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.

Flake-y Tatting

Waiting for inspiration, sketching, figuring, fussing, doing, re-doing, waiting for further inspiration, fussing some more. I really have been doing something, it just doesn't look like much! Since I've been so lax about blogging what I'm doing, I'll just dump it all in here at once.
First, Bonneville Tatters is donating a Tree to this year's Festival of Trees (those are Christmas trees for a local children's charity). It's being done in maroon and ecru and is intended to look Victorian. (Personally, I would have done a Tattycat tree -- white with rainbow snowflakes!) I've done nothing maroon, but will be donating this snowflake from the last pattern I worked out. It is made of size 30 ecru Cebelia. Of course I'm going to be working on some other stuff, too. This is just the bare minimum start. It's just soooooo hard for me to tat in ecru. I'm always convinced I've made a dirty spot (because I carry it all over the place) that is never going to come out. If you see one on this snowflake, don't tell me!

As for the fussing and figuring, I saw this bit of machine embroidery and thought I might be able to make it into a tatted snowflake. The pattern I drew out looked really great. Ummmm...I couldn't tat it the way I drew it. There were too many disconnected open bits and all the little hearts had to be done separately (lots of ends to hide). I couldn't get the shape even close, except by using lock chains, and they don't look quite right -- well, not as I had invisioned this thing looking, anyway. It needs a lot of work. I've set it aside for now and am thinking about it. This test piece was made in Opera size 10 cream thread. I didn't weave the threads in very well, but had to do something with them to see if this looked even halfway interesting. It does, but I couldn't get six points in, so it's no snowflake! I'm thinking about it, because i do like that center star.

Finally, this one was also from a bit of machine embroidery. It didn't end up looking much like the embroidery flake, but it pleases me. The first test of the drawn pattern didn't work well at all. It's SCMR connected by chains. Right, those don't have a lot of substance and the center shape is all weird. The second try turned out pretty good, but was a pain to do. It has a central ring with 11 picots and one mock picot to work out to the round with the SCMR and spacing chains. It works fine and doesn't look too bad, just a bit gobby at the center. So, for the third incarnation, I tried out covering a bone-ring (which is actually plastic). Since this is the first time I'd tried covering a ring, I just tied the threads together so I could work out how many stitches would cover the ring. Hey, I guessed right and put the little picot gaps in the right places too. How weird is that? Then I had to deal with those thread ends and the knot where I tied my two shuttles together. There's a lumpy spot right at the base of one of the arms. The fourth one is the one I will be donating to the Tree. I still have work to do on getting the ring covered evenly, and need to figure out how to do rings at the edges, but I think these little rings are nifty. Oh, this flake is made of size 30 Cebelia, as well.

New Snowflakes

This is what I've been doing lately -- my latest homework from Sharon Briggs' Design-Tat course. (This is just so much fun!) She found this image for us to use for inspiration. To me, it looked like a blurred paper-cut snowflake, so it took me a while to see anything else. Then it took time to figure out how to connect all the little rings I stuck on the picture. Everybody's work looks different, and mine look a little different from each other.
The first one is from my original drawing and is made in two rows. Made with size 50 Omega thread, it is 4 inches (10.5 cm) across. It's actually the one I made last, because the pattern looked too round to be a snowflake. It might make a good beginning to a doily, though.
The pink one in the middle is the one I did first. By leaving out the center ring and changing one element of the top, it looks quite different. That change also allowed me to start at the outside of the first round and complete the entire thing in one pass. It is made with size 20 Lizbeth thread and is 5.5 inches (14 cm) across. I thought maybe the center was too unsupported; it seemed a bit limp. Sooooo...
The third one has a more dense center, but is still able to be completed in one pass. I changed some of the stitch counts, so it looks a bit more relaxed than the pink one, which had to be severely blocked to lay flat. It is 4.5 inches (11.5 cm) across and is made from "Singing the Blues" thread (hand-dyed on a size 30 Cebelia).

Bookmarks

InTatters is having a bookmark exchange in which I am participating. This is NOT what I'm sending -- don't want to spoil the surprise! However, this is my square bookmark pattern without the buttons. After all, who really wants buttons stuck in their books? It's made in size 30 DMC Cebelia thread dyed into "Day and Night Rainbow". It looked like a really good idea to me -- much harder to lose a bookmark that colorful than a little piece of white paper (which is what I usually use).
I thought buttonless was such a much better idea for bookmarks that I redid my butterfly bookmark buttonless as well. It needs more repeats of the butterfly top, I think. Of course, this is NOT what I'm sending either, so that doesn't matter.

