Some Little Nothings

Sometimes I'm too busy to tat, to blog, or both...recently it's been kind of both, but (besides my birthday cupcake) I have been pegging away at a few projects:

This is an antique motif (Snowflake) from the most recent Handy Hands newsletter, tatted in size 20 and kind of fun to execute:

And here are my attempts to learn interlocking SCMR rings (a BIG thanks to all of you with online tutorials for these techniques!!!! SCMR: Jane E and the Shuttle Brothers; Interlocking Rings: Umi & Tsuru, Muskaan, Kathy and God's Kid) in anticipation of joining the challenge to make Jane McLellan's magnificent "Under an African Sky" doily...

Size 20 (ecru), then size 30 Cebelia

Here is my best so far (for the first time all the rings interlock correctly, but of course I ran out of thread on the VERY LAST RING!!!):

Oh well...more practice :)

I have also been plugging away at a flowery Jan Stawasz pattern, one which made the rounds of Facebook a few months ago (and unfortunately seems to be readily available online in illegal .jpgs...boo to that.) Buy the book, people, it's totally worth it!

I'm actually having a bit of trouble with this pattern--tension trouble. Le sigh. I thought I was past this!

So, what's a girl to do but wet the offending doily down and pin it into submission!?

Bad doily! Stop cupping!!!

So, we'll see...

I did double-check, and I'm pretty sure I executed the pattern correctly, so it's probably more of an "I tat too tightly" issue rather than a pattern problem...??

Two rows to go, and hopefully no more tension troubles. *Hopefully.*

Finally...here's a really cool tatting-esque shirt I saw the other day--I didn't buy it (but I kind of wish I had...it's really cool!) Maybe I can figure out the pattern and make myself something similar instead...maybe!

Eh, we'll see! :)

"Growing Up" in Tatting

One of the things I love about tatting is the progression I see in what I can do, and what I will try to do. It's like growing up, tatting-style. 

It has been just over a year since I started shuttle tatting and I can really see the difference in what I can achieve now--my picots are more uniform, my tension troubles have eased, and I no longer am intimidated by small thread sizes, adding thread to a shuttle that has run "dry", or Jan Stawasz patterns. 

Well, ok, maybe the Stawasz patterns still make my heart go thump, but more in a "Let's do this!" way, rather than a, "Yeah, right" manner. 

Not that his patterns aren't incredibly challenging, because they totally are. And not that I have mastered his technique, because I totally haven't. But, I did successfully complete my first Stawasz pattern and am on my way to my second:

The first Stawasz pattern: Christmas decoration from "Tatting Theory and Patterns". 

A messy work in progress: "Doily" also from "Tatting Theory and Patterns". Four rows to go!

I find his patterns so satisfying to work. They are so...solid, but so delicate at the same time. I have his second book on order and can't wait to add it to my ever-growing collection. 

Oh, and speaking of my ever-growing tatting book collection, I got another book in the mail today that I am pretty psyched about...I have a bunch of Russian tatting books (because, you know, I live in Russia) and someone offered to swap one of my books for a Japanese book:

Hoorah!! A new language to tat in!!!!!!!

This was such a satisfying experience, if anybody out there has tatting books they want to swap, just let me know! :)

In the meantime, I'm goin back to Stawasz-land! :)

Fikkert's Ferns-Updated

If you are part of the Tatting group on Facebook you might have seen that a couple of us are working on (read: struggling with) Ben Fikkert's pattern "Ferns" from his book "A Tatting Adventure". 

"Ferns" is the pattern shown on the front of the book and includes quite a few Josephine chains and is deceptively hard and incredibly inclined to pucker, curl and do everything but lay down and play nice!

Here is the doily 2/3 of the way finished:

And here is where I am now, not much further along (but still quite curly):

I am working on the final round of the doily (eight identical leafy inserts connecting the eight fern fronds) and having a bit of trouble. The other lady who is working this pattern has been having tension troubles  with the Josephine chains in the first stages of the doily (her theory is that is has to do with Mr. Fikkert tatting more loosely than she does). I didn't have that kind of problem in the early rounds, but I am definitely struggling with these final inserts! 

Those "rings" on the lower part of the insert aren't rings, they're part of the chain that is apparently too long for the space it is in. And before you ask, yes, I did actually follow he pattern. I checked. Twice. 

So I'm not sure what's going on here, but I'm going to shorten the chain a bit and see if that fixes the issue...

And hopefully it does because, frankly, I'm ready to move on from the Ferns! :)

UPDATE!

Check out the insert on the far left... Hel-lo success! :)

Nothing

I've never met Grace Tyler in real life, but I'm pretty sure if I ever did, we would be friends.

