he's buried here in someone's quilt, so it looks like he's only a head.  He's being shipped off to the far reaches of the world, as soon as I find a spare minute to stand in line at the post office.







I got nice first place blue ribbons on the button doily, and the Easter and Christmas ornaments I also entered in the state fair.  The coaster I entered got a blue ribbon as well.  It's the square I designed in Sharon Briggs' Design Tat Class.  She teaches well!  I made it again in purple size 30 DMC Cebelia.  I've made four now so I have a small set of coasters, but I only entered one.

 

I was very pleased to have gotten a first place ribbon on the large centerpiece I adapted from a Jan Stawasz pattern.  I left out all the picots except the joining ones.  What made me so happy is that entry morning when I took it's picture, I noticed that I had missed a couple of joins -- there were the picots just hanging out there.  It's such a large piece that either the judges didn't see them or figured they'd cut me a little slack!  It's the same doily on which I reported not much progress last June. 

The first two pictures are those I took the morning we were taking things to the fair.  It did turn out really pretty, I think.  I was just upset that I had missed the joins.  I still haven't decided whether or not to try to fix it, or just figure, nobody's perfect and a man on a galloping horse won't notice anyway.  The second pictures are the ones I took at the fair,  after  I convinced the fair people to move it .  It was originally displayed draped over a white knitted something, and it completely disappeared -- not to mention I spent hours getting it blocked just right and they rumpled it all up.  I have no idea how the owner of the afghan they finally placed it on felt about having her work covered up.  *sigh*  I wish they had a bigger building!

The last thing I entered in the fair was over in the Creative Arts area.  It's a bit of Calligraphy in the Celtic style.  It got a blue ribbon, too. 

All together, it cost me $11.00 to enter this stuff in the fair, but I came home with $22.00.  Not too bad -- it bought me a nice lunch one day!

Progress Report

I have to report not much progress.  I've nearly replaced the round I cut off -- only another 7 repeats to do.  The green snowflakes (from the last post) interrupted progress, but so did the book I've had my nose stuck in lately, and work.  I even worked on Saturday. Bleah.

You can see what a mood I'm in -- Laziness Prevails!  I dropped this on the scanner.  The first scan was a really blurry mess.  Did that inspire me to take a nice photo?  Nope, it inspired me to put a piece of cardboard on top of the blue paper then a stack of disks on top of that so the lid would press down on the doily without trying to flatten the shuttles.  Yes, I could have just pulled the shuttles out of the lid, but I was too lazy. *snicker*

Click on the photo if you want to see it bigger -- lots bigger.

Finished...finally!

This is what has made my tatting blog a non-tatting blog for so long.  It has taken up most of my tatting time since last November.   I made it for someone special in colors she likes.  I love the blue, but the brown rounds were really difficult for me to get through (that's why they're smaller!).  I can't tell you why I don't care for brown, but I don't -- maybe I just got a surfeit of it in college.  I wore a lot of brown then.  I finally decided colors, the brighter the better, gave me a better outlook on life.  Maybe.  Of course, it could be I had more trouble with the brown rows because the thread is darker and it's harder to see.  The colors are medium blue and chocolate brown, both from Lizbeth, in size 40. [Actually they are Blue-Med. #651 and Mocha Brown Dk. #692]  It got packed up right after I took these pictures -- and I forgot to measure it.  I did go measure the chair I used, though.  It's probably something like 15 inches in diameter, more or less (the doily, not the chair).

The pattern is one by Jan Stawasz.  It's a very pretty pattern, but as written, makes me tear out my hair.  Most of the rounds (the central brown and the two outer blue areas) are done with dozens and dozens of individual motifs.  I just don't have that much thread-winding or thread-hiding patience!  I used split rings everywhere so I could work the whole thing in rounds instead of motifs.  The central brown area is two rows and that large inner blue area is done in three rows.  However, I did do all the wheels individually.  The pictures are clickable so they can be seen larger.

