I'm a Knotty Girl.

I am bad.  Bad at keeping up with this blog.  It seems when one big thing gets finished (namely, CPA achievement - that's right! licensed in PA as of May 15, 2012!) I start two different big things to take its place.  Those two things being kitchen remodel (going on three months now) and craft show season (two shows down, two to go).  

One big thing is enough. 
Two are bordering on unmanageable. 
And blog falls to the bottom of the "to-do" list.

But I am tatting!  See - my hands know it!

 

Yes, that's me in the Arthritis glove in 90 degree weather reading my favorite publication.  My hands ache.  I am really trying to take better care of them by not tatting for 8 hours in a row anymore.  Yes, I'm a knotty girl!

This is Yarnplayer's pattern and thread - "Unfolding Heart" in "Grey Crimson".  Yarnplayer, you can make more of this thread anytime you want...oh and "Garden Afternoon" too! ;-)

I'll try to keep up with the blog a little better this fall. 

Fall

One of my favorite things about living in Pennsylvania is fall.  Cooler temperatures, beautiful leaves, Steeler's football, apples, cider, pumpkins, mums - I just love the season.  So when September comes around, I pull out all my orange and other fall-friendly threads and my tatting takes on a distinctly fall flavor.

This is Rosemarie Peel's small Celtic motif from "Tatting for Pleasure." I love this design - especially with beads.  I've been wearing this one myself to celebrate fall's arrival.

Next - my pumpkin earrings, slightly updated this year based on the fact I've discovered some different findings and decided I liked the tatted pearl better turned upside-down. (There really isn't a right way up I just had decided in my own head which side was the top and now I've changed my mind - at least for the pumpkins.) :-)

 

I've also been playing with Yarnplayer's new "Small Maple Leaf" pattern.  Love, love, LOVE this clever little pattern!  The pattern is written so well, it works up relatively quickly, and it looks just like a maple leaf.  Yarnplayer is a very talented designer.

That's all the tatting for this past week - I've been studying for the first section of the CPA exam which I will be taking this coming Saturday.  Say a prayer for me!

Blessings,

Darn Scanner

My old scanner never had any problems with objects that weren't quite flat.  I just laid a nice piece of paper over them and didn't close the lid.  They turned out really nice.  Not so with the new scanner.  Flat things are OK but if I have too many large or thick beads, I seem to get a funny halo effect around the thick area.  I have played with the resolution, the brightness, the backgrounds.   Finally I turned off all the lights in the room and tried to scan.  That met with interesting results.  And a clear view of just how dusty my scanner bed was.  So I turned on the dust removal tool which removed the dust but now I see a fingerprint!  Oops.  I'll have to take care of that before the next scan.  This piece still needs to be washed and blocked and have a clasp added.

Integral to this necklace is the central polymer clay piece I mentioned in an earlier post.  I saw the artist's work online and went to go see her in person back in August.  What incredible detail exists in each of her pieces.  I love tiny work myself but this just boggles my mind - I mean, look at the clay around the edge that looks like a little ribbon woven in and out of the piece. 

This is a vintage pattern (circa 1924) from Priscilla Tatting Book No. 3 - one of my favorite old books. 

Back to the scanner issue - I really do not know what I am going to do about this because I'm not really crazy about the black background.  It's not terrible, and the detail is good, but I'd much rather have my pretty papers. I'm not even sure if there is a way of resolving the issue.  I know my old scanner didn't give me the halo effect unless I closed the lid, so I'm not even sure where to start trying to correct the problem.  I'm pretty bummed at the moment.  Anyone have any ideas?

Another One Down

I didn't do much blogging these past few weeks as I was finishing up another course in pursuit of my CPA license - Intermediate Accounting I.  Well, today I finally took my final exam.  I'm glad this class is over.  I had a much more difficult time with this course than the three that came before it - did fine on the homework, thought I knew what I was doing and then I'd get to the tests and it would all go downhill.  I still got a A in the class and managed to maintain my 4.0 average - but it was much more of a struggle this time.  Here's hoping Intermediate Accounting II is not quite so hard (along with Business Law II, it starts in a week).

I've had this thread, called "Magnolia", in my stash for a while without using it.  [Yes, I have entirely too much hand-dyed thread.]  This one is from LadyShuttleMaker.  It is a beautiful combination of a light lilac, creamy pale yellow, and ecru. Very subtle and just lovely.  She uses a high quality cotton thread which tats up nicely as well.  The pattern is from Occhi: Schiffchenspitze, a German book which has very clear diagrams and some unusual patterns.

I've wanted to try this pattern for several months and finally found some time.  I mark pages in books with paperclips to remind me to revisit certain patterns when I get a chance.  This is one round of a larger doily in the book.  The most fun was deciding how I wanted to add beads.  You see where the long bugle beads are - that's the kind of thing I find picot gauges to be very handy for.  

