A Givin' and Gettin' Tatting Tea Tuesday

Today's the day! Are you ready?

And the winner of my anniversary drawing is...

** drum roll**

Kathy Niklewicz!

Congratulations Kathy! Email me at the address in my profile with your address and I'll send you your wonderful prize package!

Thank you to everyone that stopped by and entered the drawing. I have really had fun coming up with what to put in the prize package. The biggest problem - from my end - was when to stop adding stuff! I kept thinking "this would be cool to put in" or "that really fits the theme" and a few hundred other thoughts. I finally had to tell myself "enough already!" LOL! Kathy, I hope you enjoy the package as much as I have enjoyed putting it together and givin' it out!

I've also been enjoying making my next bookmark. Last week I asked for a suggestion of a good one to make. Gina suggested using 'Pumpkins on a Vine' by Heidi Sunday for a fall themed one, and Isdihara gave me the link to the pattern, so I gave it a try.

I think I got a little carried away - it's like "Pumpkins on a Tangled Vine" now. This is definitely a one-of-a-kind bookmark. The outsides are per the pattern except that I added the turns to come back down. Then I had to figure out how to connect the two sides together so I started adding the pumpkins down the middle. That made it look kind of like a pumpkin ladder so I started a little free-form tatting up and down the sides. Then I had to come up with a bottom that didn't look like it had just been whacked off at random. Just look at the pumpkin patch that grew up out of all that! I'm very happy with this. It's a bit three-dimensional because of the way the vines climb around, very textured. I stayed up late finishing this because I just had to see how it was going to end. Thank you, Heidi, for the wonderful pattern, and Gina and Isdihara for the inspiration and help finding the pattern. This was fun!

Oh, it's made with Lizbeth size 20 in 694 (Harvest Orange Med) and 684 (Leaf Green Med). I'm counting this as #13 of my second 25 Motif Challenge. How appropriate for October, hey?

Now on to the gettin'!
About a week ago I was on the Handy Hands website admiring all the books - okay, drooling over some of the books - and I mentioned to my husband that I really would like this book. And he replied "Why don't you get it? Birthday, Christmas - something's coming up pretty soon." So I did.

This is a wonderful book, full of enough pictures of gorgeous shuttles to make any shuttle-tatter drool. Pam has done a lot of work looking into the history of shuttles and shuttle making and put it together for the rest of us. Wow! If you are interested at all in the history of shuttle making, or would like to see a lot of ways people have added "bling" to their shuttles, and you get the chance, check out this book!

But the gettin's not done! I also picked me up a few Clover shuttles - as I was making an order anyway, right? And then of course I had to personalize them a little bit. It seems everyone is dressing up their shuttles right now - and it's such fun! Of course, the new book has a lot of inspiration in it, too!

This blue one was pretty easy - I just added a little fingernail bling*, then sealed it. Makes for a fancy-looking shuttle in a very quick time!

And then I touched up one with material. Cutting out the shape of the shuttle was a little bit of work - my scissors seems to have developed a dull spot, just where I cut the most! But I succeeded! I think it came out very well! These are pictures of both sides of the same shuttle.


Here I thought I wasn't much of an orange fan - but I'll take this shuttle anytime!

Over the next few weeks I suppose I'll be working mostly on snowflakes and other Christmas goodies. Can you believe it's almost November already? And I realize that I'm way behind on all those things I try to do for Christmas gifts. I have quite a list of things I want to do and my time is getting short. So I'll sit here this Tuesday morning, sip a little hot tea (mint!), wind my pretty new shuttles and get started on more of that givin' stuff.

May all of you have a fun and safe Halloween and find a little time for tatting!

*Fingernail bling - those little decals you can get to jazz up your fingernails.*

On Bookmarks and Following Directions

Welcome to fall! Here the leaves are starting to turn though the temperatures haven't gotten all that cold; the nights make you think "fall" without being too cold. Getting into the season I made a bookmark for the Tatting Forums' Bookmark a Month Challenge in Lizbeth Falling Leaves and black in size 20. Now I need to start one for November. What pattern should it be??

Fall is the harbinger of the winter to come, including the Christmas season. It reminds me that I should be getting all those snowflakes done that I usually include in my Christmas cards.

