One more from December

Christmas set for a friend. White size 20 Lizbeth, big red and white beads and smaller red, white and green beads. There's just not much to say about this one. The motif is very like the one I made for my aunt's earrings (I may have changed the stitch counts a bit). This would have been easily adapted to a bracelet as well, but my friend doesn't wear them.

Time Keeps Slipping Away

Where does it go? I think time must be like escalator steps: there's an unused pile of it in someone's basement, and I would like to have it. It's not that I've not been tatting, and crocheting, and any number of other things; I have. Time to sit at the computer? Then there should be time to clean off my desk. No, no, don't have time for that, so I must not have time to sit at the computer. There. (Yes, that's just where the mess sits -- there.) Time to take pictures of tatting? Then there should be time to put away all my thread, string and yarn. As if. That's a little too drastic.

However, I did enter all my stuff in the State Fair as well as the County Fair. (If you want to see what it was, look at the previous post.) Brag Moment: I got blue ribbons (first place) on everything and the little crocheted animals were considered for sweepstakes. I got enough prize money to buy a nice meal -- or more thread. I got thread. I don't have anywhere to put more thread.

Since last August I've been stuck on making little crocheted animals. I made some with size 20 thread, some with size 10 and most with size 3. I'm still making them. I gave away about a dozen and a half for Christmas, I think there are about that many still left in the drawer, and I'm spending recent evenings making legs for a purple and white zebra. My tatting has been reduced to mere minutes -- just enough time to take part in this year's TIAS (thanks, Jane!)

I do have some tatting to show.  My dad needed a gift for my aunt for their annual Christmas party.  In addition to some really useful stretchy fit-anything lids we got at the fair, I wrapped up a necklace and two pair of earrings.  My aunt doesn't have pierced ears, and didn't know I could make tatted ones with clip-on findings.  She was glad to get them and liked 'em too.  I used white size 20 Lizbeth thread and white-and-red-striped beads for the necklace and one pair of earrings.  The other pair of earrings uses large white-and-red striped beads and smaller white-green-red striped beads.  The necklace pattern is Patti Duff's lanyard; except that I did it with SCMR so I didn't have to load all the beads on the thread (I've misplaced both of my Tatsy shuttles!).  The earrings I just made up as I went along.

State Fair

The State Fair is over and I'm starting on entries for next year.  So far what I have are really ambitious ideas!

I demonstrated tatting at the Bonneville Tatters table in the Home Arts building four times during the Fair:  twice with Tonya, another Bonneville Tatters member, and once with my sister and my niece (and once with Judy, but I don't have a picture with her).  My sister has been tatting for 5 days (not all this year!), and when we went to tat on the last day of the Fair, my niece, who is ten, had been tatting for about 2 hours.  She made a lot of little short chains -- she called them worms.  Some guy asked her what their names were.  She gave him a strange look then said, "Wormy and WormyTwo."  She proudly placed them under the clear plastic cover on our table with all the other tatting bits and bobs.

This is the first year I've entered as "Advanced Amature" -- according to the Fair rules after entering for five years you've got to move up.  I did it a year early because I figured if I was going to enter stuff I'd designed, that had to be advanced.   I entered eleven pieces of tatting and came home with nine first-place blue ribbons and two second-place red ribbons.  It cost me $11 to enter, and I also came home with a check for $31.  Not a high-paying proposition, but certainly a lot of fun.

 The ornaments and the butterfly are the same ones I entered in the County Fair, but I had to add a bookmark tail to the butterfly to enter it in the State Fair.  I added a coil-less safety pin to the back of the Grapes from Karey Soloman's class at Shuttlebirds to qualify it for the wearable (flat) tatting category.


There are more categories in the state than the county, so I made some new things for the State this year.  In the jewelry category I entered a necklace and matching earrings which are really Patti Duff's lanyard pattern with smaller thread and bigger beads.  I found these beads that look like crumpled tinfoil, and really like the way they turned out.    For the Halloween suncatcher, I used the center of Linda Davies' new Classic Doily fitted into a bangle with black thread.  Then with invisible thread (it was 3:00 in the morning on entry day!) I sewed on my Ripley the Ghost made from Jeff's Hamilton's pattern. (Thanks so much for sharing, Jeff!)   It turned out really well (especially for 3:00 in the morning).

The other new things I entered were a Tatted card (I sewed the Celtic motif on a card with invisible thread about 2:30 in the morning), and the swirled square motif I made up a few months ago.  The comment I got on the card was that white on white was not a good idea (lots of things seem like good ideas at 2:30 in the morning), and it was not evenly blocked -- too true.  The comments on the motif were that I pulled some of the rings too tight.  It probably looks a little warped, but second place is still cool.


The Classic Doily by Linda Davies that I test-tatted for her was large enough to enter in the centerpiece category.  It was very well received by the judges -- they like classic and white, and they liked the pattern of this doily.  Thanks, Linda!  I also entered the two-toned purple doily in the "doily" category.  Unfortunately the pretty sunset doily I entered in the County Fair was in the same category as the purple one in the State Fair and it's one entry per category.  I would have entered the other as an edging, but the only edgings categories are for hankies and pillowcases.  (Gotta get working on those for next year).

The lovely Utahraptor got a nice blue ribbon.  I got a note on that one, too.  It said if I'd done a better display it would have been considered for sweepstakes.  Well, rats.  I didn't do this display.  The people who took in entries at the fair pinned it to this board with big "T" pins -- I didn't have any choice in the matter (boy do I sound grumpy and unappreciative and sour-grapeish or what?!).  Anyway, next year I need to make a stegosaurus and put it on a proper display board with invisible thread, not with "T" pins. 



Finally, there's my lone piece of crochet.  I chose the pineapple doily after fussing about it for a while.  Pineapples are my favorites, after all.

