Still doing Snowflakes in Bangles

Still doing Jon Yusoff's snowflakes in bangles. These two are "Radiance" and "Spring Blossom" from her Tatted Snowflake Collection. The thread is Oren Bayan silver metallic thread. I think it's bigger than size 80, but a bit smaller than size 40. 

When I put "Radiance" in the bangle, I found it was a bit too small, so I added rings as I covered the bangle. That was awkward; the bangle kept getting in the way. The holder-rings are obvious and a little twisted. I applied a person-using-thread-that-frays-horribly-when-you-try-to-unpick-it standard: a man on a galloping horse will never notice, so I left 'em. As the thread is fine, instead of the lock chain I usually make for hanging loops, I wrapped a second thread around the bangle at the end and made a pearle-tatted loop. 

These are the latest, but I've got another on the shuttles. I think the stack is about a dozen high now.  It's rather like being stuck in third gear! There are another 40 or 50 bangles in my supply box. Maybe I should save some for another year.

Radiance

Spring Blossom

Starting Over

This blog has been sorely neglected, so has my tatting. The doctor decided I needed exercise more than I needed to sit on my butt and tat. She's right, but it really didn't need to be an either or proposition.

Recently, I took up a Facebook challenge offered by a friend. She will send something to the first five people to comment, sometime during the year -- however, these people have to agree to post, and do the same. So, I'll be getting something from her and will be sending something to three other people (only 3 brave people signed up with me -- either I know people with no inclination to share or nobody wants anything I make). I decided it would be a good time to get out my shuttles and threads and make new things to send. The problem I've been having is that none of my tatting supplies are where I thought they were. Since I haven't finished anything for about a year, I put stuff away safely, and have forgotten the location of "safely." Yes, they should be in the hobby cabinet, or the four dedicated drawers, or the fabric bin, or on the bookshelf, or in the boxes under the bed, or in my tatting tote. Some things are there, some have run off. I can't find my rubber needle pullers anywhere. Trying to sew in the ends and use a rubber band to pull on the needle results in a bent needle. *sigh*

Since it's cold and generally nasty, I'm working on Winter stuff. These are snowflakes inside wrist bangles. Both are designs by Jon Yusoff from her snowflake pattern books. I did have to make the top rings on each point on the red one a bit larger to fit into my bangle. For the green one, I left off the decorative picots on the arching chains. It just worked better for me (it's a counting problem). The bangles are completely covered with tatting, using Jon's method for covering rings.

Yes, the picture appears blurry. It's really just the bad shadows from poor lighting (not that the excuse makes the picture better). 

More Covered Ring Jewelry

The absence of tatting on this blog doesn't mean I haven't been tatting. I've just been tatting things some people who read this blog shouldn't be seeing until after the holidays. This jewelry set (two earrings and a pendant) is for someone I don't know. My sister's co-worker loved her "mom earrings" (the ones with the nylon hooks). She requested earrings and a pendant for her sister-in-law who's just had a baby. She wanted earrings just like the ones I made for her (except in blue), so I had to come up with something pendant-looking that matched. I'm not too certain this is it. My sister's going to take them in and see what she thinks.
I made a draft without beads and it worked, so I added the beads, now some of the rings overlap a bit. If the pendant is too weird, I'll make something smaller. This pendant is about 2.5 inches long and 1.25 inches wide. The earrings are about an inch wide. These are all made with Oren Bayan multi-colored metallic thread and sizes 15 and 10 seed beads -- there are 94 size 15 beads and 12 size 10 beads on each earring. The pendant has 206 size 15 beads and 8 size 10.

This picture is from the scanner, that's why the six ring flower in the center of the lower ring of the pendant is blurred. I might get better results with my camera, but it's such a hassle.

Ribbons from the Fair - part 10

I've posted these earrings before -- last October. They're made with Oren Bayan multi-colored metalic thread and tiny little blue beads. Like the rest of my jewelry, they were originally entered as "Creative Arts: Jewelry-mixed media" but got moved to the Home Arts, where I could compete with myself. *sigh* These got a nice blue ribbon -- but as you can see in the first picture -- got buried under the ribbon and tags in the Fair display. (Huh, getting a ribbon's not good enough -- now I gotta have location, location, location!) Anyway, I was pretty chuffed about these, because they are my second favorite pair of earrings. (I've got a pair of heavily beaded silver ones that I wear almost every other day!)

Ribbons from the Fair - part 7

Another bit of Bonnie's jewelry I borrowed back. I made these for her birthday last year. They are made from the thread she dyed for me and were adapted from my original pattern (for a center-ring snowflake). They didn't fit into the rings as well as they should have, but they were well-done enough to garner another red ribbon.

Who out there is snoring? Wake up! I'm not done yet.

