2024 - The Year of Winging It, Part I: The Hat

Looking back, my tatting year of 2024 was dominated by 3 large projects, all of which were marked by varying degrees of diverging from the pattern or no pattern at all.

The Online Tatting Class began the year seeking to recreate this hat from the April 1922 issue of Needlecraft magazine.  Vintage patterns are one of my passions, so of course I joined in.  You can find the pattern on their site here (select Tatted Hat Project).  If you are a member of their Facebook group, you can see the progress of assorted members.

I was going merrily along until the instructions called for attaching the 18 pattern repeats of the top of the hat to 8 motifs around the side.  No, no, no!  I must have symmetry! So my hat has 9 motifs around the side, joining to the top very nicely.  (The pattern also called for tying or sewing sections of the hat together, but mine is all tatted together with joins.  I'm stubborn that way.)  To get the top and the sides to fit, I altered that last round of the top, was that Round 13?  A slightly longer chain here, an omitted join there, and its diameter grew wide enough to fit.  The little fill-in motifs became ovals instead of circles to lie flat.  I made a few other changes as I went along.  So a little winging it led me to an improved version still true to the original.

Happy Belated New Year!

 Happy New Year to all my friends.... a week late.

How many times have I resolved each year to post more often on my blog?  Will this be the one?  Is the lateness of this post an indication that it won't?  Time will tell.

I'm moving into a new computer and haven't transferred files over yet, so here's the only crafty photo I have to share right now.  It's a Dorset Button, swirl pattern, worked in the traditional way, with Lizbeth metallic thread.  Instructions from "Dorset Ring Buttons" by Gina Barrett.  More on a nontraditional way to make a button that I thought up later.

Looking Forward to Lodi

I am honored to have been chosen as one of the teachers at this year's Finger Lakes Tatting Conference, to be held in Lodi, NY this April 12-14.  There are social get-togethers on Friday and classes on Saturday and Sunday.  See their website here for complete information:   http://www.fingerlakestatting.com/  Note that the early registration discount is in effect through February 1. 

Here are 3 versions of the Maltese Ring motif I will be teaching.  I'm just now noticing that I never blocked some of these squares. How embarrassing! But if I don't post today, it may be too long before my next chance.
 

Other teachers will be K Boniface, Bonnie Swank, Mary Anna Robinson, Kaye Judt, Sharon Fawns, Shawna Wachs, D'Amone Popp, Ruth Perry, and of course, Karey Solomon.  Doesn't that sound like a great time?

I Should Have Known Better

When choosing the thread/yarn for a project, I will pose the question, who's doing the work - the thread or the pattern?  Or to put it another way, the thread/yarn or the pattern may be busy, but not both.  Look at the socks in my previous post.  That yarn called for a very simple pattern.  I usually reserve variegated threads for edgings or small motifs, or alternate rounds with a solid color in a larger piece.  If there are several rounds of a variegated thread, the colors may pool or draw the eye away from the structure of the pattern.  Some people are better at this than I am and produce beautiful things with variegates.

Last summer, when I wanted to make Dora Young's Square Pinwheel, I had trouble finding a pair of threads I felt like working with.  There was a Lizbeth variegated ball (sorry, can't remember the number) with the colors all about the same strength.  I thought maybe I could pull it off, since Jane had made a very nice version of the same pattern with an ombre thread, but no, I just wasn't happy when it was done.  It's not horrible, but I don't think the pinwheel structure shows up as well as it should.  (The scan actually looks better than in real life.)  I switched to safer solid colors, sigh.

Incidentally, the technique Dora Young used in this pattern also appears in the Bath Tatting Book of 1865.  I've always wondered if she had a copy of that book, or independently recreated the technique.

 

I Gots Socks

Has it ever happened to you that your fallback project, intended for times when you couldn't concentrate enough to work on your important project, became the only thing you felt like doing?  So, while I have numerous works-in-progress and deadlines to meet, I have new socks.

The pattern is really simple, as befits a fallback project: Socks on a Plane by Laura Linneman, available on Ravelry.  Except, I substituted the Fish Lips Kiss Heel, also available on Ravelry, because that's the heel I always do.  The yarn is Patons Kroy Socks, color Sunburst Stripes.  I have no idea if that is still available.  

When I started, I didn't realize how loooong those color repeats would be.  The second skein didn't start in the same place as the first one, but I think I did a good job finding a place to begin the second sock so they more or less match.

They actually fit and look good, so I am happy.  But now I have to go back to all those things I was supposed to be doing, sigh.

State Fair Ribbons

I love going to the NC State Fair.   I saw some clogging, listened to some bluegrass, ate some weird fair food, and got my yearly block of Cheerwine flavored fudge.  

I visited with Anitra at her tatting booth inside the Village of Yesteryear, had nice chats with a weaver and a potter, and saw many beautiful crafts.

The Exhibition Building houses the ribbon competition entries.  We do not have very many tatting categories, but quilting and embroidery are especially plentiful and exquisite.

I won 2 ribbons!  I got the blue ribbon for framed/mounted tatting with this square pinwheel Dora Young pattern.  I won second place in a catch-all "other non-threaded needlework" category with a set of bookmarks, all my own patterns, mostly from Playing with Picots.  Those were my only 2 entries, so I was very pleased they both placed.  Also, I was happy to see friend's names on ribbon winners in some other categories.

Each year as I walk through the fair, I think of all the things I can make and all the categories I can enter the next year.  Will I actually make all those things in time?

 

Palmetto Projects

In an all-time record, I finished my Palmetto Tat-Days projects the evening I arrived home.  And then it is taking weeks and weeks for me to show them to you.

Up top are 2 classes with Karey Solomon.  The 3-D strawberry has an emery filling to help keep needles clean and untarnished, like the strawberry attachment on old-time tomato-shaped pincushions. Remember those? You could make one with regular stuffing if you don't have emery type materials on hand. The ice drop spider was a lot of fun, and the floating spiral chains were a useful technique to learn.  The legs are sticking out every which-way, and I could probably wet them and tame them into position, but that would be, you know, efficient.

Sharren Morgan's ornament class had a choice of 2 snowflakes and a wreath, which I made in unwreathlike colors, but will look good on my miniature white and gold Christmas tree.  I look forward to making the other ornaments in the class handout.  The wire tatting class with Kelli Slack was also fun, and something different.  The class assignment was just to get comfortable working with the wire and make rings and joins. I have more wire to play with later.

You will note that I have only 4 projects here.  I was teaching the other 3 class periods.  I have printed many of the other class lessons to make later.

You can go to the Palmetto website and see all the class projects and purchase all the class handouts as a digital download.  I recommend it.