Okay, so only one of these is a snowflake. They are both out of DMC's 'Tatting for Today' copyright 1980. The one on the left is motif #5 and the other is motif #22, and this is the one that is alluded to in the title. This is not what the tree looks like in the book because I just couldn't read the pattern correctly. Fortunately I have enough skill to adapt as I go so I didn't have to scrap it and start over. The rings around the edges are not per the pattern and the 'trunk' is too long, but overall the impression is the same as the pattern in the book.

I bought this book probably about 1990 when I had been tatting close to ten years. There was no Internet in those days to share information on books or other tatters. What patterns I was finding were in Workbasket magazines and how-to booklets, you know the ones - "How to knit, crochet and tat" types, with a few descriptions of how-to for each craft then a couple of patterns of each. I remember being pretty excited when I found 'Tatting for Today'. It had good pictures of each pattern and the written pattern wasn't the long wordy type from Workbasket. Looking at the patterns now I find they have something to be desired as they have all the directions in a paragraph making it hard to follow. I usually re-write them, having one element per line instead of everything in one paragraph. I think that's why I had trouble with the tree motif, I didn't write it out first. Still, it came out acceptable, just not per the pattern : )

This weekend I tried my hand at adding a little something extra to a shuttle - decoupage. I thought the napkin would really look cool on this Susan Bates shuttle, but it didn't come out quite like I had envisioned. It's okay, for a first try I guess. And it still tats okay, which is the important part, right?


I would like to thank everyone that's stopped by to check out out my old-fashioned doily in last week's post. You are all so very kind. A big "Thank-you!" to TattingChic for sharing it on her blog and sending people my way. I get such a kick out of sharing something that I'm so excited about. And tatterjil, I'd share with everyone what I was giving away in the drawing - except I don't know just exactly what's going to be in it. Okay, some of it's planned already, but not everything! It will just have to be a surprise - for everyone. I'm having a lot of fun coming up with what's going to be in it. Come back next week when I announce the winner.

This Tatting Tea Tuesday I slept in and haven't accomplished much since I got up. I had a cup of green tea and thought about tatting. I didn't get any done until I was on the way to work (don't think I tat and drive - I was the passenger!). Just trying to get another snowflake done, as I have a lot of them to do.

Remember to stop back by next week when I announce the winner of my anniversary drawing. Until then take a little time for tea and tatting if you can, and have a great week!

Doily with an Antique Motif

I mentioned last week that I have been working on a doily based on an old pattern. I'm finally done! There was a lot of mind changing and retro tatting due to mistakes as well, but finally, finally it's done! I'm calling this #12 in my 25 Motif Challenge - I did make 13 of the medallions for it!
This doily is 8 x 8 inches (about 20 cm) made with DMC Cebelia size 30 in ecru. The large medallion is a pattern from Priscilla Tatting Book No. 1, copyright 1909. The way patterns were written back then makes it a lot harder for me to decipher than the way many patterns are written today, so at first I just used the picture as a pattern, then I read through the written text. And, yes, this pattern uses two shuttles ("For convenience' sake call one shuttle A and the other B" page 5, Pris. Tatting Book No. 1). I didn't follow it quite like it was written as I climbed out of the center by a picot and went on to the next round without a cut and tie and used size 30 thread instead of the specified size 50. As this medallion has long picots and I was going to be making quite a few of them I made myself a set of picot gauges from a plastic lid, which helped a lot after I got used to using them.

Another way I didn't follow the pattern was not using the size 150 thread to go around each of the medallions. According to the pattern you should make all your medallions and go around each of them with the small thread, not joining them to each other yet. You then place them all on a piece of material in the order you want them, THEN you stitch them together. You also use 'simple rings' (which are the same as the center of the medallions) between the medallions, which you stitch in at this time, too. Okay, I wanted an old fashioned looking doily, but I didn't really want to go to all this trouble. So I did it my way, joining them together as I went, and the simple rings became small medallions made of the center two rounds of the big medallion, just with slightly shorter picots, to fit in the spaces between medallions. The outside rounds of the doily were not part of the 1909 pattern at all, they are something I came up with. Both rounds were started and restarted several times. I'm still not real sure about them, but for the moment I'll leave it like this. The question is, did I succeed in making an old fashioned looking doily?

It's funny, I thought I did a pretty good job of blocking this - twice - but looking at the picture now I see where I didn't do as good a job as I thought. I made this with the Cebelia thread because I have several balls of it as I used to tat with it a lot. After tatting with Lizbeth and Manuela threads this seems to be soft and fuzzy. I know that when I was retro tatting I had more trouble doing it without messing up the thread that I've become used to lately.

