Fair Feedback

I always love getting feedback on things I tat. Good or bad, it doesn't matter--it's just nice to know what people think...

Overall I agreed with pretty much everything the judge said about my tatting, which is always nice. :)

Yep, that corner definitely puckered.

What is particularly funny about this is that at the other fair the judge's comment was that I'd attached it too tightly to make it easy to remove for washing :)

My Best of Show entry!

Not sure what they mean by finer thread since it was made with size 20?

I really did work hard to make that fringe even! :)

Every year I get a comment about needing to pull out the picots. I probably need to learn that lesson.

Overall, happy happy :)

State Fair Time -- Purple Might Be My New Favorite Color!

OK, so please forgive me for what may seem like bragging, but I'm just so pleased!

It's Fair time again and this year I finally achieved a long-held goal: BEST OF SHOW for tatting at the Iowa State Fair!! :)

The basic pattern is made in size 40 Lizbeth, and came from a pattern in "Workbasket" magazine. I added the flowers at the ends and middle of the necklace, and used the basic pattern to create the earrings and bracelet. The flower is actually a snowflake pattern from an Italian Christmas book, "Natale con il Chiacchierino Ad Ago" by Alicja Kwartnik.

This was my only blue ribbon this year, but I also received a 2nd place (red) on my bookmark,

my set of three Christmas Tree ornaments (far left)

and the small Rose and Thistle doily (far right)

I also got third place (white ribbon) for my stupid and frustrating handkerchief edging (I am SO excited to see the written feedback on that!) and fourth (pink) on that white collar.

All-in-all, happiness abounds. :)

Small Somethings and the Iowa State Fair

Oh, hello:

After the "Ferns" I decided to slow down a bit and give my brain a rest. I kind of putzed around with a couple of patterns that didn't amount to anything, then remembered I needed to make a couple small gifts:

Today was my boss' last day at work, and she is quite a reader, so I decided to make her the small flag above (the larger one below was one of the first things I shuttle tatted when I taught myself last summer--it's fun to see how far I've come in a year!) The large one was done in Perle 8, the small in size 30 Cebelia and the pattern is from "Tatted Bookmarks". 

I also made this little motif, which is the first two rounds of a doily with the word Summer in the title from the booklet Doily Delights. I made it for the nice lady who picked my tatting up from the Southern Iowa Fair when my mom wasn't able to. 

Speaking of fairs, I am very pleased with how I did at the Iowa State Fair this year, and I hope you won't think I'm bragging if I share...

I entered seven things and got 3 blues (First Place)

1 red (Second Place)

 

Two whites (3rd Place)

And 1 pink (4th Place)

This was the first year that I have entered all categories and the first year I have gotten a ribbon for everything I entered! And, I was only one of two tatters who got blue ribbons--the woman who won Best of Show won four of the categories and I won three...so as Chris says, I was the first loser at the. Fair this year! :)

Anyway, thanks for your patience with all that...I love entering in the Fairs, the ribbons are just icing on the cake. :)

The Traveling Tatter is at Rest (for now)

And, breathe.

After circumnavigating the world in 46 days (and making many side trips during stopovers in both the US and UK) I am back in Vlad and ready to be still, for a little while at least. :)

You can, of course, read about the travel part on the travel blog (www.teguciwhat.com), but here is the tatting part:

When you last heard from me, I was tatting on the train somewhere between London and Edinburgh.

That was, of course, not the first tatting I did while on vacation (see here, here and here)

Here is the finished pillowcase with the Annie Orr edging:

I entered this pillowcase in our local fair and got a blue ribbon, so I am happy with that...we'll see how the State Fair goes next month!

 Also for the fair, my mom and I mounted the sunburst doily on a piece of white foam board, with a note explaining that it was mounted for display purposes only...

Another blue ribbon...actually I ended up with 6 blues at the fair, so that is exciting. :)

 Last summer I taught my sister-in-law how to tat, and when I visited her and my brother in TN this summer I whipped out this little motif to remind her how easy tatting is!

Speaking of showing people how to tat, while I was working on the edging my two-year-old niece climbed into my lap and asked me what I was doing, then sat there and watched me work for quite a while...I promised I'd teach her when she gets just a little older, but she has such fine motor skills already that I think she will be able to pick it up very soon!

So, then I took off to the UK and tatting on trains. Besides the Arches doily I didn't really complete a whole lot besides this funny little flower:

 It actually started out as a small Annie Orr motif that cupped after the first two rounds and became this flower after I apparently skipped a whole bunch of rings in the final round. Whoops!

I made this doily-turned-flower for a nice Chinese lady we met on the train back from Edinburgh. She was visiting her son on her first trip out of China, and within 30 seconds of our sitting across the table form them on the train had already moved her baggage to make room for ours, and within 15 minutes of pulling out of the station was sharing her blueberries and raspberries with us, as well as some snacks she had brought from China. (Also, she had never had raspberries before...can you imagine that?!)