It's not perfect, but I liked it anyway.  As a matter of fact, I liked it so much, I've been recreating it without all the frilly picots. Those really are little monsters when it comes to blocking.  I gave most of these a pat and a promise.  I promised I wouldn't take the scissors to 'em if they'd shape up!  They cooperated for the most part.  I packed it up in a mailing tube and shipped it off -- insured, because I figured, if there was a chance they might have to pay out, the USPS would take better care of it.  Ta-da!  It got where it was supposed to go -- and she liked it!

Tatting Day!

     Hmmmm...April 1st is International Tatting Day.  I think I missed posting, because it's after midnight now, so I guess it was April Fool's Day, too.  I did tat, though.  I've got this doily thing now out the the fifth row.  It needs another bit of blocking, but I've decided to wait until I'm done.  That's why you get to see this rumpled work.  I just tossed it on the scanner.  It's the same Jan Stawasz pattern I've been split-ringing into single rounds instead of individual motifs.  All those threads have been woven in, but I'm leaving them at least an inch long until I'm finished.  I'll snip those off after it's blocked.  The thread is size 40 Lizbeth in white and "Cotton Candy".
     I didn't actually do so well with ITD because I didn't tat in public.  The only place I went that could be considered public was lunch.  I couldn't tat at lunch -- especially not in white!   Oh, wait, I went to the toy store, too.  We weren't there long enough to tat.  I was shopping with a munchkin who knew exactly --very exactly -- what her friend wanted for her birthday.
     Oh, I didn't eat any chocolate either.  I don't much like chocolate.  {waiting for the gasps to stop and some of the more delicate personages to wake from their faints}  Okay, long enough.  Move along -- nothing more to see here!

Not Just Bling

You think I said that just so you'd read this, don't you? Not so. I have been getting all sticky and covering shuttles (and I found a whole jar of glitter ModPodge), but I've been tatting, too. Actually, what I've been doing is test tatting for other people, so I don't have pictures to show of all those pieces (ha-ha -- gotcha). But here's the latest batch of fractal covered Aeros:
I did a bunch of Clover shuttles like these, but didn't get a picture taken before I packed 'em up for Shuttlebirds in April. Now...I won't be there, but the shuttles will. A very generous soul from Bonneville Tatters is taking them to see if anyone might want to buy one. Personally, I'm hoping she gets rid of the whole lot. Then I can buy a bunch more shuttles to cover. Like I said before -- it's soothing and such a great reason to stay up until 2:00 in the morning.

Just so nobody gets disgusted with my no-tatting tatting blog -- here's a bit of something I started. I'm going to start over and change the stitch counts on the second set of split rings because to get it to stay flat I had to really stress the clover joins. Doesn't look good enough to bother completing the rest of the piece onto this center, but it's still a nice little coaster. This is a doily by Jan Stawasz, but with alterations. Having absolutely NO patience with dozens of little separate motifs to make up the doily, I fussed and figured and counted (and need to recount) so I could make this thing in rounds instead of pieces. Oh, all the decorative picots have disappeared, too. I like the frilly look of picots, but have the worst time blocking the fussy little things, so I'm trying this without.

Eighteenth Motif

This is actually six motifs and an edging. It's one of Jan Stawasz's designs from Tatting: Theory and Patterns. The thread is one strand of Gütermann 100% cotton sewing thread and one strand of Signature machine embroidery thread. It measures just 4.5 inches by 6 inches (11.5 cm by 16 cm).

Fourteenth Motif

Motif? Yeah, I'm counting it. This is the square doily from Jan Stawasz' Tatting, Theory and Patterns. It's not difficult to tat -- most of it is simple rings and chains. It's his use of negative space I find so beautiful. I didn't do it in the size 20 thread he recommends, and I didn't use his method (which essentially is front side / back side tatting), but I think it turned out nicely. This one is again made with two threads wound on each shuttle (getting addicted to that!): one thread of Coats hand quilting cotton thread in variegated pastel shades and one thread of Signature polyester machine embroidery thread in variegated bright shades. It makes the pastels brighter with just a bit of sheen here and there. The cotton thread gave the polyester enough support for it not to fray. Now that that's done, I guess I'll try some smaller things next.