Please Stand By - Your Regularly Scheduled Tatting Will Resume Shortly

My internet connection has been up and down, mostly down, all month.  Finally a service tech seems to have solved the problem today.    In the meantime, I have been mostly checking email on my Nook via public wifi spots.  I seem to have accidentally deleted some of them, so if anyone is awaiting a long overdue reply please send again.

I've got soooo much catching up to do.

Here's one of the things I made since last time: Karey's Hidden Picture Heart in Lizbeth 145 Pink Parade. She taught this pattern at Lodi this year and it was also in the most recent issue of Tatting Times. Isn't this a great design?  Of course I fell for the the little bits of block tatting.

Let's Play "What is it?" in the Garden

I am blessed (and sometimes cursed) with the many flowers and plants left by the people we bought our house from last year. I am still trying to figure out what some of them are.

These 2 pictures are of a little plant, only a few inches high.  I have a larger one of the same, but it's in the shade and not blooming.  Sorry these pictures are so poor.  The flowers were a deeper pink in real life, and looked better before a really heavy rain.

These yellow flowers must be either perennials or enthusiastic self seeding annuals.  I think I've got a lot more of them now than last year.  The plants are in the 12-16 inch high range, and the blooms are slightly cupped.

This one looks sort of like the four-o'clock pictures in my flower book, but the blooms are open by the time I get up in the late morning.  The size and foliage are very similar to the yellow flowers.

Any guesses?  Next time I get to a garden center, I'll be looking to see if I can recognize them there.

Next time, more tatting, I promise.

Palmetto Preview

I'm not sure when registration will open for the Palmetto event, but you can tell they are getting close with all the new things added on their website. Click here for the Tat Days page. You'll see links there for pictures of the class projects and the class schedule. I'm getting excited just looking at it. Here is a quick run-down of the classes I will be teaching:

First is the "Love of Beads Heart" that is the same one I taught at Finger Lakes. Since this is pretty much repetition after the first section, we decided to put it in a short class period. You should learn all you need to know during class so you can finish it later. This can be needle tatted, but only if your needle can fit through the beads. Carolyn G. needle tatted this in my class in NY and she showed me how to do the lock stitch chain.

This class is "An Inverted Tatting Garden." It has lots of little patterns using the inverted tatting technique. Needle tatters welcome too.

This is the fairy I showed you before. It uses both inverted tatting and the daisy picot stitch. No, you don't have to take then other inverted tatting class first. You can learn the technique in either class. Of course, anyone is welcome in both classes....

I never can tell how long it will take people to make the class projects. Sometimes it takes much longer than I would have thought, and other times a few people at least speed right through it. Just in case anyone finishes the fairy with time left over, that class handout includes the bunny pattern from the garden class.

Be sure and follow the link at the beginning to see the other teachers' class projects.  There are so many classes I would take if I could only be multiple places at the same time.

I hope to see lots of you there.