She showed interest in tatting when I started working on the Arches doily, so of course I made her something...it ended up 3d instead of flat, but she still really seemed to like it:

 The day after we arrived back in London we were back on the train again, this time for Stratford-Upon-Avon to see the birthplace of the Bard (kind of) and to meet Jane Eborall (the real reason).

Awesome! Jane gave us tea in her garden, an excellent and historical walking tour of the city, directed us to a great place to eat lunch (and two wonderful ice cream places--yes Jane, I did have ice cream at both places, so good!) and she showed me how to do a couple of tatting things I have been wondering about for a long time...it was great!!

Thanks again, Jane! We really enjoyed ourselves! :)

Prolific...Beads, Bells, Booties...and a doily, too! (Motifs 15-22)

So, in case you were wondering (and thanks to all of you who weighed in) I decided to go with the beads on the Sunburst/Spiderweb doily:

Motif 15

 I'm quite pleased with it! For those who are interested, it's size 80 DMC thread and measures 13" in diameter.

We are enjoying the second of three long weekends in May, and last weekend's was 4 full days, so I did A LOT of tatting. It was awesome!!

First of all, I FINALLY got to tat the Tatted Accent Doily I won in  OneMadTatter's 200 Facebook Likes Giveaway a few weeks ago!

Motif 16: Pattern from the etsy store of lacemakermom, tatted in size 30 Cebélia thread.

 I'm pretty proud of this doily, mostly because I finally figured out how to tat over the starting threads (instead of having to hid them when you're done)!

After finishing those doilies I thought it would be fun to try something a little different... 3D bells!

Here is the first one I made, but I honestly can't remember where I found the pattern...it's in one of my many tatting books, I'll find it eventually I'm sure! :)

Motif 17: This one ended up a little smaller than I thought it would

 Here is the second, from the Annie's Attic book Heirloom Treasures in Tatting. I'm not

Motif 18: This one is a little taller than I think it should be--it doesn't flare out as much as I think a bell should.

Pip think it looks more like a hat than a bell.

I was on a bell-making kick, I guess, because I kept going and made this one, my favorite of the three, Reneluk's Bell.

Motif 19

 Again, I need to remind you that I've had two long weekends in a row, this is the only reason I've been so prolific...

Yesterday, day 1 of our most recent three-day weekend, I decided to tat his little gem:

 It's a vintage pattern by C.B. Platt, which you can find by clicking here.

Motif 20

 Now, I'm no expert, not being a mother or anything, but this doesn't seem like it would fit any but the very smallest of preemies...

 I used the softest thread I have to make this, Perle size 8...the instructions said to use size 20, and Perle 8 tats slightly larger than size 20, but still...crazy-small.

 Finally, in preparation for the upcoming State Fair, I thought I would take a stab at an edging. The regs say that a doily edging has to be at least 2" wide, but patterns for that wide of edgings are remarkably hard to find! These two are Mary Konior patterns, tatted in Perle 8, and only the one of the left comes anywhere close to 2"...if I wanted to make it with my normal size 40 or 80, I'd barely make it over an inch.

Motifs 21 and 22!

Any suggestions for a wider pattern (or two patterns that can be easily converged into 2"?)

Whew. Finally, something to show you. :)

...I really need to do a better job of spreading these posts out! :)

Aaaaaand, I'm back! [+ Motif #24!!]

Well hello there. Greetings from sunny Vladivostok...August went pretty quickly, didn't it? :)

It's funny how I never seem to have time to blog when I'm home on vacation...

I really was busy. If you want to read the details you can pop over to the other blog and read about it...or you can skip all that stuff and just read about the tatting parts here. :)

So, when last you heard from me I was sitting in the Incheon Airport outside of Seoul, South Korea, on my way back to Iowa. I decided to pass the 5+ hour layover practicing my shuttle tatting skills, and managed to make a couple small circle-y motifs practicing rings, chains and joins.

I need to pause and say that I was really excited to be tatting in Seoul because I had a whole bunch of goodies from that awesome Fox that had arrived the day before I left and were PERFECT for traveling with tatting:

Thank you thank you thank you thank you THANK YOU FOX!! :)

Beings that I had a 5+ hour layover I was, naturally, one of the first to arrive at the departure gate, but after a few hours some fellow travelers started filling in the seats around me. Most of the seats were taken about an hour before departure when I realized that someone was approaching me. It was a small Korean woman, looking interested in what I was doing.

She came over and started making inquiring sounds...I say sounds because, of course, she was speaking Korean, and I didn't understand a word she was saying! I knew what she was asking, though, because she was pointing at the tatting. So, I pulled out my handy on-phone translator and showed her the word for tatting in Korean (태팅) and then showed her some of the hand movements.

She wrote it down and then pulled out a camera, miming that she wanted to take a picture of me in action...which was fine with me. She watched me for a little longer, then thanked me and went back to sit down. But every time I looked up she was watching...so I hope she went home, did some research, and is now a tatter! :)

But that is not my only tatting story of the trip...no indeed. When I got on the plane I looked across the aisle and saw a woman hand-hemming some white cloths that looked a lot like they might be handkerchiefs. So, being the friendly (nosy) Midwesterner that I am, I asked her if she was making handkerchiefs. The answer was no (they were linen cloths for her Altar Guild).