See that gold thing on the red square over there? It got put in the case upside down. This was an experiment and I really didn't like it very well, but my niece did. I entered it for her -- and now she can have it. I don't think she will wear it, though. It really looks rather like this: The pattern is Jane Eborall's butterfly with too many beads holding it in the ring. The big mistake was the loop of size 10 beads at the bottom. I would have used the size 15 beads, but couldn't fit two strands of the thread through them! Then, too, it is yellow. It's made with Oren Bayan gold metallic thread, but it just looks yellow. So, why did I enter it in the Fair? Because it doesn't cost anything to enter stuff in the County Fair, that's why!

Ornaments on a Ring

Ruth Perry's Snowflake 2008 is a beautiful Celtic pattern. It's made in one continuous round when done in one color. Of course, I cheated and made it in two colors instead of one, so there were extra threads to hide. Both are made with Lizbeth size 40 thread in Christmas red, Christmas green and white, just combined differently,

At first, I thought I could just do the inside round and fit them inside the ring. That was the right size, but not the right choice. The outer round stabilizes the Celtic twists in the inner round. Without the outer round, the inner lost some of its definition. That's why the outer round sticks out beyond the ring. I like the way they look hanging up -- really they look better than flat (especially against that bright yellow [what ever possessed me to do that?]).

I know, you all thought I was working on my challenge ornaments, right? HA-HA, fooled you! These are not part of my challenge because they are not covers for round ornaments, but they're still going to look good on somebody's tree.

Actually, I have been working on my challenge ornaments, but round doesn't fit in the scanner, you know. I have to haul out the camera (like it's a chore when it's just a point and click digital), and find a good place for the pictures, then get the lighting just right and figure out the macro settings and all that other stuff. I don't have any excuses for not taking the pictures just this reason: lazy, just plain lazy. Maybe tonight. . . [for the pictures! not for anything more exciting!]

Another Pendant

I've worn my fingers out -- two of them have a couple of severe thread dents, the kind from which a couple of layers of skin peel back. Working with size 20 thread always does this to my fingers. I think it's because I want the stuff to be as small as size 80 so I pull it tighter. My tension is very tense. *sigh*

I made this a couple of weeks ago. It was going to replace my exchange partner's pendant, because I was convinced the purple and silver one had gone missing. Nope, it got there safe and sound. This one I thought looked like a leaf. Some nice leafy earrings would look good with it -- but I've been babying my fingers, so those are still in the planning stage.

The thread is Oren Bayan multi-colored metallic. It matches any and all of the beads I have.

That's a pretty funny picture (lots of empty space), but I thought y'all might like to see the necklace, too. It's a very thin metal cable covered in see-through green plastic of some kind. The fastener screws together, so it's easy to put on. I think these things are perfect for pendants -- then you never have to worry about making the necklace part and whether or not it is going to be scratchy.

June 10:

I gave this one to my sister for her birthday. She claimed to have been coveting it since it was finished. Good! Green is her favorite color. Now she's waiting for those matching earrings!

Charming things

The green phone charm that Wendy won in my giveaway has gone astray. It's my own fault. I didn't send it with any kind of delivery confirmation. Actually, I did worse than that, I sent it first class with stamps on it (after weighing it at work). Well, duh. There was no customs form attached. It's probably being probed by some government official who suspects it of being something nefarious. Perhaps it's been taken out and blown up in some preemptive strike. Who can know? That was pretty shabby of me.

Wendy told me her favorite colors were red and pink. Hey! I have red. I made up two more charms, both with red Oren Bayan metallic threads -- one with silver beads and one with red beads. Both are pretty (f I do say so m'self), but the silver bead one was more striking. I sent it off properly custom-formed and all. Well, fat lot of good that did. Who knows when it will get there? Some volcano seems to have gotten in the way. As I frequently say, "If it ain't one darn thing, it's another!"


PS: Wendy received both the green and the red charms. Nice! I think the green one was slow because I am slow (couldn't seem to remember to get a padded envelope at the store!). The volcano didn't slow the red one down much, either. Good. I'm glad to know they didn't go wandering off into the ozone and that she has two to enjoy or share, as she chooses. :)

Rings 'n' things

I've been tatting -- really I have. I just didn't seem to have anything I could show. My InTatters exchange partner has informed me that she received the pendant I sent, though. I thought sure the poor thing had disappeared behind some monster machine in the Post office or something. Nope, it made it safely. It's made with Oren Bayan silver thread and purple mini-seed beads (a whole pot-load of 'em). The necklace part is a twisted metal cable inside a purple protective casing. Really, it matches better than this picture makes it appear.
The other things I've been doing I'll trot out when they're finished. I'm still emptying bobbins, too. I've been making more butterflies -- the little four ring ones. But, I've also made a couple of Jane Eborall's Butterfly Bookmarks without the bookmark tails, and one tiny one with a tail for really tiny books! I've got a few more bobbins with enough thread to make Butterfly Bookmarks, if I mix the colors. That should be interesting. I might very well end up with a Christmas Butterfly, because I've got a bobbin each of red and green that are about evenly matched in amounts.

