Tat it and See Finished...

Thank you, Jane Eborall, for this year's TIAS. I love these things -- especially when people ask me what I'm making and I get to say, "I don't know. I'll find out when I'm finished." It just tickles me that they look so confused. If they don't ask for further information, I don't tell them about the TIAS and how it works. 

My sailboat is rather bright -- it must be running two spinnakers instead of real sails (due to be dumped in the drink). Keeping that mast painted turquoise must keep the crew busy full time, ya think? 

It's all Lizbeth size 20 thread, the sails are Rainbow Splash and the rest of the boat is ...um... not. I can't remember the name of the thread color but it was the remains of a ball of thread I got when Lizbeth first came out. Wow! That thread has improved.  This ball wanted to split, and twist and it had a little knot in one  ply that was miserable to get pulled through the ring. I was determined not to cut the thread as I was working on the mast by then.

Not just 2014 TIAS, but 2013 TIAS, as well:

Yup, I finally found my pram and the thread that matched the wheels at the same time and finished it, too. As you can see, I like to use bright colors for the TIAS! This is Lizbeth size 20 that my sister dyed in rainbow colors. It looks a lot different than the Rainbow Splash, doesn't it? The wheels and handle are a Manuela size 20 that I thought was red, but it certainly looks more hot pink than red!

Work in Progress

 Look, look, quick -- it might get away! Well maybe not, but I think they are the big Blob and a little Blob and the big one now has a skateboard! Can't you just see them oozing out of a movie theatre's projection loft? Hmmmm. No, that's probably not right either. Jane has me totally stumped with this year's TIAS. That's not unusual, though -- she has me stumped every year (like the year I was making a blue kiwi, and it turned out looking just like everyone else's goat).

The other thing I've been working on is "Cascade" from Blomqvist and Persson's Tatting Patterns and Designs. Someone in the Tatting group on Facebook asked about where it starts and in which direction it flows, so I thought I'd see if I could figure it out. What I figured out is that one of the first six chains is actually a ring. What I haven't figured out is how to count. There's a chain in there with too many rings, and the piece that runs out of the picture is a chain I have to retrotat because I forgot to join it. The thread is Lizbeth size 20 -- it happened to be sitting right there in my tatting bag. It's the same thread that happened to be sitting there when Jane said we needed a contrasting color for the skateboard (er...she didn't actually say skateboard).

TIAS Bonus!

Purple Picadilly Express.  Thanks Sherry!  If you didn't tat Sherry's TIAS you really missed out on a lot of fun ... and on this cute little train. Now I think it needs coal for the tender and a little guy waving from the caboose (which we don't have any more on trains around here -- very sad). Oh, if it needs a guy in the caboose, then it also needs an engineer in a cap! Hmmm....perhaps I shall keep it as a ghost train with ectoplasm energy. That's appropriate for the season.
Drat.  I just now realized I hooked my coal tender to the wrong place on the engine.  Mine isn't the Picadilly Express, it's the Oopsadaisy Express.  *sigh*  

TIAS Day 11

Whoa! Would you look at that? That's the most little-steam-engine-looking bicycle I've ever seen! There. Didn't I say it was a transformer? At least it transformed into something incredibly, delightfully charming and not a finger-biting monster. I downloaded Sherry's bonus -- and now my niece wants me to finish the whole thing. That sounds like a great idea to me!

TIAS Day 10

The bicycle crash was more serious than first imagined. As you can see I not only bent the frame and the wheel spokes, the poor thing is completely mangled. It's amazing I don't have a broken leg or something. I am beginning to suspect it is a transformer instead of a regular bicycle. I hope it doesn't transform into a monster that bites my fingers while I tat!

TIAS Day 9

What can I say -- you can see this is a special bicycle, right? Perhaps a bicycle built for two, because there are two onion-ring pedals and that other little thing might be a chain guard or a mud flap. Hmmmm...maybe it's an alien bicycle.

TIAS Day 8

Here's my still a bicycle after day 8. I can see I had it turned all wrong before. Interesting handlebars, and now we've added a onion-ring pedal. Of course, I don't think I did a real onion ring. I did a ring with a chain around it. That seems to stay flat better for me. I hope it doesn't turn out to be a big mistake. Getting this last piece on seems to have misaligned some of my wheel picots.
OH NO! I have bent my spokes!

TIAS Day 6

Day 6 of my bicycle.  I've got the pattern piece for Day 7 -- looks like mine will require some blocking after I get day 7 done.  It might not want to bend that direction properly. I like little picots, but, maybe my picots should have been bigger. 

If you'd like to get in on this before the bicycle becomes unrecognizable and morphs into something else, you need to go on over to Ladyshuttlemaker's Tatting Tales ~ All Things Tatting blog.

TIAS Day 5

Its still a bicycle.  It just looks this way because when I fell off it was a big crash -- and I bent the frame.

TIAS Day 4

Okay, I admit it.  I'm pretty dim some days.  I cannot figure out how to post in the TIAS blog that Sherry Pence set up for that purpose.  I signed up and she confirmed it, but I'm just bewildered.  I need a big button that says "To Post, Push Here."  
So, failing that -- here's my day 4: 

I'm pretty certain I'm making a bicycle. Yup.  I dunno what everyone else is making, but mine's a bicycle.  Oh...um...it's tipped that way because I fell off.

Rooster Booster

Ah-ha! Not an alien after all. I finished him last week, and then had to decide whether or not those over-long neck feathers and that mutant color made him an alien chicken. Probably not. OH, NO -- Maybe he's a naked chicken, all that pink... A pair of pants before scanning might have been in order.