Really, I DO have something to send, though, really!

Memory -- That Would be Nice

Would you look at that!
Valerie of Val's Simple Passions gave me this nice award way back on the 17th of April, but I can't remember my own name some days. That was so kind of her--makes me blush. I'm just no good at these things. It's not excess modesty or anything (I think I'm pretty wonderful -- 'cause if I don't, who will?), mostly it's just that I don't want to hurt anybody's feelings and there are lots more than 10 blogs I look at all the time. So, even though the rules are:
1. The winner may put the logo on their blog.
2. Put a link to the person who sent you the award.
3. Nominate 10 blogs.
4. Put a link to their blogs.
5. Leave a message for your nominees.
I only did the first two. Do go take a look at Valerie's blog -- she's got some really pretty tatting there -- as well as some really cute bears!

Even More Color!

More thread! Bonnie had her dyes out again this weekend. I unwound thread like mad so she could make it more interesting than ecru and white. This is the result. I know it looks tangled, but it winds up very nicely. These skeins were wound off the ball on the the arms of my office chair. That worked much better than anything else I've tried. Unfortunately, once they'd been through the dye process, got washed, and dried, they shrunk so I couldn't get the skeins back on the arms of the chair. Bonnie is also my thread swift. Nice of her, eh? From bottom to top, these are Singing the Blues, Oh-Baby, Midnight Escape, and Purple Potion. Bonnie named them while we were winding them back into balls.

Singing the Blues is rather obvious -- it's all my favorite shades of blue (well, all the ones she had in little bottles, at least). It used to be size 30 DMC Cebelia ecru.

Purple Potion which is also a size 30 Cebelia, was named because all the dye color names sound like this:

Double, double, toil and trouble
Raspberry, plum,
wisteria, bubble gum,
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

Sometimes I do wonder what she's cooking up in all those little bottles.
Oh-Baby is all soft pastel baby-shades, baby blue, bubblegum, seafoam, and wisteria. It looks like baby lace to me, especially as it is a size 80 DMC tatting cotton.

Midnight Escape is the darker side of the baby pastels, caribbean, raspberry, caman island, and imperial purple, also on a size 80 DMC tatting cotton. It reminded Bonnie of the baby-escape in the movie "Baby Geniuses".

Colorful Weekend

Look how lucky I am! My sister had her dyes out this weekend and did three balls of thread for me. These first two are 20 gram weight DMC size 80 that used to be white. Now they are shades of pink, purple, red and blue in one ball and a whole bunch of different greens in the other ball. I told her she had to name them. Uh-huh. Her names were redishpurplelbluepink and Irish Spring (because it looked like the bath soap of the same name). Those just aren't romantic enough, so the first is Sunset (yes, we have those with pink and purple and flaming red). The second is Desert Green, because it's not a bright spring green -- there's even something that looks a bit like fresh sagebrush to me. According to my sister, the green has kilt, new-emerald, bright green, Kelly green, and better-blue-green (thank you Dharma Trading for the dye names). They are all on the blue end of green, not the yellow, so I like them very much.
This second ball of thread is a DMC size 20 that used to be cream colored. It's now "Day and Night Rainbow". Okay, that will work. There are dark and light colors in it: from the dark end are lemon yellow, tangerine, fire red, imperial purple, Caribbean blue, and Kelly green, on the lighter end are paler versions of the orange and green, hot pink, wisteria and robin egg. It's very cheerful.

She dyes the thread just like she dyes everything else, so it goes from a cold rinse in the sink into a wash bag and into the washer for both a cold rinse and a hot dye-setting wash in Synthropol. After the wash it goes into the dryer. This is how it come out. Scary, huh? But it winds up really well for all the curls and squiggles. Isn't she clever and aren't I lucky?

Tat-it-and-See and Choose-your-own-pattern by Danni. There were three versions, but I did only two of them. This first one is version A. Completed, it turns out to be "A" for "Aigg" -- well, okay, egg. Too bad the "Desert Bloom" isn't very good Easter Egg color.

I was working on version A and C at the same time. I thought the pink and purple might be a better choice, but when I got version C done I just sat and looked at it in bewildered confusion. "What is this?." I asked my sister, holding it up. "I can't figure out what this little point is. I thought it might be two eggs, a big one and a little one, but not with that bump." She gave me the most disgusted look, reached out, and rotated it 90 degrees. "It's a chick, Marty...duh." Oh, yes, so it is. Darn -- I should have used the yellow!