Butterflies -- Motifs 11 - 13

Do you ever have a little tatting voice inside your head? Do you ever have a slump where you don't feel like tatting, or maybe you feel like it, but can't pick anything to make? A while back I was in a slump, and as I would sort through my balls of thread hoping for inspiration for the next project, the little voice would say, "I don't want these, I want to tat with some different colors." Which was odd, because, believe me, I have lots of colors. Eventually, I figured it out, I needed HDT. Or in this case, hand-painted thread as Karey calls hers. I pulled out a skein of her "County Fair" thread and a much admired book from the shelf and was back in business.

All of these butterflies are from Tatted Butterflies by Adelheid Dangela. There are quite a lot of good designs in this book. The patterns are all in diagram form, so maybe too hard for a new beginner, but highly recommended for anyone with a little experience, enough to look at the picture and know when to reverse work or switch shuttles.

Ta-tilicious Thread & etc

Jess! at Tat-ilicious has very generously sent me some of her HDT.

This is her "Harvest" colorway, with a nice mix of red/gold/brown in both size 20 and 80.

Here is some "Red Velvet," a very warm rich reddish brown. The other is a skein from a trial run that wasn't what she was looking for, but I like this one more each time I look at it. Sort of grey/yellow/fuschia. I will have to find good projects for all of these.

I am excited to hear that she will be coming to the Palmetto Tat Days this year. It is so much better shopping for thread in person since cameras and monitors don't always capture its true personality, especially for HDT.

The spinning adventure continues. Here is some very brown undyed Corriedale, and some bright hand dyed Blue Faced Leicester.  Before I started this, I thought wool was just, well, wool.  It turns out there are umpteen varieties of it, not to mention fiber from other animals.

Believe it or not, I actually do some tatting once in a while. I made several butterflies last week, but I've been too lazy busy to work in the ends and block them.

But I did find this picture of a piece I made a while back and never showed. This is Karey's Heart of the Rose from her Hearts Belong to Tatting, made with some her own HDT. Since it comes from a book, I can count it toward my own special rules 25 Motif Challenge. I think this comes to number 10 for this round of the challenge. I haven't been doing too well getting this round accomplished.

Tat Days Registration is Open

Registration for Palmetto Tat Days is now open. Click here for a link to their homepage.  You can click on the link there for Sneak Peaks to see the class projects an descriptions.  (The usual pages for teacher biographies and more detailed class descriptions are still in progress.)  I always have a wonderful time with lots of wonderful people.

And here are my completed projects from the classes I took at the Finger Lakes Tatting Convention earlier this year.  You should be impressed.   I have some other class project UFO's that are years old :)

This is Dani the Geek's Celtic Claddagh Heart.  Isn't that braided effect interesting?  If you look too close, you'll see I didn't get the second side exactly right.  Oops, shouldn't have tried doing that one while watching TV.  My colors are arranged a bit different from the pattern since I changed my mind midstream what I wanted to do.

This one is Carolyn Groves' Heart on a Wooden Ring.  When I first looked at it, I wondered how she got the tatting to go round and round the ring since the shuttle wouldn't fit through the hole.  The solution was simple and ingenious and something I would never have thought of.  I like her idea to use wooden rings. They are prettier than the plastic cabone rings and also lightweight.   I think she said they came from FireMountain Gems.

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.

My New Toy

This is my new toy.  Well, sort of new.  It was a Christmas present, and I've actually been playing with it a little over a month.

Last year, I went to an event at the park which included Revolutionary War era crafts.  A lady there showed spinning with a drop spindle.  I was seized with the desire to spin some yarn and knit a shawl.  Which was insane, since I hadn't knitted in years, perhaps decades.

I find spinning to be a bit like meditation as I can do it and empty my mind of all else.  It is very relaxing, (except when it's frustrating).  My yarn is still thick and thin with occasional lumps.  It takes a lot of practice to get good.  It has been a long time since I've tried to learn something new, so this is a good experience for me.  Besides hours spent spinning, I've spent hours lurking about on Youtube and Ravelry trying to learn more.

Next time, back to tatting.