Shuttlebirds Class

Actually I took five -- classes that is.  I learned something in all of them -- sometimes it was that I'm all thumbs or can't count or don't know what tension is or that I was wearing my brain backwards (apparently).  What fun! 
Sherry Pence is so patient -- she explained how to make Ruth Perry's mock hairpin lace strip a number of times, and in enough different ways that it finally sunk in.  Mine was just not working out.  Yup.  One of the non-counting moments.  Once I got down the 1 and two and 1 and 1 and two ... or was that three?  Whatever, count correctly, put the picot in the right place et voilà!  Putting the strip into a round shouldn't have been at difficult as I made it.  Again -- a non-counting moment -- I missed putting one of the down picots in the center tie.  Had to cut that out and re-tie it.  When I got it all finished, I decided I should probably have either loosened the tension on the outer round or made the picots a bit smaller.  This is as it came off the shuttles.  It might look better if I blocked it.  It's an interesting technique, so I've been thinking about another way to use it.  That's just in the thinking about it stage -- not the doing it stage. 


Krystledawne was such fun as a teacher.  She told us this was an embarrassingly easy pattern.  It turns out looking like something really complicated and so pretty!  I don't have the one I made in class.  It was pink and blue and made for my youngest niece.  Sometime between when I left home, spent a weekend in Spokane and arrived back home, she's gone from the pink phase to the purple one.  *sigh*  I cut all the pink and blue off and made this bracelet from her selected purple -- the same one I used for the mock hairpin lace.  Krystle also told us that picots or beads could be added for a little extra pizazz, so I added these size 11 purple beads so the sides for my niece.  I was lucky to wangle it away from her for the photograph.  She's in the kitchen doing her math homework right now -- and the bracelet is around her ankle.  :)

These little grapes were another real ah-ha! moment.  It couldn't really be that easy, could it?  Nah, it couldn't.  The concept is remarkably easy as Karey Solomon explained it.  She was using a size three thread to show how it worked.  Looked simple for her.  I started over once, and a couple of these are joined a bit oddly, but, I can't tell you how delighted I am with them.  They're grapes -- really! -- don't they look just like grapes?  I don't think I attached the leaf quite correctly, and it, too, might look better for a bit of blocking.  I can see all kinds of applications for this technique.  Isn't it interesting how one person can know making wheels and the alligator join and turn them into this and another person can know the same thing and never put that together?  Aren't we glad there are designers out there?


The fourth class I took was one of Dale Pomeroy's snowflake classes.  The first picture is the one I completed from class (another victim of a person who can't seem to count) and the second one I completed at home.  I really liked the look of this snowflake and wanted to play with those bugle beads.  There were interesting techniques used that I hadn't tried before -- like putting the beads on the thread and sliding them into place then working under the bead for a join that appeared to be a picot join, but which put the bead higher out of the tatting.  Just to see the difference, the one I did at home I did as a regular picot join with the bead added at the time of joining.  It's a very pretty snowflake -- and once, again, would benefit from blocking!

You can see the benefits of my last class with Jessica Spaulding:  Photographing Tatting.  Yup -- not a single one of these was thrown on the scanner and none were taken inside.  Outside in natural sunlight.  Jessica looked at my poor point-and-click camera and said I'd have to do the best I could on automatic.  No f-stop settings or whatever for me.  That's okay, it's what I can afford right now, and it does have a macro setting -- that was good.  She also showed us how to make a light box -- a really inexpensive one with a cardboard box, tissue paper and a piece of poster board.  I haven't done it yet because I'm waiting on a suitable box.  After Christmas we threw out all the spare boxes -- so we could start collecting new ones.  When a good one comes along, I'll save it from the recycling bin and be in business.

Whew!  I really had a great time and feel like I learned a lot of new stuff.  Y'all should come next year -- wouldnt' that be great?

Shuttlebirds Fun!

