A New Family Member

My husband was the first to see two little kittens in the front yard next door.  It turns out there were three all together - two gray ones and a black one.   Mom is a beautiful long-haired gray cat, but is a stray, very anti-social, and teaching the kitties to be the same.  She moved two of the kittens after we saw them, but after a night of pitiful meowing off and on, I finally went out and rescued the little black one who was very cold and hungry after a long night alone.  I'm not sure whether mom planned to come back for him, but I couldn't wait any longer to find out.  Here he is:

Oh yeah, he's a cutie.  He was very scared at first, hissing and meowing, but once he got some food in his tummy and a warm place to sleep and found out just how good petting can be, he is now purring and loving all the attention, playing like crazy and getting into everything.

My husband, who said I was only allowed to have two cats (we already have two we rescued from a shelter), seems to have gone all soft and mushy with this little guy and has said nothing about taking him to the shelter - he seems to be willing to take kitty in.

We are thinking of naming him Troy, after the Pittsburgh Steeler's safety, Troy Polamalu, who also has lovely long black hair. :-)  My family are pretty big Steelers fans and we think he looks like a Troy.  He certainly flies around jumping and getting into everything like Polamalu does.

Look What I Found

I had my first accounting exam this past Sunday - I got 100% on it! Yay! It helps to have worked in the industry for the past few years, but I did also study like crazy. I was so nervous as it was the first exam I had taken in about 20 years.

That isn't the most exciting part of the story, though.  After my exam I took a little trip over to JoAnn Fabrics in search of cabone rings.  Although I did find some of those, the real find was stitch markers (for knitting)  which come in even smaller sizes and are much thinner!  See the picture below - the top two ring sets are what I'm talking about, and the bottom rings are regular cabone rings (click on the picture to get a real close up view of the sizes).

OK, I know they are weird colors, but I'm hoping the tatting will cover that up.  I mean, in my taupe and brown pieces the rings are white, but the ring is well hidden by the thread so you don't notice the color difference. I haven't had a chance to try any of them yet, but will try to post some pics once I get to it.

New Pattern Available

Thanks everyone for the information about where to get cabone rings (see my last post and comments). It is so wonderful to have a community of tatters who jump in with help and advice. I will be near a JoAnn Fabrics this weekend and will check there to see what I can find. Also, have you seen Dawn Marie's tatting around a metal heart (click here!)...cool, huh? I know I've seen other shapes like that in some of my jewelry supply catalogs - squares, circles, ovals - I just have to find them again. Of course, I have lots of craft wire and could probably make my own if I was so inclined. Maybe I'll try that to start.

For those of you interested, I have a new pattern available on etsy - Tatted Heart Earrings. That makes four patterns I've managed to write down and make into .pdf files. If anyone is really interested in any of them (Cross, Hip to Be Square Earrings, Long Elegant Earrings, Heart Earrings) but don't want to become a member of etsy in order to purchase, shoot me an e-mail and we can work out something through PayPal or snail mail.


I want to add them to the ArtFire site as well, but haven't managed to get around to that yet. I still have other patterns I want to do as well. Someday!

A Book Review and Something New!

I've been wanting to try tatting with cabone rings for a while now. So when Jon Yusoff's book, "Tatting With Rings" came out last month, well, I just had to have it (click here to get yourself a copy!)! Fortunately it came just as I was leaving for a show, so I packed it up, hoping to have some time to play in the hotel room at night.

At the show it rained all day Saturday, so I had a lot more time that I thought I would (customers were scarce, as only ducks belong out in that kind of weather). I was SO glad I had Jon's book with me, I'll tell you. Here's what I did:

Jon explains everything very well and has wonderful diagrams so I caught on to the technique pretty quickly, and found it to be quite enjoyable. I love the little flower in the center of the ring, and the instructions were very clear and easy to follow for this technique as well.

For my second piece I did not add beads, but I did also tat a chain for a complete necklace:

I plan on doing some earrings next and maybe doing a little designing myself. I need to find a supplier for the rings (Jon did include some with the book, but not nearly enough for all the fun I plan on having with them), and I'd like to see if I can find some smaller ones too.

A hearty "thank you" to Jon for this lovely book!

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!