You can get the picots to be exactly the right length for these bugle beads so that the beads fit perfectly over the picots with no extra thread sticking out.  So far, I am very pleased with the way this project is going.

Well, hello!

It's been a long, long time since I posted - look at that last post - January!  Dear me. I'm fortunate to still have followers, I think.  Thanks for sticking with me, inconsistent as I am.  School, family, work, and life in general all conspire against poor ole Blogger. 

Although I am a busy person I still always find time for tatting.  Also, learning new bead-weaving techniques is one of my favorite things to do nowadays.  Here's a recent piece that combines both techniques.

Beaded leaves compliment this vintage pattern from "Lily Doilies & Edgings to Tat & Crochet" in Yarnplayer's gorgeous "Roses" thread. A picture of the entire necklace will reveal a problem however.

I've been wearing it myself (rather than offering it for sale) once I realized the mistake.  I will get around to fixing that wayward upside-down bead one of these days.  I do plan on remaking the necklace for sale and keeping this one, however, because while wearing it I fell in love with it.

In other news, the "Garden Afternoon" piece finally sold at my latest show - it looked so good on the lady who bought it that while I was a bit sad to see it go, I was comforted by the fact that it found a great home.  In my mind a piece is never really "finished" until you get to see someone wearing it.  All the work and time and creative energy and love you put into it is then - somehow - complete.

That's all for now, but hopefully I'll be a little more active in the days and weeks to come.  Thanks again for hanging around!

Ooooh - Pretty!

Is this thread gorgeous, or what? This is Yarnplayer's "Garden Afternoon" and just looks fabulous in this vintage pattern. I find this pattern to be extremely time consuming, and I worked this necklace over several weeks, one motif at a time.

PATTERN SOURCE: I should have mentioned this originally. For all of you who are interested in this pattern - I found it in "The Tatters Treasure Chest," page 77, edging #9074.

In other news, I FINALLY got new glasses, and I love them! Actually, I ended up getting two pair, one traditional bifocal pair, and one pair of progressives. I really prefer the progressives for now, although I do sometimes wear the bifocals at night while I'm tatting, especially with the finer threads. Anyway, as usual I find myself wondering why I waited so long. No more cricks in the neck from holding my head at a weird angle to peek out under my glasses so I can see what I'm doing!

Coral Reef Project

Oooh...I love the colors in this thread. I purchased it from Pamela, it is a lovely high quality thread in gorgeous colors. Once in a while I like to pull out all my vintage books are just start cruising through them. So often I find so many things I never remember noticing before. I think this pattern looks pretty modern - but I found it in "Priscilla Tatting Book No. 2", by Julia Sanders. As I often do, I used just one motif for the matching earring.

In other news - I am mourning the loss of another vintage metal shuttle. I really like the early Boye shuttles - they are high quality and don't tarnish, not like the new metal ones...ick. The older Boye are a little dangerous with light color threads if you get the thread caught in between the bobbin and the shuttle. So, I use them only with the darker color threads, but I really like them because they have a removable bobbin (the only kind of shuttle I use) and they will hold more thread than Aeros (especially with beads on the thread). Between my grandmother and antique shops I managed to pick up about 6 of them but I am down to my last one. Eventually they all snap on me down at the base. I am constantly switching bobbins and I think after a while it's too much stress on that spot. Bah.

Black Lace Scallop Necklace

I finished working on the doily. It is just so fragile - I'm going to recommend that she avoid handling it too much and frame it as soon as possible. It really is not usable as a doily because of the condition the lace is in. I wish I knew what had caused the problem - whether it is the type of thread, starching method, how it was stored, etc. so I could avoid doing that to any of my own pieces! This particular doily has a lot of sentimental value to the owner so I tried to get it in as good a condition as possible so it can be framed and become a family keepsake. Hopefully she will be pleased with the results.

I was hoping to have finished something in LadyShuttlemaker's Peach Pandorea thread, but unfortunately I did not have any beads to match. I will have to go beads shopping! Instead, I pulled out Pamela's Coral Reef and have ideas for a necklace. However, with trying to catch up after missing a week of work, I didn't actually even get it started.

So instead, I'll show a different necklace I finished recently. This one is tatted with black thread and shiny black delica beads (a whole lot of them). It is a simple scallop pattern which I *think* is in the book "The Tatter's Treasure Chest" - up until now I have not been good about keeping track of where I get my vintage patterns from - but I'm trying to do better. I have so many books - they take up crates and crates. Anyway, here is the finished result. The little flower in the front is a lightweight acrylic bead made by another artist.

The matching earrings are a very simple basic earring I've been making from the very beginning of my business - I call it my "Tat" earring because it contains all of the most basic tatting construction in just 32 little knots - it has one ring, one chain, and one picot. I vary the pattern a lot with colors and beads, and I make a lot of these earrings. Again, the bead hanging down from the base is from the same artist as the flower on the necklace.