She has such nice ways of popping in and reminding me that somebody else is out there and interested in what I'm doing...

...or not doing, as the case may be.

My last post was, a couple weeks ago, and yesterday Grace popped by the blog and asked:

Honestly, Grace? Nothing.

Ok, so maybe not nothing, nothing, but compared to the amazing things everybody else is producing these days, it's nothing. (Seriously, if you are not a member of the Tatting group on Facebook, and you want to get a complex about all the amazing tatting going on out there, ask them to join...it's amazing. It's inspiring. And humbling. Mostly humbling.)

Excuses about as to my tatting patheticness...work, volunteer teaching, presentations at a local college, dog, husband, cooking, laundry, yoga (seriously, a major culprit--Ashtanga yoga is awesome, but amazingly physical, and practicing 2-3 times a week leaves me tired and SORE, especially in my shoulders, which just gets worse when I sit and tat for a long time...), even just going to bed is getting in my way. (One cannot sleep and tat at the same time, sadly.)

Mostly I just can't seem to get started...and then when I start, I have issues (like three rings in it's time to go to bed) or just don't like what I'm doing, or what I'm doing doesn't work.

For example:

This is half of a Lyn Morton patten, done in size 3 Lizbeth. I made two trefoils and have no desire to make any more. Size 3 is not for me, that's for sure.

So then last night I started this:

 Someday, if I keep on, this will be the inner motif to Jon Yusoff's 'Quantiesque' Snowflake, a pattern I really like and want to tat...but maybe not in size 10 Lizbeth... (so why the heck did I load the shuttle all the way full of size 10 Lizbeth?!)

I've also started on another of the mignonette doilies that I keep making and giving away because they look so nice but they are are SUCH A PAIN IN THE BUTT to make when your rings won't close properly so you have to pull really hard hoping the thing will budge just a bit and instead the thread breaks...GAH!

 I am, however, quite proud that the first 4 rows were all started and/or completed with split chains and single shuttle split rings, and I defy you to find them...I'm not sure I could even find them. Small victory.

And really, that's it. Pathetic, right?

Oh, and after successfully tatting around one bead, I haven't been able to do it again, and especially not around smaller beads. Bah.

So, grumpy Kristen doesn't have much to show for herself, except for amazing blog followers like Grace who remind me that even though I don't have much to show for myself, I do have people interested in not seeing what I haven't accomplished.

:)

KF

Annoyed. (Though, not about TIAS Days 13 and 14)

Gah.

I am so annoyed.

Why?

This is why:

Yes, that is what it looks like, about a quarter of a ball of size 80 thread...

 I was all ready to start on a new doily. I was really excited, it was going to be a challenge but something I wanted to do. It was going to be pretty.

So I got started...ring 1, fine. 2nd ring (no RW, no chain)...tat tat tat, start to close the ring...SNAP.

This happened FOUR TIMESSSSSSSS!!!!!!

So, I threw the ball, thread snapped rings, shuttle, everything across the room. (Literally--it made me feel much better, although it didn't solve the problem.)

Another ball of "bad" thread.

Based on the helpful comments people left me, I did a little bit of a strength test on a number of balls of size 80 thread I ordered in October... 3 (including two that I got on purpose to make this project I was going to start on) of the 8 that I tested were "bad." I have 8 other balls still in the package that I'm scared to open because they might be "bad" too.

UGH!!!!

In related news, my 10% off coupon came in the mail this week, so I want to order some new thread...thinking I'll be moving to size 40, it seems to break less often... :/

In much happier news, I'm still enjoying Jane's TIAS:

Day 13

Day 14

 I still have no clue--the idea of a sailboat still looks good, but I think Jane still has some tricks up her sleeves.

Finally, I leave you with a picture of something that made me smile a lot this week:

Happy Olympics!

TIAS Day 10 and Some Cute Little Clovers

So.

The thread is working a little better now...I've managed to make 13 "clovers" without breaking the size 80 thread (along with at least three more that didn't want to work out)...

6 more to go!

 I'm still not 100% sure what the heck is going on...I usually don't have such problems closing rings with Lizbeth thread...

 I might have to rethink my plans if these troubles continue once I start building on these clovers...maybe go back to size 40 :)

 Jane also posted Day 10 of her TIAS...

I'm back to the Nativity idea...Mary is on the left, Joseph is on the right...? :)

A Terrible Tatting Day (+ TIAS Day 9)

Oh hello.

To borrow a phrase from a book I never really liked when I was a kid, I'm having a "Terrible, Horrible, No Good Very Bad Tatting Day".

Seriously. Yikes.

