Challenge No. 16

Wondering what happened to the little butterflies from a few posts before?  They got made into this Easter Egg Ornament.  I used those three and a bunch of smaller butterflies (some of which are adapted from Jane Eborall's great butterfly pattern).  I pinned them to the satin egg with little gold applique pins stuck through powder blue seed beads.  I'm counting this one as number 16 for the 25 Motif Challenge.  It's destined for a long trip half-way around the world as a gift for a good friend.

It's making a stop at the County Fair before being shipped away, though.  It's got a first place blue ribbon, a high blue (considered for Sweepstakes) and a Judge's Choice ribbon.  A big ribbon...greedy me, I like big ribbons.

Challenge No. 15

Number 15 for my 25 Motif Challenge (which I've missed by, oh...a good 9 or 10 months, and which I miscounted, but I still don't think I'm going to get 25 before the end of this year either *sigh*).

This one is a top and bottom copied from one of my old ornaments, so I have no idea of its origin.  I made the top and bottom to try lacing them together after a discussion with to MSquared.  This was not what I had in mind so I just dropped in my finished tatting drawer and moved on.  When it came time to enter the fair I scrabbled around in the drawer looking for something I've made within the last year (fair years run from August to August) and re-discovered this one.  I decided that the fastening thread made an interesting zig-zag after all then dropped it in with the stuff to go to the Fair.  Apparently, the judges liked the zig-zag lacing it together, as well, because it's got a blue first place ribbon, too.

I do wish I'd taken a picture of it before hauling it out to the fair -- because what ever that is on the shelf below the ornament looks ...um... somewhat inappropriate for a G rated blog.

Blue Diamond

Look closely -- squint if you need to.  Yup, this is the same pattern as the Pink Diamond Bookmark -- it just has a couple of small modifications so it will lay flat when fastened together.   It's also entered in the doily category.  It's made with two colors of blue Lizbeth size 20 thread and a bunch of little blue and white shirt buttons.  I made this one -- again -- thinking it would fit in the Fair theme.  But they didn't care because -- again -- it's NOT a quilt block.  It still got a first place blue ribbon, though, so I don't suppose they cared that it wasn't a quilt.  This was as big as I had time to make it before the fair entry day.  I'm thinking about adding to it for entering in the State Fair -- but that depends on how lazy I am.  I did manage to get a scan of this one before I entered it, but didn't take down its vital statistics.  The best I can say is it's about the size of my hand.  Of course, if you've not seen my hands, that's not going to help much, is it?

I just measured it.  It's 6 inches across (about 15.5 cm) at it's widest point.  I'm going to leave it as it is for entering in the State Fair.  Then the one I'm working on and this one won't have to be in the same category!

Something Blue

Jessica Spaulding taught classes at Shuttlebirds this year one of which included this bracelet.  She was kind enough to let me test tat from her pattern and this is what I came up with.  The bracelet is made from Lizbeth Caribbean colorway -- but I've forgotten if the size is 40 or 20, how's that for strange?  We stretched the categories at the county fair so this one made an appearance as a "wedding accessory" -- it's the something blue.  The ribbon it got was something blue as well.

Fairly Coasting

A couple of years ago I made a tiny doily from Iris Niebach's "Stella Alpina" pattern in her book Fantasia.  It sat around in my drawer until I got a wedding invitation this year.  It looked like at least a start on a set of coasters.  I still had some of the Sulky machine embroidery thread and white quilting cotton I used for that one, so I made a set of four.  I entered this one in the doily category at the fair (fortunately the wedding's not for a couple of weeks).

It has a nice second place red ribbon (I forgot to take a picture before I entered it).

The competition in the doily category was pretty stiff this year.  One large doily made in cream and brown of a bazillion little motifs won the sweepstakes ribbon.  The variegated brown looks very striking with the cream used for most of the doily.

We picked up all out fair entries today and I read through all the judge's comments attached.  Both judges disliked the thread color.  They said it detracted from the pattern and my "nice, even stitches," which it why it got a red ribbon.  One also said that the addition of the white thread caused it to look fuzzy and out of focus. Rats.  I liked the effect -- it looked tweedy to me.  Now I wonder if I should get something else for a wedding present!

More from the Fair

Back in April I made a bookmark from my own button decoration pattern with a long perle-tatted tail.  I called it a Pink Diamond bookmark because this year's fair theme was "Diamond Days, Country Ways".  It didn't matter, though.  The only "theme" brownie points being given were for quilt blocks.  *sigh*  Fairs seem to have a love affair with quilts.

I did get a nice first place ribbon on it, and a "high blue" which means it was considered for sweepstakes -- even without the brownie points.