There now.  Aren't you glad I'm done blathering?


Oops, not done -- someone asked if there were any categories I didn't enter.  Yes.  I didn't enter the ones with the red "x" on them in this list.  I need to get busy if I'm going to enter in every category next year!

Ribbons from the Fair - part 4

This is my sister's Christmas jewelry set -- made from a Yarnplayer pattern called "Dream".

I originally entered it in the "Creative Arts" section of the fair as "Jewelry - mixed media". Well, that's what it is. After we were all done, the person taking in the entries decided that tatting didn't belong in creative arts or in the jewelry. She took it all over to the "Home Arts" area and they just wrote in new tatting categories for it. *sigh* Mine was the only tatted jewelry entered, so I competed against myself. I do wish it had been left to compete with the rest of the jewelry. It will be in creative arts as mixed media jewelry for the State Fair, because they don't just write things in if they feel like it.

Bonnie used to have an inexpensive necklace with these little bells on it that she wore at Christmas. One of the girls decided that the bells would look better used another way and ...well... chopped it up. She rescued the bells, but no longer had any jewelry. With as many bells as she had, I was able to make her two sets: one red and one green.

Good thing I entered the red set -- the only green ribbons they give out at the fair are those big sweepstakes ones! Of course, red ribbons with the green set would have just looked even more Christmasy, wouldn't they?

I suppose when I give the set back to her I could give her the ribbon, too. She could tie it over her ear. ;)

Oh...I apparently need to practice my chains to because they judge said they are all inconsistent. *sigh* Actually, what I read on the note was that the "chair types were inconsistent". I looked at it blankly and thought "What chair?" Rest...I need rest.

A Bit of This and That

Marilee Rockley's "Dreams" again -- this time in purple DMC Cébélia size 30 with a button closure for my 12-year-old niece. As I had so much trouble counting to 5 to make a zig-zag chain, this one is made with spiral chains of 25 second half ds separated by small split rings. I put the beads on picots off the split rings. That seemed to work pretty well for keeping them on the outside of the chain. The drop beads are just clear teardrops, but they are what she liked best.
Using that same purple and some mint green Cébélia with some shades of purple and green seed beads I'm making another bald doily. I like the center of this pattern really well. It's when I get to those three rows of chians that I choke on it. They just don't work for me. This one is now in the "thinking stage" -- I figure if I think about it long enough, I can come up with something that will suit me, and let me use the outer row -- which I find very attractive.
Finally, I've got Jane's TIAS3 up to Day 9. Poor, sad thing -- I think it's waving me off with a little misshapen hand. I do believe the beads were too big and inconsistently sized. I'm not too certain about the colors either. That pretty pink button is starting to look orange to me.
Now, I have to leave town for almost the entire month of June -- and my little old laptop doesn't have any capacity for wireless or high speed internet connection. I'll have to see if I can catch up on the weekends -- either that or start over. That would work, because now I know where to put in at least one set of magic threads! I'm wondering if three strands of quilting thread might equal size 20 thread (since I don't have any size 20 this one's all done with size 30). Maybe better thread and bead sizing would get it to shape up a bit.

Spring, Please!

Pink and green! Shouldn't that inspire a bit of Spring weather instead of snow -- in May?? Perhaps, because the last couple of days have been very pleasant, even with the rain. This is "Betula" from Iris Neibach's Tatting Fantasia. I couldn't face the dreaded yellow DMC size 30 Cébélia, so I scrabbled around in my bin for something more cheerful. (Yes, I know other people think yellow is cheerful. I think it looks jaundiced, and makes me look that way. Go ahead, tat with yellow claw-like hands...) This little motif is so elegantly simple, that it made me figure it must be snowing outside again when the "magic thread" broke instead of sliding the ends inside. Fiddle, had to stitch the ends in. Still, I liked the motif and so did my 6-year-old niece. I borrowed the main motif to make this necklace for her...hence the button closure. She can do it herself! I still had some of that springy green and pink on the shuttles, so I opened up Sharon Briggs' Transitions in Tatting and scanned over the first few beginner pieces. Lovely, just what I needed, a new bookmark. This one is the Daisy, but I added a couple of little rings as pretend leaves and a little clover end instead of a tassel. Everything needs to be pressed or blocked, but I haven't bothered with that little detail yet.
I've still got pink and green on the shuttles and am working on another piece from Fantasia 2. Meanwhile I'm contemplating beads and whether or not I can get away with using size 30 thread for Jane's new TIAS. I don't own any 20, and won't be able to get to the store to get any -- certainly not three different colors. Hmpf. Maybe I'll just cheat and use the 30 and pretend I couldn't read the numbers on the label. I'll have an MTIAS (misshapen tat it and see). :)

Dreaming of Christmas?

The other day my sister discovered her Christmas jingle-bell necklace had ...um... mysteriously disintegrated. She had all the bells, but nothing else. Ooooo, golden opportunity! I had been wanting to make Yarnplayer's "Dream" necklace and earring set, but didn't have any drop beads, and couldn't decide on colors, or threads or anything else. For Christmas, it was easy -- my sister's favorite color is green and the bells were red and gold. I had to use size 30 DMC Cébélia thread instead of size 20 (because I don't own anything larger than 30). The bells look somewhat oversized for the thread, but it's lots prettier than the string on which they used to hang! The cord gave me some fits because I have a great deal of trouble counting clear to five -- or remembering if I'm on first half of ds or second half of ds. Still, it works, and she likes it. :) I just wish the photograph did it justice. I have to be braggy and say my tatting is better than my picture taking.

Oh -- for anyone that wanted to see my sister's dragon on Anemone Blanda, this is the picture that turned out best. I made her put a bunch of different dragons on it then choose the one she liked. This one represents her two daughters.