I explained that I'd asked because I wondered if they had been handkerchiefs if she was going to attach any lace to them, and she said that she did know how to tat...which was a great conversation starter for a tatting-based discussion that lasted for a good part of the following 13.5 hour flight! Good times! :) Amazing to find a fellow tatter across the aisle of a plane! :)

Anyway, I made it home needles and shuttles in tow, and having had time to make motif #24, Jon's Two By Two Bookmark:

 Actually, I made this a bit differently than the pattern called for, mostly because I stink at pre-reading and following directions...the pattern calls to use two shuttles for the inner rings, but I didn't read that part and just did lots of reverse working and came up with pretty much the same thing. I re-did the inner part later with two shuttles and really didn't see much of a difference...

 After three flights totaling over 17 hours in the air I made it back to the good old USA just in time for the Iowa State Fair...and this year I made it early enough to be able to attend the Fabrics and Threads preview the night before the fair opens. There is no real benefit to attending this event except to see how you did 12 or so hours earlier than anyone else...so my mom and I went to check out how it all came down... (spoiler: I won my first Iowa State Fair blue ribbon!!!!) :)

Tatted Bookmark: First place!!!! :)

Home Accessory over 12": Second Place!

Tatted Trim: Third Place! (Finally! A picture of the pillowcase trim!)

Needle Tatting: Fourth Place!

Tatted Accessory: Fourth Place!

 I also had two entries that didn't have a ribbon:

 Needless to say, I was pretty thrilled!!

 But the next day when I took my brother and sister-in-law up (the Fabrics and Threads are located on the second floor of the Varied Industries) to see my ribbons, there was something new to see:

Surprise! Tatted Jewelry: Second Place!

Even more random, the next time I want up to show my dad the ribbons, I noticed this sign:

 I won the Sweepstakes, too!

(Winning the sweepstakes basically means I won the most of all the people who entered tatting at the Fair!) So I got another surprise ribbon, this one big and maroon:

 What fun!! :)

A good year for ribbons! :)

 One of the things I really like about how the judging is done at the Iowa State Fair is that they seem to award strictly on merit--by which I mean that if they look at your work and think it's the best example in the class, but isn't blue ribbon worthy, they won't give you a blue, they will give you a red, even if it means that nobody gets a blue in that class.

Actually that happened to me a lot this year, if you look at the competition results...for example, if you look at my big doily, I earned the 2nd place red ribbon, but no blue was awarded in that category. It was the same with the tatted jewelry category, I earned 2nd place but no blue ribbon was given. In the tatted trim category a blue was given, but no red, and my pillowcase earned third (white). In the tatted accessory category there were only first and second awarded, and I got fourth place...

Which is all fine, I don't want to get a ribbon I don't earn, but it does make me wonder what I can do to improve enough to be good enough to get the "better" ribbon...and after discussions with some of the F&T leadership, I think I know...it pains me to say this, but...I think it's the needle tatting. I was mentioning to someone that all my tatting was needle tatting, and that I didn't think anyone could tell the difference. Her comment was, "Well, the judge can." (Are you smiling, Jane?)

SO. I'm going to keep working on that shuttle tatting thing and we'll see how next years' Fair goes. :)

Another thing I like about the Iowa State Fair judging (I think I may have mentioned this before, as well) is that they make comments on each piece, both positive and things to work on for next time. I really love getting that feedback, since nobody but me in my immediate world knows anything about tatting...

Also, I was surprised and amused to find this note stapled to the back of one of my Southern Iowa Fair entry tags when I got home...

Go figure, it was attached to the bookmark that ended up getting a blue ribbon! :) But really, what a great way to promote Fair participation! :)

Incidentally, after seeing all my entries and requesting and receiving a duplicate of the blue-ribbon bookmark, my newest sister-in-law Katie was interested enough in tatting that she agreed to a tatting lesson...and after trying both the needle and shuttle really picked up well on the shuttle tatting! We practiced all through the Cowgirl Queen contest and while resting by the camper, and I sent her home with a couple shuttles and links to some of my favorite blogs and tutorials for practice. It was really fun to share tatting with her, and I hope she is able to keep it up now that she is back home in Tennessee. It will be awesome to have someone to "chat tatting" with around home. :)

 I also got in a little bit of sewing practice on one of the last days of the Fair when my mom and took a needlework class (similar to the shuttle tatting class I took last year) where we learned to make a "Pillowcase in a Flash." Oh how I wish I'd taken this class before I made that pillowcase for the tatted trim! It would have been so much less frustrating! :)

My beautiful and awesome mommy making her "Pillowcase in a Flash"!

Finally, I will leave you with a picture of the mobile, finished and floating in the air:

 It turned out to be its last float, because shortly afterwards I dismantled the thing. I liked it, and it balanced well, but it would have been WAY too much trouble to bring back to Russia in good condition! It remains to be seen if it will be re-created now that all the pieces are here... :)