More Projects (Motifs 23-26!)

Well, once again you have Grace to thank for reminding me to update my blog.

Sigh. Sorry!

If I actually posted every time I thought about it, there would be multiple posts a day. I am just not good with time management, I guess...or maybe I just put more time into tatting (and working, and cooking, and...) and less into blogging?

Anyway, thanks for the prompt, Grace, and here is my update! :)

There have been some continuing trends in the past few weeks, and some wide divergences:

For example, in the quest to make an actually wear-able sized baby bootie (and no, in case any of you are wondering, I'm not trying to drop subtle hints, I am not expecting! but I do have an awfully cute niece who is still very small). I used Cathy Bryant's book "Tatting" to make this:

Motif 23

This is still quite small, but larger than the first option.

So, I kept looking via Google images and found a (Lenore English?) pattern on somebody's Pintrest (which I am now feeling guilty about, thanks to Jane's exceptionally accurate post today...thanks for continuing your crusade Jane, you are so right! If anyone recognizes the pattern as Lenore's (or anybody else's for that matter) and knows how to contact the author I'd be happy to send remuneration if they didn't make the pattern generally available...it doesn't look like it's been copied from a book, but it could be, I suppose...)

Motif 24

Again, I'm not a mother and I don't spend a lot of time around small children (I teach middle school and my nieces and nephews are all on another continent), but I think these are a slightly better size for baby feet?

For comparison (remember the one on the top right is about the length of a Clover shuttle):

Eh.

I've kind of met my tolerance for pink and baby stuff I'll never actually use...let's move on to something usable and blue! :)

Motif 25!!!! Peacock from "Animal Bookmarks: A Tatted Zoo"

Aren't these two cute?! Normally I do not like to make multiples of things, but this was a challenging pattern and I was trying to do a good job, so one is the "practice" and one is the "perfect."

Oh wait, hahaha. :)

Also, I need to point out:

It's not even June yet, and I made it to 25 Motifs!!

This is unprecedented. And a bit amazing. :) I'm so proud :)

Finally, I decided to branch out a bit and dip into the Beanile pool. Nina Libin has so many great things out there in tat-land, and was nice enough to send me a list of Russian tatting terms when I reached out to her shortly after moving to Russia and acquiring a bunch of Russian tatting books, so I thought the least I could do was try out her signature technique:

Motif 26: Beaded Necklace by Nina Libin, pattern found on the Online Tatting Class website

 I'm not sure if this makes any difference in the end, I realized about halfway through that I was using the Needle Tatting pattern to make this necklace, rather than the Shuttle Tatting pattern. After comparing and contrasting, the big difference is the use of one needle vs. two shuttles. I think I'll work this pattern again with 2 shuttles and see what difference (if any) there is...

Because, why not?!

So, there you go Grace, another post done. Thanks again... :)

I will try to be better about posting pictures soon(er) after I finish something, but no promises... I'm off on a 6-week circumnavigation of the world next week (Vlad-Iowa, Iowa-London, London-Vlad) so I will be quite busy, but how is that anything new?! :)

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! :)

Opinions, please!

I posted this in the Tatting group on Facebook, but I'd be interested to know your viewpoints as well...

I'd love an opinion from you fine tatting people...

I'm finishing my latest full-sized version of the Spiderweb doily from "The Tatter's Treasure Chest" and trying to decide whether to add beads or not...

To jog your memory, here is the first full-sized version that I made late last year:

 And what the ends look like without beads:

Here is the mini-version I made, to which I added beads:

I like the beads, but I don't have beads in the center. Would it look weird to have beads on the outside but not in the inside, especially because the beads are so far away from the center?

So what do you think, to bead or not to bead, that is the question... 

Thank you for your thoughts!

Something :) (Motif 14)

First of all, just in case there is someone out there that reads my blog but for some reason hasn't discovered Fox's amazing Tat-ology (or hasn't seen the news) her blog has moved to a new domain:

http://www.tat-ology.blogspot.ca 

(and fyi, when I went to add it to my blogroll I had to change the .ca to .com--not sure if that is a weird I-live-in-Russia thing or a weird blogger thing, but anyway, if the .ca doesn't work for you, try .com instead.)

Well, thanks for bearing with grumpy Kristen last week...most people find spring to be a happy time, I think I actually get "S.A.D." when the snow melts, not when it falls!

Anyway, I put on my big girl panties, a smile on my face, and got to work...

And made this horrible monstrosity:

With apologies to Lyn Morton, whose Trefoil pattern I totally butchered when I ran out of thread and didn't want to tat with size 3 anymore! :) This does not count as a motif, it is just too horrible,

Oops. :) It's currently lying on the floor upstairs and every time I see it I start to giggle, and my husband keeps looking at me like I'm crazy...tatting humor, he doesn't understand. :)

 I had better luck with Jon Yusoff's fabulous and fun "Quantiesque" snowflake:

Motif 14! Thanks again for the great pattern, Jon!