Yeah, it really was.   It would be more fun if it was longer and I got to take more classes.  It's great to learn things -- either a new technique or an old one used a new way or just a really nifty pattern.  The people in Spokane really know how to put together an event.  I know it was a lot of work behind the scenes, but everything ran so smoothly from my perspective -- they made it look easy.  Thanks so much for all your hard work, you Shuttlebirds!

The Retro-tat was fun.  I wasn't signed up, but someone that was couldn't be there, so there was an extra piece to undo.  I'm slower than seven-years-itch, but everyone was slow compared to Jessica!  I didn't do the Tat-off.  I like to stop and admire what I'm doing and stretch my fingers too much.   In other words, I'm a slow tatter.  These are some of the people participating -- they can chat and tat and still work fast. 

This year's theme was "Tatting on the Wild Side" and there were a lot of really great entries in the theme contest.  They had four categories: Animal/Original, Animal/Published, Color/Original, and Color/Published.  Everyone was allowed to enter two things in each category.  No everyone did that -- but I did, however, I only made two new pieces for the contest.  Everything else I entered was something that's already been posted here.

I was most pleased with my Utahraptor.  I found a picture on the 'net and put it under a piece of tracing paper then made some rings and chains and split rings and SCMR and stuff like that on top of the picture.  I tatted it about half way around -- well, up to the neck.  By that time, I was back home (I started while visiting my dad), so I scanned the picture to the computer and drew what I had done to that point on top of the picture with PaintShop.  I tatted it again -- all the way to the back leg.  Then I drew some more.  Next I tatted the whole thing and decided it was what I wanted, but I was using ecru cebelia thread.  Well, ick.  But, it worked and was made in one continuous round -- except where I had to add thread -- there were only two ends to hide at the end of the tail.  Finally, I tatted the whole thing in a nice dinosaur-ish green size 20 Häkelgarn, and this is what it looked like on the display table.  There now, isn't he charming?  (Okay, I'm through bragging for a minute.)

The winning entry for the Animal/Original category was Jean Reeves "Wild Thang".  Can you imagine a baby shuttle-eating monster?  She did!  That was the cutest baby monster I ever did see.  He was all covered in green scales with big black eyes and sharp teeth -- his rose ended tongue made him a little less scary.  :)
Tucked inside the tatted clasp purse was a little white shuttle.  Little monster -- he ate it!

Delsey Howard won the Animal/Published category with her Peacock.  The colors she chose were perfect and her tatting was so nicely done.  I'm just tickled that I've purchased the same book she got it from, so I can try it myself.  I just hope I can do it justice, like she did.  It was absolutely beautiful -- and I thought the peacock looked happy.  Happy tatting is good.

Sherry Pence's interpretation of Jane Eborall's Patchwork took top honors for Color/Published.  Such a pretty thing, and the colors she used are perfect together.
I took a class from Sherry, and she's not only a wonderful tatter, she's a really nice, funny, person and a very patient teacher!  That mock hairpin lace very nearly wrapped my brain around a corner, but she persevered and we all got it.  I've got a finished piece to show for it -- but it's not nearly so nice as Sherry's.  I'm going to try it again, 'cause I think I've got it.  Once I get pictures of the stuff from the classes I took, I'll post those and tell you again what a good teacher she is!

Oh, yeah, and I won, too!  (This is the more of the braggy part, so you can skip it if you want to.)  I got the prize for Color/Original for this "Fantasy Tree".  That's the good name for it, my niece calls it a "blobby tree" -- that doesn't sound as good.  I was fussing about getting my entry done when I was working on the dinosaur, because I did unpick and change and unpick and rework until I wondered if I would ever get it figured out.  Patti left me a comment and said just do a free-form piece, then there's nothing to unpick!  Okay.  That's the tree.  I started with a ring not quite in the center and just kept going.  I changed threads here and there -- this is all Sulky blendables with two strands wound on the shuttle at the same time, but not always the same two.  Again, I got to the end and just had two tails to hide because everything else was hidden when I changed threads.  So it goes around and around and back and forth and up and down...


I've got more to say about the Shuttlebirds Workshop, but not right now!