I know it's only (way late) January, but seriously, time passes really quickly, we're looking at more travel later this spring (for those who are wondering, my husband is a diplomat with the US State Department, which is why we're in Russia and why we travel so much--you can follow that adventure here), and Fair entry time is just a few months away!

So, I need to get to work on some stuff. I've chosen what I want to be my next victim, loaded my shuttle with some beautiful ercu size 80 Lizbeth thread, and...promptly broke the thread two times in three starer motifs. Tension troubles or...??

 Seriously. Grrr.

Clearly that wasn't working out, so I decided to move on, for the time being. I saw on Facebook that Jane's Day 9 was posted (apparently we're halfway there, fellow TIASers!) so I decided to move back into the realm of size 20 thread.

Two words (well, letters, really). SS. GAH! :)

 Well, despite getting all "switched" around (bwahaha), and having to un-tat half of today's pattern more than once, my finished "motif" matches the diagram on today's pattern, but I'm still not at all sure what the heck this is going to turn out to be!

So. I'm a little done with tatting today, but to steal another phrase from somebody else, "Tomorrow is another day to tat." :)

Stealth Doily and Cluny Leaves

Bwahaha, I'm so sneaky. ;)

Here's my "Stealth Doily"...

Motif 2: Celtic Sugar and Spice Doily

 Look familiar? :)

Of course it does! It's (theoretically) the first thing you see every time you visit my blog...

Except, of course, it's not, because this is the new, shuttle tatted version!

I've actually been working on this for a L-O-N-G time, like, since August or something, but I FINALLY finished it over the weekend. (I kept not taking it with me when I traveled, so then I'd get involved in other projects and not work on this one...)

I call it the stealth doily because I purposely didn't put anything about it on the blog because I wanted to wait and unveil it just as I did above, as a visual comparison of needle and shuttle tatting. It's the same pattern, the same thread, just two different methods of tatting.

Discuss. :)

This doily was, in its own way, almost as much of a pain as the tulips...

Firstly, (well, kind of lastly) I ran out of shuttle thread TWO RINGS before I finished it...ugh!

 

So, I improvised a shuttle with some pre-wrapped travel thread:

And, of course, there were a few tension issues again...especially after completing the maroon split rings:

 and then again with the tan final round. Of course, that was nothing a few pins couldn't fix!

 This is a doily written for a needle tatting book...I wonder if any of the tension troubles were because I was shuttle tatting this pattern, or if I just really need to work on my tension control?

 After finishing the stealth doily I decided to try something new, something I've been wanting to try for a while: Cluny Tatting!

And here are my first attempts:

Motif 3: A Small Motif using Cluny Leaves

Clearly this is a skill I need to work on, but I do think I improved as I went around the circle (my first leaf of the motif was the small one with the long purple tail, and then continued around counter-clockwise to the last one right next to it.)

24 Tulips (so far) and TIAS Day 2

 It never fails...you get a few days off...and then you get sick!

Or, at least, it never fails for me...maybe it's a way of punishing idleness... :)

Anyway, we had a really nice, REALLY lazy 8-day New Year's holiday, and mine actually extended to 10 with two sick days this week (it's just a cold, but a particularly nasty one and not one I decided to share with my colleagues). Between the sniffling and coughing and chain-drinking tea I've managed to get myself pretty far along in "Forty Tulips" (warning...the tulips need some blocking!)

24 and Counting! :)

If you're not sure exactly what I'm talking about, here's a closer view of the tulips...

It's the blue things...ok, I don't know that I see tulips there either, but my husband said he did, so what do I know? :)

 This was the same doily I was having tension troubles with last time I blogged...thankfully a good dunking and some tough love with stretching and pinning made it lay flat as a pancake:

It's amazing how different the colors look when wet!

 I was a little concerned about how enlongated the rings of the variegated trefoils got in the last row above until I took a closer look at the picture of the doily in the book:

Totally elongated...so, nbd

I'm really enjoying this pattern, particularly because I think it is the most challenging pattern I've ever completed...the last row (the tulips) use two shuttles, and you have to constantly switch which shuttle you're using to make it turn out right. It's actually been a good pattern to work on while not feeling well because it hasn't gotten boring or mindless, and takes my mind off not feeling well. :)

I've also continued with Day 2 of Jane's TIAS:

Mine didn't turn right...

 I'm guessing it's the back end of a helicopter...I bet I'm wrong, though! :) I'm very proud, though, I've never joined on the second half of a split ring...but I got it right on the first try! :)

Happy 2014! TIAS Day 1!

Well, here we all are again in 2014. How delightful!

We have been off work since the 1st and don't go back until the 9th (Thank you Russian New Year and Christmas celebrations!) so I've had a lot of time to do, well, not a whole lot, really...I've played a lot on the computer, read a (very) little and tatted almost less...