It's also made of size 20 Lizbeth pink thread -- but it's a pink variegate.

County Fair

Last Sunday we took the long trek out to the county fair grounds and entered our ...er... stuff (can't think of a more elegant word).  We had a dozen things which meant we could purchase a parking pass for all four nights of the fair for the price of parking for one night of the fair.  That was good. We used it tonight -- just to see how we did.  Though we looked through the whole fair building we did not venture outside except to go home.  We'll save the animals, food vendors and carnival for the weekend.  There were some pretty interesting things at the fair, and some really strange ones.  I liked the little beings and bugs made out of vegetables. 

All the tatting is in the glass display cases, so my pictures aren't very good.  That's why I made scans or took pictures before entering the stuff in the fair.  In the category "other" (so descriptive!) I entered this pink Heart's Desire bookmark designed by Wanda.  She did such a good job, I got a blue ribbon.  Now, that's a mark of a great design!  Anyway, here it is as displayed in the case (under somebody's ID card) and the scan before it was entered.  I made it with pink Lizbeth size 20.  It needed minimal blocking -- another mark of a good pattern for me.  Thanks, Wanda!

Little Butterflies

Making butterflies out of Sulky thread was sometimes an exercise in frustration.  Trying to get six stitch rings to close nearly made me nuts -- my fingernails kept getting in the way!  I've got three butterflies done that I'm going to use on an ornament.  The rest of the space on the ornament will be filed in with smaller butterflies of one sort or another.

This one is "Celine" from Tatted Butterflies by Adelheid Dangela.  It needs to be blocked to get the body to be straight and the lower wings the right shape.  It wouldn't hurt to get the antennae straightened out either.  They're clipped at the end because I wrapped the thread around the picot two more times on one than the other, that meant to make them even I had to trim the ends.  It measures 1.25 inches (about 4.5 cm) wide wingtip to wingtip, and one inch (about 2.5 cm) tall without measuring the antennae.

"Jade" is from Sherry Pence's The Exquisite collection of Tatted Butterflies II.  It would have been prettier if I'd followed the pattern.  There would have been a more defined point at the bottom of the wings and a nice picot there, too.  I was talking while tatting and didn't count twice -- close once.  As a matter of fact, I didn't count or look at the pattern until after I'd closed.  After looking at it for a dismayed minute or two, I decided there was no way I was even going to attempt to open that little tiny split ring!  I just made the other wing to match.  This one measures 1.25 inches (4.5 cm) wide and 1.5 inches (just under 4 cm) at its tallest point.

Finally, I made "Curly Q" -- another little treasure from Sherry Pence's book.  All those tiny rings in this fine thread gave me a lot of "aaaarrrrrgghhhhh" moments.  It's such a pretty little butterfly, though, so I kept at it.  It measures about 1-3/8 inch (3.6 cm) at it's widest point and about 7/8 inch (2.3 cm) tall  It also needs some blocking.  I'll take care of all that before I stick them on the ornament.
 
Depending on how it looks once I get them placed,  I might even make one more larger butterfly -- probably "Lily" from Sherry's book.  If I do that, I'm going to consider placement of magic threads very carefully.  This Sulky is too fine for me to weave the threads in with a needle.  I don't own a needle thin enough

Nervous Butterflies

I get those at hospitals.  Good thing I had Adelheid Dangela's Tatted Butterflies with me.  Now I have a bunch of Flame butterflies.  All of these were made with the thread my sister dyed for me on a size 30 Cebalia thread.  They ALL need to be blocked.  Six of these are from Tatted Butterflies.  The one in the upper left corner is supposed to have two wings, but I got it all messed up -- even the first wing isn't right -- so it turned into a butterfly in profile.  Now that I know how to do the first six, I think I'll make them in more butterfly-ish colors in finer thread.  I've got a friend who loves butterflies.  They'd look good on a Christmas ornament -- wouldn't they?

The one in the lower left corner is an adaptation of Jane Eborall's wonderful beaded butterfly (but I didn't have any beads, and used thread ends, so there aren't any split rings on the wings either).  The tiny profile butterfly above that is Jon Yusoff's profile butterfly -- except I couldn't remember the stitch counts, so I guessed, based on how much thread I had left to finger tat with.

I didn't do a nervous scribble or just tangle the thread, because my niece was having her tonsils out.  Not a horrifying thing (except for her -- this was her first IV).  It was easier to concentrate after we finally got something to eat (I mean my sister and I got something to eat -- my niece had to go into surgery without).  They kept us waiting what seemed forever.  We got there at 12:30 in the afternoon and they finally took her into the operating room just after 3:00.  They released her much later and we got home at 7:00 in the evening.  She's recovering and we're spoiling her while she does it.  :)

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.