Of course this HAD to happen!!!!

Well an old git like me can't go out down the town half dressed in 'just earrings' so I HAD to make a matching bracelet, didn't I?  After all anybody who knows me would've thought I was bonkers going out 'there' into the big wide world of our small market town half naked!!!

These are SO easy and fast to make. - I LOVE this thread too (Mountain Breeze).  It's one of the Lizbeth that Sue Anna sent me in this package and I've fallen in love with the colourway.  


This one and a lovely pinkish/blueish one called Tropical Punch that was also amongst the 'wind offs' shown here.

The travelling book!

Do you remember Fox's kind offer to share the Angelina Critchlow book?  Here's the link.

Well it arrived with me on Wednesday.  Now, on a Wednesday I teach in the local library all morning and this last Wednesday another volunteer and I were setting up new classes at the new home for the elderly (I actually qualify to live there!!) in the afternoon.  

So I speeded out of the library, home to grab lunch and then speedily out again.  BUT the book had arrived so I HAD to open it.  Well, I'll admit it - that's all I did.  I had a quick glance at it and then put the book and the jiffy bag it arrived in in the usual 'filing place' on the stairs.

I zipped off a fast email to Tatskool to say it had arrived and that was that!!!  

Thursday morning came and went with the usual 'dashing around' sorting other things out (plus grocery shopping) and again, home for lunch.  I checked my messages before leaving again to help a friend with her laptop and there was a message from Tatskool.  

It simply said 'Hope you found the little package in with the book and didn't throw it away!!'

YIKES!!!  I dashed to the book and package (still patiently waiting on the stairs) and lo and behold look what was inside?!?!?!?  I was gobsmacked.  Thank you SO much, Tatskool.  You wait til you see what I'm going to do with it!!!!

Earwigs!!!

After somebody asking what were the uses of the mini button flower (good point, there!!!) I decided to try them out as earwigs (well, they worked as a bracelet)!!!

I searched my stash for some smaller buttons and sourced some 80 thread thinking that that would be what was needed.  Then it occurred to me (well, actually at this stage brain cell # 3 wandered in) to try one of the button flowers I'd already done for 'size'.  Guess what?  They're fine as they are - so back to the same buttons and size 20 thread!!


This Lizbeth thread is just SO pretty  - I LOVE it.  It's one that Sue Anna sent me in this package and I've fallen in love with the colourway.  .   It's one of my favourites - that and another pinky one - and it works up so prettily.

All I did to the pattern was add a split ring finding to one chain (to hang from the ear findings) and made a long beaded picot on the opposite chain.  Drop dead easy peasy!!!  Job done!!!!

Decoupage shuttle

Isn't this just SO pretty?  Joelle kindly sent me this Aero shuttle which she's 'decoupaged'. 

I'd never use it for fear of rubbing off the beautiful pattern.

Do you know the pattern even goes over the end of the shuttle and right up to the hook.  It's even overlapped to the inside.  What a lot of work and skill.

Thanks, Joelle.  It's going to be a very much loved member of my shuttle collection.

Big Bug Hugs!

Look what arrived in the post.  A hug!!!  I'll show you if you hang on a minute!!!

First, though, let me tell you the story behind the hug!!!  When I go to Palmetto Tat Days Joanie very kindly puts up with me.  I know that should be 'puts me up' but believe me it really should be 'puts up with me' in my case.  

Throughout the years Joanie (known amongst a few of us who think she's totally smashing as 'Dear Joanie') and I have talked via email on endless occasions.  We chat about all the usual things like the weather (well, I AM English!!!!), family and (of course!) tatting!!!  Last year the theme for Tat Days was 'I've been bitten by the Tatting Bug' and I noticed, after a while, that Joanie had started putting BBH at the end of her emails.  

Well I wracked the aged brain but couldn't work it out so in the end I asked her what BBH stood for.  She said 'Big Bug Hugs'!!!  


So this is what we send each other BBH or (this year) it's BLH (Big Leaf Hugs - cause that's this year's theme!).  


Anyway, you know the story of the leaves (which I told you yesterday) - well imagine my surprise when a snail letter arrived yesterday from DJ (in case you've forgotten - that's Dear Joanie).  Inside were hugs.  Tatted hugs!!!  


The ugly old face there is mine which she'd 'stolen' off the internet and there's a hug round my neck and another one which I can take with me wherever I go.  Isn't that SO clever and SO thoughtful?


Incidentally as coincidences happen - the leaves arrived with DJ yesterday too?  Do you think we're psychic or is it just our tatting or postal services that are?!?!?

 

Leaf earrings

My dear friend Joanie in SC asked me to make her a pattern for the leaves I submitted for the Palmetto logo competition this year.  She wanted a pattern small enough to make earrings.  

My first thought was YIKES - not possible but then I thought about it and decided to try the smallest of the three designs which are already living in SC!!!!  So as those were done in a 20 thread I wondered what would happen if a size 80 (ish) thread was used.  

Well IF I'd read my own pattern properly the first time they would've got done sooner.  

The problem I had was that I started on the smallest leaf pattern and THEN when I finished there was 'something wrong'.  Panic set in.  How COULD I have submitted a pattern with such a big mistake!  

Checking back on myself I realised that although I'd started with the SMALLEST size I'd deviated onto the middle sized one.  When WILL I ever learn to read my own patterns carefully?

I used Yarnplayer's thread - I can't remember what it's called and I'm upstairs and 'it's' downstairs!!!  I'll update the blog later!!!!