Before the holidays I bought a copy of Ben Fikkert's "Floriade"and then ordered some thread on black Friday that is...not exactly what I expected it would look like...

Anyway I found a pattern called "Forty Tulips" in "Floriade" and decided it was a perfect use for Confetti and it's accompanying colors...

Of course, I've done a terrible job documenting the progress, but here's where it stands today:

It's almost literally standing...tension troubles, anyone? Yikes! (Too bad Santa didn't bring me an iron.)

I've had a little bit of help with the tulips...Pip has some visitors this week and they have been oh so helpful!

Charlie modeling rounds 1-3

Sanchai overseeing round 6

I've also started Jane Eborall's TIAS (Day 1 was posted today!)

 And Sanchai "helped" again...

 Pip, as you can see, is nowhere to be seen, poor boy. He's been so used to being an only child I think it's weird for him to have siblings...

Lucky for him, Sanchai goes home tomorrow and Charlie early next week, so I'm sure he'll be back to normal in no time. :)

And I can't wait for TIAS Day 2!

Practicing With False Plaits and First Fair Ribbons! :)

 Well hello!

 I finally got back on the tatting train this week, practicing the shuttle motions with false plaits. I'm pretty sure my chaining skills are pretty solid now...so I suppose I need to make a whole bunch of trefoils now to practice my ring skills! :)

 Anyway, here are my false plaits:

 The pattern is 8 ds of one color, rw, 8 ds of the other color, then holding both shuttles 1 ds, rw, 1 ds, then repeat until you have the length you desire. Then start all over and do it all again, until you have two strands of the same length.

Of course, I ended up with some tension troubles and funky twisting going on:

Eh, oh well. :)

 My strands of false plaits ended up really long, almost a yard each:

Next I weaved the strands together by laying one strand on top of the other (opposite colors together)

 and pull the top strand through the bottom strand, over and over and over to make a braided effect...

 Good times!

Of course, the tension troubles made some of the circles want to twist, so at a certain point I let the same side colors twist together, making one side all white and one side all blue:

(split colors on the left, braided on the right)

This seems like such a nice cord, I decided to make something usable; a new lanyard for my ID badge at work, which is why I made the strands so long!

Actually, as I went along I noticed that it kind of reminded me of the friendship bracelets I made when I was a kid--the ones where you make the 4 and slide the knots up...which now that I think about it, making those 4s was like making an un-flipped half of a double stitch...

Whoa. Mind blown! :)

Anyway, that's that. I have a couple of gifts I need to work this week, so hopefully I'll have something more interesting to show you soon!

I also had some good news from Iowa this week...I won some ribbons at the Southern Iowa Fair!

One of the joys of being with the State Department is that, while we live most of the year in other parts of the world, our official residency and address for all the important things (voting, taxes, and Fair entries) remains in Iowa!

So, I still get to enter my tatting in the Fairs! :)

I just have to get creative about how I get the work to the Fair...this year, since I'm still in Russia right now, I mailed it to my awesome mom and she took it to the judges!

Here are my ribbons!

Tatted jewelry: Blue (It's the brown bracelet I designed a few months ago)

 The colored bookmark in the corner is mine as well--and also won blue! (This was my motif #7--the opposite side is the same pattern tatted in cream to make a corner bookmark-the pattern is from Tatting by Cathy Bryant). Actually, I guess this was up for the overall best of show prize, but it didn't win. Eh, you can't win them all! :)

 The pillowcase edging (motif #14) showed up as well, and also won blue! Unfortunately you can't see it very well in the picture, but I will upload another picture of it in a few weeks...

Amazingly the baby bib also won a blue ribbon...I guess they really do judge the tatting and not the applique technique! :) Thanks again for the great TIAS pattern, Jane!

 And, of course, there's The Big Doily. Another blue, and again this year, I need to point out how AWESOME MY MOM IS!!!

 I sent her the doily folded into quarters, but she was told that this Fair prefers doilies to be mounted, so my mom cut out some cardboard and re-blocked the doily for competition...and unfortunately will have to un-do all that work before the next Fair!

She is so great!!! XOXO Mom!

The red ribbon was for the mobile, which was in an "other than mentioned" needlework category and lost to something I can't remember (mom told me) but I'm sure was really great. Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of that right now.

I was also really glad to see that someone else had entered some tatting this year!! The category was new at this fair last year because two years ago I wanted to enter some tatting but there was no tatting category...but then they created the category the following year! Last year I was the only entrant, but you can see that someone else entered in the first fair photo above (on the white plate.)

Yay! Tatting is picking up in Southern Iowa! :)