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!

More than Fair

Hey, I've got bragging rights on this one! Some of you might remember this from Tatting Treasures from Trash in September 2007. I had the right side done as Summer and was going to finish all four quarters (two front and two back) as seasons of the year. I decided putting stuff on the back would be pointless because who would see it? Not only that, it would get rubbed against my clothes which mght mess up the tatting. So, in the middle of July [this year!] , I decided to make it Summer Day / Winter Night. I made a bunch of snowflakes to go with the pocket edging representing the moon. I do believe most of the snowflakes were from Jon Yusoff's Snowflake Collection, though there might be a couple of strays in there. This one got a blue ribbon, a high blue ribbon, a Home Arts Sweepstakes ribbon, and the tatting Judge's Choice ribbon. Pretty good, eh? Not that I'm feeling puffed up about myself -- but I very nearly had to sleep in the garage because that was the only place with a door big enough for my head.

Tat's Fair, too

Three tatted doily entries -- two of which have been on the blog before. The pair of "Anemone Sylvestris" from Iris Niebach's book Fantasia 2 were entered as a dresser set/table runner. "Milena" is from Iris's Tatted Doilies made in Yarnplayer's "Rhubarb Crisp" hand-dyed-thread. All of the comment cards mentioned the beautiful color (thanks Marilee!). The last one is "Lucky Clover" from Tatting Patterns and Designs by Blomqvist and Persson. It was made within the last two months just for the Fair. It's made of one strand of white sewing cotton and one strand of Signature machine embroidery thread. None of the pictures I took manage to show the subtle color changes though (one even looked a nasty yellow) -- so here's a partial image I scanned.

[Blogger is playing tricks on me. If your comment didn't appear, it's not because I didn't appreciate it! I selected the comments and said publish -- but not all of them showed up. Hmpf. Thanks, Blogger]

Fairly Tatted

I've shown these ornaments on the blog before. The first one -- with the second place ribbon -- is being donated to the "Festival of Trees" tree being decorated by the Bonneville Tatters. The pattern is my own and I quite like it (but never did like the color). The comment card said it needed more sparkle. I think they liked all the beads on the other set -- because those got a first place ribbon. These are the ornaments I made from an adaptation of Iris Niebach's "Cornelia" from Tatted Doilies.

The dragon, from a pattern by Anne Bruvold, has also appeared on the blog before -- I made it as a gift for my sister and she made me a loan of it for entering in the fair. The butterfly is new, but is the same pattern I made up for the InTatters butterfly exchange (oops -- with the addition of a couple of extra rings on the top of the wings). The comment cards for both of these mentioned the wonderful use of color -- I have to say thanks to my sister, because they were both made of threads she dyed for me (the dragon a size 10 and the butterfly a size 30). One of the comment cards for the butterfly also expressed delight with the beads. I think some judge out there was as much a crow as I am -- gimmie the shiny stuff!

Fair Enough

The County Fair allows entries of things made within the last three years, that have not been previously entered in the Fair. These are the three crocheted doilies I entered. Actually, the center one was entered as a crocheted table runner, but it's my dresser scarf. The last one was made more than three years ago, but it was hand-dyed just a couple of years ago, so I entered it anyway. They all got blue and high blue ribbons (that is, considered for sweepstakes in Home Arts). I never did find out why I also got a $25 gift certificate from The Wool Cabin with the dyed doily. It must be something they give out themselves, but it's certainly nothing to sneeze at! We're going to go see what they've got. Wool Cabin -- sounds fibre-ish to me, and that sounds good.

Fair Results -- Yes!

We went to the fair yesterday. Talk about pleasant surprises! The County Fair doesn't charge an entry fee, and allows a person to enter two things in each category. Between the four of us we entered 31 things, and we won 46 ribbons. Conspicuous consumption in a rather ostentatious way, eh?
The seven-year-old entered two tiny clay pots and a little sponge-painted canvas bag. She got blue ribbons for the pots and a red ribbon for the bag.
The fourteen-year-old entered a very tiny penguin and a little turtle made of baked clay, an interesting representation of xeriscaping, and a bag she made from a pair of jeans. She won a third place for the xeriscape stone, a second on the bag (but they forgot to put her age on the card, so she was competing with the adults), a first on the pengin, and a first and "high blue" on the turtle. High blue means it was considered in the sweepstakes round.
My sister entered a dress she made, crocheted slippers, blankets and dishtowel sets, and tie-dyed scarves, a baby onsie with hat, long-john jammies, and a sheet set. She got a second place for her slippers, firsts for her other crocheted items and her dress, and a "high blue" for her blue and green baby blanket. She got seconds on her long-john jamies and one of her scarves (the one that's my favorite!), and firsts on everything else. In addition, she got a high blue and a creative arts sweepstakes ribbon for her sheet set. They're so loud, I don't think she's going to be able to sleep if she puts them on the bed!

I'm so proud of them all -- aren't they clever?

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:

Weekend Tatting...

We had a 3-day weekend due to a state holiday. Wow! I tatted all weekend -- look what I made:

I've tatted a shed! Okay -- it was a large project so I had a lot of help.

Huh? What do you mean?

Oh, yeah. I guess it's not tatted after all. How sad, and I worked so hard on it.

Actually, it was one of those no time for tatting weekends, but we have a new non-leaky, non-rusty home for the lawn mower and snow blower, the bicycles and wiggle cars, and the snowshovels and gardening implements. Now all we have to do it get the girls to paint the boards around the outside and put in the little brick entrance way (made from the bricks that came off the old chimney when we remodeled the house). That can wait for a bit -- I'm not doing any more manual labor in 102 F weather!

'Nother Modification

Our assignment in the Design-Tat course was to take a snowflake pattern and adapt it into a heart. I used my own pattern (because I already had it in my drawing program). If this looks familiar -- well, it should! This is based on the same snowflake as the butterfly in the previous post. The first incarnation just wasn't working at all, so I cut it off the shuttles. It needed something lower between two of the points, but certainly not the upside-down overly-long chain that I started with. The first complete heart doesn't look too bad, but didn't dip down enough at the top to suit me. Back to the drawing board. With a change in the top and the addition of a couple more little rings, it looked more heart-like to me. This time I worked it in blue Cebelia size 30, because I didn't want to use up ALL my red thread before I got to the final one. It worked, so I was happy and redid it in the nice red Lizbeth size 20. That would have worked better if I hadn't make a goofy right in the beginning. I had to cut that off and start over -- then I ran out of thread at the end. Piffle. Next time I do this I think I will have to use smaller thread to fit enough on my Aero shuttles, or break down and use those two little clovers I bought.

Oh -- I forgot to say that it is worked in one continuous round. That's why I ran out of thread on the shuttles!

Butterfly Exchange

New butterfly, but not really a new pattern. This is an adaptation of the snowflake I designed from the post "Flake-y Tatting" earlier in this blog. This is about the third, or fourth incarnation of the butterfly, and it finally suited me. There are still other possible alterations or additions that I'm going to try. First, though, I need to get this version diagrammed and written down. I'm pretty lazy when it comes to that. I usually keep a piece and just make more by looking at it. That's not really all that efficient, though.

Anyway...

Once it looked like a reasonable butterfly to me, I added forty-bazillion beads to create this turquoise butterfly for the InTatters June Butterfly Exchange.

This butterfly is made with Lizbeth size 20 thread and measures almost 5.25 inches wide (13.5 cm) and 3 inches tall (4 cm).