As for the ornament challenge...it has foundered. *sigh* It will get back on track pretty soon though. I ordered covered styrofoam ornaments and they've been received! I think the plastic ones are going to end up with my nieces. They can decorate them by gluing or sticking things on 'em. My patience with them (the ornaments, not the nieces -- hmmmmm, wait, some days it's them too!) has been exhausted.

Jewelry Break

Very simple earrings on a ring and a pendant to match. The pendant would have matched better -- but I ran out of thread on both shuttles. The loop for the chain is a lock chain with a bead at every lock stitch. It looks quite nice up close and personal. I couldn't get a better picture (because I'm not a photographer).

These are made of a multi-colored metallic Oren Bayan thread and over 300 mini-seed beads. The beads are so tiny I couldn't even get my size 16 crochet hook through them so I could put them on the joining picots. That's right -- there are naked picots right there in that picture.

Just as soon as I get a padded envelope for the pasteboard jewelry box they're in, I'm shipping these off to a friend. She gifted me with a signed copy of her first novel and I'm doing my best to reciprocate!

Well -- back to the ornament covers. I've got another done, but am struggling with getting it on the ornament. After covering 25 of these slick plastic ornaments, I might be certifiable.

Sharing Valentines

These are the hearts Martha Ess received from me for the Tattinggoddess Valentine Exchange. The Butterfly Heart bookmark is from Dianna Stevens' Animal Bookmarks: A Tatted Zoo. The ornament is an adaptation of Iris Niebach's Cornelia from Tatted Doilies. The last heart is the one I created for Sharon Briggs' Design-Tat course. Martha didn't get the one shown (it's got an oops in one pair of rings -- they are mismatched!), but I didn't get a picture of the one I did send. This was a really fun exchange. I never know what to put in a package for an exchange and always feel like I reap more than I sow.

Among Other Things...

My dad has a really little Christmas tree with built in fiber-optic lights which he puts up on a drum table in front of the window. I made this little ornament for it out of a bit of left over thread. This is some of the thread my sister dyed for me.
I happened to have this ring in my tote bag, too. I wanted to try Jon Yusoff's idea of putting a small flower inside the ring, as well as decorating the outside. Hey! It worked...but I ran out of thread before I got to the fifth picot of the inner flower. I'd left a nice long tail (which was part of the problem) when I started, so I had to finger-tat it back to the picot and finger-tat the other end up to the picot. All the thread that was left was enough to tie a thread loop. Dad liked it, though, and we hung it on his little tree. It might still be there -- he made a wooden box to store the tree in and just puts it away decorated. Clever, huh?

Adaptable Cornelia

There! See how adaptable "Cornelia" is! It's just the most amazing pattern. I was playing around with the size 40 red thread after I made the size 20 ornament strap adaptation. It came out as a really nice little heart, so I put it in a ring. I dropped it on the table and it landed upside down. Oh -- wow! A tree, I could see a tree.

The green size 40 and some silver beads made a nice little tree. It needed a trunk, but as I just had a bag of necessities (I was visiting), I didn't have any brown. (Just kidding -- I don't actually own any brown. It's so brown!) I did have a shuttle with some ecru thread on it. Ta-da, a tree with an anemic trunk -- inside a ring of course, I'm making ornaments! And more ornaments. I did two more with little changes, like different bead colors and some different stitch counts.

Guess what happened when I turned the tree upside down? Yup -- an even better heart. I doctored this one so you can see it, too -- but I've not made a nice red one yet.

I think a combination of the second and third one will work out best if I decide to make more (and how can I resist?). Wouldn't these make great presents to fit inside a card? Of course, the post office would probably mangle 'em unless I use a padded envelope. (People who need padded cells ought to have lots of padded envelopes -- but they are sadly lacking in this household).

Ornament Rings

This is a set of winter decorations. I'd use them on the Christmas tree, but they'd do just as well in the window or hanging from the ceiling.

Hanging from the ceiling actually sounds pretty good -- like they've been to a really wild party. YeeeHaaawwwww...party on, dudes. Who's got the music?...

Wait...what was I talking about? Oh, yeah, these ornaments.

All of the white ones are made with Coats Dual Duty Button Cotton. The red and green ones are made with Lizbeth size 40 in Christmas red or Christmas green. All of the white and red ones are either directly from Jon Yusoff's Snowflakes Collection or are adaptations of those patterns to get them to fit into the silver bangles. The green ones are either directly from DMC's Tatting for Today or have been adapted to fit into the bangles. It does seem strange to be making Christmas ornaments in August (given that the temperature outside is upwards of 90 F). These are for a gift. I don't think the person who's getting these even knows this blog exists, though. Sometimes it's a good thing to labor in obscurity, right?