The (tatting-related) hard-to-please husband (he just doesn't get tatting) really liked this pattern, so it's a double-win for me...properly finished and husband approved, who could ask for anything more?

Both the mignonette and Spring doilies are waiting patiently to be picked up again...I'd go get them now, but I have a snuggly puppy on my lap and I don't want to bother him by moving... so I'll just blog troll for a while instead. :)

Thanks for sticking with me, more soon (I hope!) :)

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

I Won! I Can't Believe I Won! :)

Amazing.

I won OneMadTatter's 200 Facebook Likes Giveaway this weekend!!

Crazy! (Of course, I was one of just four entrants, so...)

I often enter these online giveaways, but I never win...except I did win this time!!

Fiona had a fun twist to enter her giveaway...instead of just a general comment, she wanted something specific; a favorite antique pattern AND a favorite pattern from the etsy store of lacemakermom.

For my answer, I picked the pattern for The Big Blue and White Doily I made last year as my favorite antique pattern, and the Tatted Accent Doily from lacemakermom.

And, thanks to the random number generator, I won a copy of the Tatted Accent Doily! :) Hooray!

So, I know what I'm doing this weekend! :-D

Thanks, Fiona and Lori B. at Lacemakermom! I really, really appreciate it! :)

A "Ring" Around a Bead and Motifs 12 and 13...

 Well, I figured it out...kind of:

This is irrefutable proof that I was able to put a "ring" around a bead, something that had not made sense to me before viewing Marilee Rockley's excellent tutorial over this past weekend (and thanks to Jane's TIAS I already understood the concept of an SCMR, or this would have been MUCH harder!).

Now if I could just figure out how to do two in a row without leaving a bunch of space (gaposis, I hear it's called) in between, that would be great...I found another tutorial from Sharren that addresses that issue, so hopefully I can get it all figured out sooner rather than later...

Meanwhile, I decided to use yesterday afternoon as a "shuttle cleaning" day and made two small motifs:

Motif 12: Antique Pattern "Plain Square Medallion" from Tatting by Adeline Cordet -- Book 5

Motif 13: A shuttle-sized version of "Bookmark" adapted by Kendra Goodnow (I would have made it longer, but this was all the thread I had left on my shuttle!)

 I now have six (6!!) empty shuttles! Amazing. I haven't had that much free real estate for quite some time...I guess I'd better get back to work filling them again! :)

I'll leave you with a look at last night's beautiful sunset from our new view of the bridge.

"Mastering" Split Chains and Single Shuttle Split Rings (SSSRs) and Motif #11!

Well, happy April :)

It's been a crazy last couple of weeks...since the last time I blogged:
-Chris got back from his training trip to the USA
-We moved (just within Vlad, not to a new country or anything)
-My sinuses exploded (or at least it felt like it for a couple days! Yikes!)

So you will forgive me for not having posted anything (or having had time to tat all that much) for the past few weeks. (Please.)

Progress on Reneluk's Spring Doily has been (temporarily) set aside in favor of learning and practicing new techniques as suggested by Ladytats and Grace Tyler (thank you!) and demonstrated by Linda Davies on her Toptattyhead YouTube page (thank you!).

After I posted this picture:

in my last blog post (it's the first few rounds of Karey Solomon's Plain and Fancy) Grace correctly pointed out that I had a lot of hanging threads and very diplomatically suggested that I could save myself a lot of bother, hassle and brain cells if I would learn how to do a split chain. Ladytats next gave an exceptionally good description of how to do said chain, and then Grace provided me with the knowledge of how to find Linda's YouTube video about split chains and SSSRs.

Oh Internet tatting people, how I love you and your helpful, giving ways!

So, thanks to this amazing combined effort, I give you my first split chain:

Followed shortly thereafter by my first ever Single Shuttle Split Ring:

The Hallelujah Chorus (as sung by the Simpson College Chorus in a 2011 flash mob at the Jordan Creek Towncenter) was loudly playing in the background when this was achieved, I assure you. :)

Hooray!

I was going to blog about this the very next day, but then we moved, a multi-day affair from which we are still recovering...

But Pip likes his backyard

And my comfy tatting chair has finally made it to the (4th floor!! of the) townhouse, so we're back in tatting business.

We moved a week ago Wednesday and Thursday, spent Friday, Saturday and Sunday at work and unpacking, and then on Monday my head exploded and I spent the rest of the week recovering from the worst sinus headache EVER. Yikes.

Anyway, with brain and nasal function fully restored I decided to finish up Plain and Fancy (with split chains abounding):

Can you spot the split chains??

 Here's a hint:

Motif 11!

Whoohoo!!! :)

Split chains, check. Single shuttle split rings, check.

Next up is tatting around a bead. Oh, and that spring doily. :)