Anybody who's just stumbled onto this blog might wonder why in the world I made a naked pink chicken. He's the result of doing Jane Eborall's latest TIAS (tat it and see). Pick the colors, work the pattern a piece at a time over the course of a few weeks. Et voila! It's Norman the Rooster, but not very rooster colored!

It's Superman, it's a plane, it's a Bird...

This seems to be rather in the line of: "I never saw a Purple Cow...I never hope to see one." Before you ask whatever possessed me to create such an oddly colored being, let me quickly say it's Jane Eborall's fault. Yup, hers.

This is my rendition of the latest "Tat it and See," (and the first of 2010 -- may there be more!), through Day 10. When doing a TIAS there's not much color direction -- just pick some stuff that goes together pretty well and pick three colors of it. Then, bits of the pattern are released every few days. That gives everyone plenty of time to ponder what in the world they might be making, and to catch up if life gets in the way.

At first, I thought we might be making aliens. But, then -- I always think we're making aliens. ;) There's just one more day to finish this lovely creature, which I now suspect is a rooster (unless Jane is going to throw us a curve ball right at the last minute and it really is an alien), because that variegated bit has to connect to the rest of the gizmo and it doesn't look like a hat!

Tat-it-and-See and Choose-your-own-pattern by Danni. There were three versions, but I did only two of them. This first one is version A. Completed, it turns out to be "A" for "Aigg" -- well, okay, egg. Too bad the "Desert Bloom" isn't very good Easter Egg color.

I was working on version A and C at the same time. I thought the pink and purple might be a better choice, but when I got version C done I just sat and looked at it in bewildered confusion. "What is this?." I asked my sister, holding it up. "I can't figure out what this little point is. I thought it might be two eggs, a big one and a little one, but not with that bump." She gave me the most disgusted look, reached out, and rotated it 90 degrees. "It's a chick, Marty...duh." Oh, yes, so it is. Darn -- I should have used the yellow!

Iris TIAS Doily

I finally finished the whole doily. It's an amazingly gorgeous design. We're so lucky to have Iris share it with us! I have to make another one of these (one? maybe two or three or more; it's addictive).
I didn't complete it in the original pink and maroon that I started with. The center picots weren't joined and I didn't want to do some kind of retro-stitching at the end. That piece will be a decoration instead. Ha. The whole truth is that I got all this new Lizbeth thread and had to try it out. It's so much smoother and more crisp to work with than the Cebelia. Really. Now I have lots of size 20 thread! These two are Leaf Green (the variegate) and Christmas Green.
It seemed appropriate to post this bit 'o green for St. Patrick's Day.

Iris TIAS 5

Isn't it pretty? Iris Niebach's designs are always so complex to look at. Having her break this one down in small pieces made it seem easy. Not that I didn't do some unpicking and redoing, mind!
This is complete to the end of the "tat it and see", but I do believe I will finish it up to the 8-point doily. I might even see how it will look with fewer points wrapped around one of my satin-covered styrofoam ornaments. Not only that, but those little hearts are very pretty. I've been wondering what they would look like all by themselves. Wow, another thing to try!

Stella Alpina and TIAS Day 2

"Stella Alpina" from Fantasia by Iris Niebach. Made from one strand of Sulky machine embroidery thread and one strand of white quilting cotton, it measures 5.25 inches (13 cm) at it's widest part.
Working Iris's patterns is rather like having comfort food for me. When I'm feeling fussled, unsettled, worried, or grumpy -- there's nothing like a nice doily from Tatted Doilies, Fantasia, or Fantasia 2 to make me feel much, much better.
That's why working on Iris' TIAS is such a wonderful thing -- a little dose of reason every couple of days. That's gotta be a good thing! This is what I have so far. It looks like a good match for what others have done, so I think I'm on the right track. I made my picot gauges just a tad smaller, because I have to use size 30 thread (I don't seem to own any size 20), and it looks just a little crowded. Maybe at the end a bit of blocking will not come amiss. As for a guess about what it is -- I have no idea, but isn't it going to be pretty?

Iris TIAS ... oops

It's so exciting that Iris is doing a TIAS! (That's "Tat it and See" for all you acronym-challenged folks.) What would be even more exciting is if I had done it right. I think I have the elements in the required configuration, but that large clover on the end is in the wrong color. Yeah, that's was comes of tatting until 2:00 AM. I don't have enough sense to go to bed -- what makes me think I have enough sense to pay attention to directions? It's okay. I'll start over tonight...before the wee hours.

TIAS4

I have been working on Sherry Pence's TIAS while I've been fiddling with Sharon Briggs' Design Challenge. (Aren't they nice -- to give us such interesting things to do?).
I had to start over after day five, because I got the colors backward. I suppose I could have cut day five off and just redone that -- but I decided I didn't like the colors anyway, and I was having difficulty getting the rings fastened to the sides of the block tatting on element two. The first set were done using Jane Eborall's new method of block tatting (the one on the right in each picture). I don't think I've quite got that mastered, so I did the second set using the more traditional method shown in Iris Niebach's Fantasia. Hmmmm...I still need a lot of practice. The two colored element three looks more like one and a half color. I also noticed that the "traditional" ones were a lot shorter than the others. I hope they work anyway. Those threads sticking out of the second set are not unhidden thread ends -- they are the ends of the hidden threads I haven't trimmed yet. I trimmed the ones on the first set and drat if I didn't pull one completely out and have to hide it in one of the pink rings -- since it was less than a quarter inch long and was a bit frayed at the end, I didn't really think it would stay hidden.
I do know what we're making -- although I can't figure out how I'm going to use fancy-dressed caterpillars.