Animal number 3

Well, here's number three!!! A giraffe!!! I'm also adding a swatch of the fabric I'm using. Yesterday afternoon I managed to find the table top, clear it and finish pinning out the pattern and cut it out.

I doubt I'll start sewing today as we had an impromptu family party yesterday evening and I'm feeling a 'little delicate' today!!! Serves me right!!!!

Memory problems!

Funny to find that other people have the same problems as me with remembering things - great idea, Carol!!!! I see I actually forgot to put the flamingo into yesterday's blog - told you my memory is bad, bad, bad!!! It gets worse when life gets stressful which it certainly is at the moment!!

So, the day before yesterday I pinned the pattern for my jacket on the fabric. Good stuff. All alterations included. Yesterday I decided to check it again and cut it out. Major problem there - it had gone missing!!! You wouldn't believe that in a relatively small house like this that an item could hide itself so well and so easily!!! In a disgruntled (with myself) frame of mind I wandered down the town. Nick found it while I was out but by then I'd gone off the idea of cutting out as I was tired -we'd been out all morning and it was now 3 o'clock in the afternoon with fading light!

When I DO eventually get it cut out I'll scan a piece and show you the colour but meantime - here's another animal to sew on when it's done!!!

Animal number 2

Hmmmm, just a thought but are the animals coming into Noah's Ark or what!!!

I'm working through my own animal designs first and so at the same time I'm checking the patterns for 'understandability' and mistakes yet again!!!

It's actually great to be sitting and 'just tatting' without having to make notes all the time as I go. The way I work is still with the laptop on my lap and a tab in my browser open with the pattern on. I then move the cursor down line by line as I work. Anything I find that I think needs changing I copy and paste into an email message and send it to myself to pick up in the morning. I know that I talk to myself most of the time (although Nick does pretend to listen) so emailing myself is just another symptom of old age and senility - I guess!!!!

I did manage to pin the pattern onto the fabric yesterday and hope to cut it out later today. I have had to add 2" to the length as it's only a 'just below the hip' length jacket and take off almost the same amount off the sleeves. I suffer from short arms!!!

Here's the flamingo.

New project for the winter!!

I bought myself some fabric yesterday. I'm going to make a jacket. I can't find another in the shops in the denim type weight I want so I'm going to make one. This one will be my zoo jacket and will be smothered in animals!!!

Why? Well, I'll be honest. The gecko jacket makes me lots of adult friends but I'm hoping the zoo one will find me some of the smaller kind. The kind I used to teach - roughly four to seven year olds. I do miss my tiddlers. It was them that got me started on designing so many, many years ago.

Anyway, I need something to take my mind off the hassles I'm suffering at the moment. Here's the first one into the zoo - a meercat!!!!

My new brooch

This brooch has been 'in the brain' for a few days now. Finally I found time for it (ably supported by brain cell # 3) to break out and become real!!!

I've been given quite a few little charms - the sort you have on bracelets - over the years and these are real little treasures. I decided that instead of putting them on a bracelet I'd add them to one of my brooches. Well, the ones I've used here! I have others which will eventually 'suffer' the same fate!!!

On a happier subject!!!

Look what arrived in the post yesterday. I really, really needed cheering up after a very difficult Friday - the results of which will be long reaching. Oh to be a tougher person and not such a great big softie.

Anyway, I digress - did I hear somebody say AGAIN?

The little packet on the left below arrived. Look what was in it. Two of the famous Teri Dusenbury turtles. The colours are amazing and the skill is unbelievable. When I showed them to Nick he couldn't believe that they were tatted either.

They are now living with the other three turtles that Teri sent me last year. Thank you SO much, Teri. These turtles will travel with me to all the tatting events I go to.

Now going back to my ramblings about selling tatting - how much would you be willing to pay for one of these dear little turtles? Each one is totally unique and I defy anybody to work out how Teri makes them. Mind, I haven't tried personally because I know full well I couldn't reproduce the quality of them - they are amazing. Each one has it's own personality too.