More Fair

All these things I entered in the County Fair have been blog-posted during the past year, so I'm sticking them all together here.
The Utahraptor and Fantasy Tree are those I made for the Shuttlebirds convention.  Both got first place blue ribbons, but the Utahraptor also got a "high blue" (considered for sweepstakes) ribbon and a Judge's Choice ribbon.  I'm so vain -- I love getting the big ribbons!

 

The butterfly I made from Anne Bruvold's Christmas hearts got a blue ribbon, too.  These are such perfect little hearts (not bragging on my tatting -- bragging on Anne's pattern!) .  Depending on the categories at the State Fair (have to remember to look!), I might have to put a tail on it and call it a bookmark.  Since I can only enter one thing in each category in the State Fair, I can't put the dinosaur and the butterfly in unless one of them fits somewhere besides "other".

These are seven of the Christmas ornaments I made using Jon Yusoff's snowflake patterns, and some little bits of fillers of one kind or another (one went to the marvelous Jeff).  I entered them as a set and ended up with a sweepstakes ribbon!  It made me laugh, though:  the comment card said "Nice even loops, nice way to display" -- so I got a ribbon for display, or for tatting?  Which ever, I have to thank Jon for such lovely patterns.

County Fair

Fair season is just plain fun.  I like entering my bits and pieces in the fair -- it's the one bit of exhibitionism I engage in (no need to actually show your face in public).  The County Fair is especially fun.   There are no entrance fees, so there are no prizes except ribbons (well, okay, Best of Show gets something else -- this year it was a large glass compote bowl).  Everyone is allowed to enter two things in each category.  I entered two in every tatting category except table runner.  I don't have tables that run.  It's hard to take pictures of the stuff at the fair because they put the tatting in a glass case, or on a table behind the glass case.
I'm showing this one first, because I have to say "Thanks!" again to Jess.  On the judge's card was the comment "Love the colors!"  Yeah, me too.  This is what I did with the Sunset thread and doily Jess dyed:

I made up the edging based on all the other split chain pieces I've been experimenting with for a month or so.  It looked a little odd stuck out there on the edge, so I wound some size 40 peach colored thread, onto a bent paper clip for a shuttle and did the little short arches woven in and out of the edging legs (as if that makes sense).  I also used the peach thread to make another round on the edging (there wouldn't have been enough of the Sunset to do another edging round).  It turned out icky looking so I cut it off.  I'm glad I didn't use the rest of the Sunset after all.  That would have been such a waste.  This one is going back in my tatting drawer until time for entries in the State Fair -- I have confidence in it, because the colors are beautiful.

I won! Wow, did I win!

Jess from Tat-ilicious did a giveaway for a skein of her hand-dyed thread just for selecting colors for a variegate and giving it a name.  I like thread.  I really like hand-dyed thread.  I offered up Susnrise (pale pinks, yellows and oranges).  Oh, my goodness!  Sacrificing a shuttle to the Random Number gods must have worked (I don't think they tat, so they didn't know it was just a Susan Bates aero knockoff).  Anyway, I won!  Jess is very generous, though.  I didn't just win one skein of thread, I got all this stuff:

I could hardly believe it!  There's a skein of Sunrise (size 40) and a little doily center dyed to match.  One skein each of Esmeralda (size 80), and Harvest (size 40), and one sample skein each of Purple Pansy and Queen Anthias (both size 40).  THEN there were little purple beads with two holes, two green rings and two pearly-white ones and two really great square buttons.
I'm rich!  If you'd like some of this thread hop on over to Jess's Etsy shop.

Oh, I didn't get a picture, but both of the girls want the tin it all came it -- Hello Kitty!  I told them when they learn to tat then they could, maybe, have a tatter's-tin.  Until then it's mine, mine, all mine!