Fairly Floating

The earrings I tatted, using Jon Yusoff's techniques for covering a ring (and inspired by her earrings), had to be entered in the Creative Arts area. I ran out of categories in tatting -- they didn't have one for jewelry. These were entered in Creative Arts: jewelry, mixed media. They had to be mounted on a card to be entered. My so-called cards were cardboard cut from a boxed-something-that-came-in-the-mail covered with cloth. I stitched the earrings to the fabric so they wouldn't get lost.
Both sets were made for my niece (who modeled them in my original post about entering the Fair). The purple ones (made with size 30 Cebelia and inexpensive clear glass beads) won a first place and a high blue (that is, considered for sweepstakes). Those are my own favorites, but apparently the judges thought differently.

The high school my niece is going to has black and white for their school colors (somebody is in dire need of a dictionary to look up the meaning of color, in my opinion [ooooo, maybe it's me?!]). The second pair is made with size 30 white Cebelia and tiny black glass beads with a larger black drop bead in the center. The metal rings I used had a little hole there, so I had to attach something to it! I have to tell you my first reaction was confusion, then total amazement when we saw these in a glass case at the Fair. I really did win all the marbles: a blue ribbon, high-blue, sweepstakes, judge's choice, and Best of Show! Who'd'a' thunk? With the best of show I got a recipe book and this nifty bread basket. It has a square porous ceramic stone inside a zippered bag. The stone goes in the microwave for a specified amount of time, into the zippered bag, into the basket and keeps the bread warm. Wow!-- it would be even better if I still made bread!

Is it Fair?

I won't know until next week. Yesterday we packed our oxygen tanks and headed out to the Equestrian Center and County Fair Grounds to enter lots of things. (We have to pack the oxygen because the place is soooooo far out in the valley the air is thin [thus speaketh an east-bench snob].) I entered two things in every tatting category available, and one in "bags". My sister entered her crocheted baby blankets, shawl, and kitchen sets. They had a difficult time with her tie-dyed items. We thought they belonged in decoration on a pre-made item, but they thought she should enter them as wearable art over in the creative arts section. They finally let her enter her sheets in home arts but sent her to creative arts with her union-suit jammies and baby onsie. The girls entered things too. I think I should win all the marbles -- but then, I lost my marbles years ago and am always hoping to replace them. We shall see. I'm not worrying about it, though. There was no entrance fee, and I don't think there are monetary prizes either. This is just practice for the state fair. These are the earrings I entered (of course, I displayed them differently for the fair:

Still Ringing

Inspired by Jon Yusoff's wonderfully beautiful earrings, these are made from a bit of leftover size 20 Lizbeth thread. They have nylon hooks, which don't have the beads on the shank yet -- they didn't show up in the scan, so I cut 'em off this image. Next time I try this, I'm going to add some beads -- that'll make 'em more attractive, right?

I've been working on other things, but don't have pictures of some and the rest are for an exchange, so I can't show that either.

One Ringy-Dingy, Two Ringy-Dingy

Rings of all sizes -- cover 'em up!

Using adaptations of the center-ring snowflake from an earlier post, I've been covering rings like a mad fool. I've made two of these using Flora size 20 ecru thread (which is acceptable for the Festival of Trees), two with Day and Night Rainbow thread (a size 30), and one with Lizbeth Christmas thread (a red, green and white size 20 colorway). My dad has one of the rainbow ones, and the Christmas thread one. Hey! When he says he likes 'em he's stuck with them! I happened on two sleeves of bangles in a bargain bin, one is just silver-color and the other is silver and shades of green. I've got two hundred bangles to cover -- that's a lot of ornaments!

Not just ornaments, either. With a little more adaptation, the pattern can fit into these smaller hoops for earrings. I need to work on sizing (and counting, apparently) but these are for my sister's birthday -- tomorrow! They are made from the shades of green size 80 thread she dyed for me. You know, they'd look better if I had photographed them instead of squashing them in the scanner, because they bow out from the outer ring a bit. If she wore necklaces, I'd make a bigger one for a pendant. It's a thought for another time.

Ring Flake

See, ecru isn't nearly so interesting. Of course, this is a little busy looking, but seen "live" it's really very nice -- not too busy at all (I think it's the shadows in the picture). This is "Midnight Escape" (DMC size 80 ) thread and an (as yet) unnamed snowflake pattern around a covered ring. Once it was done, I decided to practice that covered ring thing some more, so I fastened it to a covered silver bangle. That worked -- so it had to have a hanger. The only problem is that's it's slightly too big for the bangle. I'm going to solve that by drying it over one of my niece's little rubber balls. Right now, it bows out from the bangle anyway, so I'm going to encourage that. I'm going to make more, with a change in stitch counts to see if I can get it to stretch side-to-side without the bow.