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*  

Shuttle Exchange

Exchanges are so much fun. First you get to figure out what you want to share with someone else. That means you get to pick through your stash and discover all the things you'd forgotten you have in there. Then you get to pick out about eleventy-million things and sort through those making little piles of nope-have-to-use-that-right-now, maybe, and no-way-why-did-I-buy-that. After that there's the refining of the maybe pile: "Ummmm...what are we exchanging?" I just participated in a shuttle exchange hosted by Alieen (also known as Wickedtats) of Wicked Nothings.

I got the most wonderful shuttle from Marie McCarty! It's hand carved and so smooth! Look:

Isn't it pretty? That's a thread sample she also sent. I'm going to wind it on that shuttle and make something. What should I make? Picking a pattern is a whole 'nother problem.

I just did send off a package to my exchange partner. I'm not telling who it is, because my partner should get to see it live before seeing it here, but this is what I sent: 

I'm not trying to overdo it, but those two little Clover shuttles are ones that I decorated, and they are negative images of each other -- how could I break up a set? The thread is Lizbeth size 40 that my sister sprinkle-dyed. It's an interesting process using wet thread, dry dye, and a salt shaker.  I hope my partner likes pink!

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!

Wasted Time

During the time I completely ignored this blog, I was tatting.  I just wasn't accomplishing much.  To start with, here's a blue doily I worked on for quite a while.  It's Lizbeth size 40 thread, and made without cut and tie rounds.  It's all split rings and chains to move from one round to the next.  It's also never been blocked (big surprise, that).  It overlaps itself in several places and I don't think blocking is going to cure it.  After all the time I spent on it, I got it to this point and just cut it off the shuttles and chucked it in the drawer with all the other stuff I don't know what to do with.  I like the center -- most of the stuff I started during the last year has the same center.  All these "oooo better idea" to move on weren't really such better ideas. I think some have potential.  I think is one has potential -- but it might need a few cut and tie places to spread out the work and give the edge room to breathe.  For now, it's going back in the drawer.  ☺  I'm making mice!