Speaking of Split Chains

You can't imagine the delight I felt in figuring out this split chain thing.  I could do them, but I didn't like it -- and only knew one way to make it work so sometimes half my chain was front side and the other half was back side (weird looking). 
I sat down with a shuttle and a bit of left-over thread and made this string of stuff all hooked together with split chains.  Then I hunted up a couple of other shuttles with more left-over thread and made this interesting little motif.  I was disgusted to run out of thread and not be able to find the ball of thread to add more (that pink and blue stuff is here somewhere!). 
Next, I wound on two colors of Sulky and started again.  I did more rows than the first one, but it lost it's definition and started to look very cramped.  I ran out of thread then. Very likely a good thing, because I'd tatted myself into a corner, so to speak, and the rounds were not ending in good places to start a new one.
Somewhere around here is another start but with changes which have, so far, left a bit more defined negative space.  I'll post that another time.  Maybe I could actually write down a pattern instead of just going around and around where ever the shuttles feel like going.  Nah, prob'ly not.  Hmmm...but maybe that second incarnation, as a single motif, would be possible.

Split Chain

If you need to know how to do one, do it well, and do it easily click on over to Le Blog de Frivole!  She has posted two videos of Marie Smith's method -- one for regular tatting and one for fs/bs tatting.  I tried both last night.  Oooooooh, WOW!   This is hands-down the neatest, easiest method I've ever tried.  Even I can't tell which part of the chain was the direct-tatted side on my own work!
Thanks so much for posting this, Frivole, and even more thanks for sharing it, Marie.

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!

New Motif

This is a pair of motifs I've been working on for a while.  I drew it all out on the computer first, then tatted it in size 10 thread.  By doing that, I found out there was one place where I had to change the direction of the chain, and a number of places I had to change the stitch count.

Tatted again in a size 20 I had on a pair of shuttles and found a couple of other tweaks needed.  Finally, I made this pair from two colors of Sulky blendables I had on the shuttles.  I would have done more, but I couldn't remember which colors they were!

Each motif builds from the center in one continuous round using split rings.  It could make a really handsome mat.  Maybe I should work on it some more -- in another color, or at least in colors I've written down!




 I think Jon is right about connecting two rings to join the motifs -- it would made a much stronger connection.  Once I got looking at that option, I thought maybe joining them across all the rings would be interesting.  This is what my computer thinks it would look like:

Another Sternenhimmel

Tricky little thing, this Blogger.  I can be out of town and still post something here.  It's amazing that I'm bothering, though, since I don't post when I'm in town.  I've left the rest of the family home to muddle on without me while I whoop it up at Shuttlebirds.  

In the meantime, this is a star-shaped motif from Susanne Schwenke's SpitzenKreationen.  It's made with two strands of Sulky blendables thread in green shades.  I don't have that fancy color chart Lace-lovin' Librarian has, and who cares what number they are?  I like this pattern as well as I like the others.


Yup -- SpitzenKreationen went into the pile of "on the plane" things!

Shuttlebirds

Packing for Shuttlebirds has been interesting -- sort of, "Hmmmm...if I wear the same sox two days in a row I can fit in this extra ball of thread. WHAT?  No, no cleanliness is important, buy some thread when you get there!"  Since I decided to fly instead of take that 11 hour drive I've also been worried about what the TSA is going to take away from me.  Can I take a size 16 crochet hook?  Do I dare take the new Quad hook pen I got from LadyShuttleMaker?  Are they going to say I can't carry on all this stuff?  I'm trying to pare it down to minimums, but my minimums are rather maximum.  If I can decide on one good-sized project and just take materials for that everything will probably fit.  I worry about deciding part way there that some other project would really have been a better idea.  *sigh*

 

Aside from that, here's another of those "Sternenhimmel" motifs from Susanne Schwenke's book SpitzenKreationen.  I really like the way this one creates that little central star as well.  I remembered to make all the joins on this one -- there's one sitting on the arm of my chair sadly misshapen from a missed join.  I'll be making more of this design in a nice plain thread so the pattern stands out.  Hmmmm...maybe SpitzenKreationen should go to Spokane with me!