Dragon done

Flying Minor Norwegian Dragon © Anne Bruvold

Lizbeth Twirlz Winter Ice #403 size 20

I finally finished the dragon, but not using SSSRs.  Jeff Hamilton left a comment about using regular Split Rings to make it instead of SSSRs, which I've also used when making one of these dragons, and I decided it was a great idea for this one, too!  A tail made with SSSRs can be manipulated a bit more than one with regular SRs but it still comes out looking right.

And it was so much less frustrating!  It came out right the first time.

Now I need to figure out what to do with it, as in what background? what frame? And should I add flames? The picture shows it in an 8x10 inch frame with a glimmery black background, which may or may not be used.  The dragon shows up really well but, no matter the background color, I think it needs a little bit of something with it.

"Nothing is a waste of time if you use the experience wisely."

Auguste Rodin

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A Sorry Tail

I haven't been tatting much this week, instead doing a lot on our house project. This has de-railed me a bit from my tatting to-do list but I did finally decide to start one of AnneB's dragons for my son-in-law.  A dark blue had been suggested but I thought a dragon would look good in one of the Lizbeth Twirlz threads, so I ordered the Winter Ice #403.

As I don't do Single Shuttle Split Rings (SSSR) very often I re-watched AnneB's YouTube video to refresh my memory, using a shuttle filled with a random thread.  It came back pretty quickly, so on to the dragon!

Four starts later (it might have been five) I have some semblance a decent tail.  I think it must be the way the thread is colored that it makes it hard to work with doing SSSRs.  

  

 I'm not exactly pleased with this tail but I might - might- use it.  Or I might start over - again.

When pulling out my copy of the dragon pattern I found the pattern for Ringtrim, which AnneB says is for practicing SSSRs for the larger dragon, so I made one.  I certainly could use the practice!

Ringtrim came out well, with very little problems.  Before starting I was thinking to make him a zipper pull for my purse then forgot to add the lobster claw hook, so I just made an extra ring for it.

You can see that Ringtrim is on the lobster claw, which is on another hook, which is on a ring, which is on the zipper. I've lost several zipper pulls (not tatted) and have just left the hooks and rings there.  Attaching Ringtrim like this leaves plenty of hook to grab and pull without actually pulling on him.  I'm hoping he'll stay awhile this way.

Ringtrim turned out okay, now I'm ready to get back to the larger dragon.  The fifth (or is it sixth?) time could be the charm.

"It's never okay to give up on yourself.

Fall seven times, stand up eight.

Failure isn't falling down, 

it's refusing to get back up.  The reason why

people give up so fast is because

they tend to look at how far they still

have to go, instead of how far they 

have gotten.

If plan A didn't work,

the alphabet has 25 more letters,

stay cool."

idlehearts.com

Bad Boyes

By now most of you have probably heard about the "bad Boye" shuttles. Marilee Rockley and Lace-lovin' Librarian Diane have both mentioned them, and I'm sure I've read about them in a few other places as well.   I ordered some from Overstock.com some time back at a bag of 50 shuttles for something like $16.  When you think of how much you pay for a pack of one or two this price seems too good to be true.  I figured that they would be seconds (not in perfect condition) but thought for that price I wouldn't need a whole lot of the them to be usable to be worth the cost.  I'd go through them to see what could be fixed, maybe bling a few of them, and have them ready to hand out to potential students. For that price they sounded like a good deal.

Almost all of the shuttles looked like they haven't been 'finished': the sides aren't sanded down, lots of rough places here and there.  That is easily taken care of with a little fine grit sand paper.  Besides that the most notable problem are the tips are crooked to each other, but usually close enough together to keep thread from unwinding when dropped to untwist thread.  The picture below doesn't show well some of these faults.  The one on the left actually has a finger print in the plastic. I think I can get this out with sand paper and elbow grease.

The red shuttle is one I've had for years, a Boye showing it was made in Chicago; the other is one of the bad Boyes.  They are similar in shape though the tip on the new one looks like it hasn't been finished nicely (all of them in the bag have tips like this). They also feel different when holding them; they don't have as much "heft" as the old ones, feeling lighter and, well, cheaper. 

I have sanded and decorated a few of these shuttles .  Once the rough edges are sanded off they work okay, and once they've been blinged they don't look too bad, either.  The top two have material on them, the other four have paper and all work pretty well.

Now I had a different technique I wanted to try.

First I removed the tips and sanded down all the edges as well as removing all the writing on them. Next I put a coat of black spray paint on to cover the two shuttles inside and out, then painted them with metallic paint, one gold and one silver.  While they were still wet I wiped some of the metallic paint off to give them an antiqued look - I hoped.  They looked pretty cool.  Then I sprayed them with an acrylic sealer - and the paint crackled.  They actually look pretty good.  The crackling isn't bad to feel, just giving the shuttles a bit of grip. No flakes or anything like that.

 

The problem with these two shuttles are the tips.  I like having a point on shuttles, usually using Clover shuttles, but not the big, wide tips these Boyes have.  For my next experiment I decided to sand down the point to be more inline with what I like to work with as well as the edges and words again.   This time I used Rub N' Buff in Spanish Copper.

I love the look of this!  It definitely has to have a sealer coat on it or the thread gets dirty and the finish will come off.  But it looks and feels good!  

Reformed bad Boyes.  They look, and work, much better now.

There are a few other colors I plan on trying and possibly another technique or two.   Why not?  I have a whole bag of shuttles to play with.  Maybe I can reform a few more 'bad' Boyes.

"Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgement."

Will Rogers

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Workbasket Cross Bookmark

While doing some cleaning - okay, consolidating things from multiple boxes into one box - I came across this pattern from Workbasket magazine.  Although I have several things I could be working on I decided to make it instead. This is a simple ring and chain pattern using only one shuttle and ball of thread.  As I had Victorian Red on a shuttle already I chose this color. 

The first thing I did was write out the pattern in my shorthand.  I have followed many patterns written in long hand from Workbasket but I much prefer something a little easier to follow.  Writing it out gave me where it started and stitch counts.  The stitch counts of all rings and all but a few chains are the same throughout the pattern which makes it an easy tat, just have to remember to look where the joins are. 

Lizbeth #670 Victorian Red size 20

Tatted Cross Bookmark

From "The Workbasket Magazine", February 1987

The only part of the pattern I don't like is the flower at the top.  I've read the instructions several times and as far as I can tell it doesn't tell you how you are supposed to attach it to the chain so I just did what I thought would work and I'm not happy how it came out.  I am thinking of cutting it off and doing something else on the end instead.  We'll see.

This has not been blocked and it lays a little wonky, but I think putting it in a book for a little while will tame it without doing anything more to it except make sure it is adjusted correctly right before the book closes.

I think if I make this again it will be with a few changes besides the flower.  Making those extra short chains at each corner looks good but it makes a lot of ends to hide!

"Cleaning is just putting stuff in less obvious places"