I was inspired to make an old fashioned-looking doily by the Ice Palace Bed and Breakfast that we stayed at while in Leadville, Co. According to the owner, the B & B was built using some of the lumber from the original Ice Palace, which was built in Leadville in 1895. The B & B is furnished with a lot of period pieces and I enjoyed the Victorian look of the whole house. On the way home I got to thinking about a doily that would fit into that decor. So when I got home I started looking through my vintage pattern books as well as on-line, including the Knots pattern page, which has a lot of vintage patterns. I chose the one I did for several reasons: 1) I liked the look (obviously) and 2) the picture was good enough that if I couldn't figure out the written text I was pretty sure I could figure it out with just the picture. As I mentioned, I did a little of both. I actually have an idea for another doily using the same medallion. Except that I have a couple of other pieces that I need to do first, I'd already be working on it!

For today's Tatting Tea Tuesday I displayed part of a miniature tea set I had as a little girl on the doily. I think it adds a little bit to the old-fashioned flavor of the doily. The shuttle is a wooden one from The Shuttle Shop my husband bought me. And to really set the mood, I'm enjoying a little mint tea with my tatting today, another old-fashioned flavor.

Thinking on the age of things, I looked back at my old posts and realized that I will have been blogging for two years in a couple of weeks, which got me thinking of having a giveaway. If anyone is interested please leave a comment on this post to be entered in the drawing. I'll announce the winner on October 26th in my Tatting Tea Tuesday post.

Now on to newer things: I did finally get my homework done for the Design-Tat class and I'm working on a bookmark for The Tatting Forums bookmark-a-month challenge. That's coming out a little different than planned (again!) but it has a nice fall look to it. I'm almost done and ran out of thread (!) and now have to add some, but it should be done soon.

I did say I would post the pattern for the previous bookmark/bracelet, so here it is. I've gone through it for errors but a few might still be lurking. (I'm so hoping that when I'm done with the Design-Tat class that I can diagram patterns!)

Vacation Bookmark/Bracelet Sept. 2010
p = picot += join RW = reverse work DNRW = do not reverse work
prev = previous CL = clover leaf
1 Shuttle and ball. If wanting chain color for center
ring of cloverleaf, 2 shuttles.
All picots on clover leaves are for joining only,
make as small as possible.
CL R 6-3-3. R 3+6-3-3-6-3. R 3+3-6. RW
*Ch 9-9. RW
CL R 6+ (to 2nd p of prev R)3-3.R 3+6-3-3-6-3.R 3+3-6. RW*
Repeat between * for desired length, then
Ch 9-12 RW
R 6+(to 2nd p of prev R) 6. R 6-6. RW
Ch 20 join to base of last two rings DNRW
Ch 12-9 RW
R 6+ (to p of prev R)3+(to 4th p of facing R) 3.
+ (to 3rd p of facing R. R 3+(to 2nd p of facing R)3-6.RW
*Ch 9-9. RW
R 6+ (to 2nd p of prev. R) 3+(to 4th p of facing R) 3.
+ (to 3rd p of facing R). R 3+(to 2nd p of facing R)3-6.RW*
Repeat between * for length, then
Ch 9-12 RW
R 6+(to 2nd p of prev R) 6. R 6+ (to 1st p of starting R)6. RW
Ch 20 join to base of prev two rings DNRW
Ch 12-9 Cut and tie, finish off the ends.
For bracelet:
Put the thread through the chain at one end before wrapping
it around your hand for a ring.
*R 15 ++ to toggle clasp 15. Cut and tie, finish off ends.*
Repeat for the other end.

Tatting Tea Tuesday 10/5/10

Today's tea was Rooibos again (I've become quite enamored of this tea!) and my tatting should be my homework for the Design Tat class. It might be yet, but I keep getting distracted by a doily that I'm working on. I had hoped that it would be done in time for today, but mistakes keep happening - and I keep changing my mind. So if it's not making a change it's taking out stitches because I goofed. I think I'm about done, but obviously not in time for today. I did take a 'working' picture I'll let you see.


God's Kid left a comment last week, suggesting my bookmark would make a nice bracelet. I thought it was a great idea! So I made a little change...




















Thank your daughter for me, God's Kid!

For some reason I seem to make a lot of things in Caribbean : -) I've written the pattern down somewhere so I could share it with you, but I seem to have misplaced it. I'll write it out again and see about posting it next week, really!

Until then, I hope you all have a great week, and fit in a little tea and tatting if you can.