Pretty, pretty, pretty thread

Now these didn't come from the USA!!!!  No, nor from the UK.  They came from Jane in South Africa who is doing her own HDT.

Aren't these just DDG?  Oh, you want a translation?  Drop Dead Gorgeous!!!!  First thing I did was to wind them onto my last two Ezbob's.  The green is waiting for one to become 'vacant'!!! 

The second thing I did was to tat up a flurry with the pinky one.  This is it below.  What I found most surprising was the size it turned out.  Jane says the thread is Cebelia number 20 but look what happens when you put it next to another flurry worked in Lizbeth and another HDT in 20.  If anybody can shed any light on this mystery then please do tell us!!!  Is it the dyes that have done it or is Cebelia 'different'?  OR another thought occurs to me - are the threads re-labelled when they go to South Africa.  There's food for thought!!!!

 

Look what arrived yesterday!!!

Woweeeeee, look what arrived yesterday! 

Thank you SO much Ann - I'm thrilled to bits, lass.  I know I'm a bit of a plonker at times but it's good to know people seem to like that!!!!!  Poor Nick tolerates it - he has to live with it 24/7 unless he throws me out with the dish water!!!

I now need to load it up with my pop a bobbin shuttles and my ongoing project and put it in my 'just going out' place.  Do you have a 'just going out' place?  I've got two.  One is the top of the bookshelf in the hall where I keep my itouch, sunglasses (that's a joke at this time of the year in this place!) and my 'on the go' tatting project. 

On the FLOOR in the hall I 'file' packets to post from sales in the Etsy shop or other 'things'.  Oh, things like bits and bobs to go to the charity shop.  Why?  Because if I didn't put them there I'd forget!!!!  We usually go in and out of the front door so anything 'on the way' to the front door gets 'seen' and dealt with!!!!

One thing I've learnt over the past few years is that all my friends in America are just SO lucky when it comes to craft supplies and particularly fabrics - pretty, pretty ones. Here are the fabrics that Ann put into the packet along with the press.  I will certainly be making a bag set or two with these next Spring.

Teri's turtles

Teri Dusenbury - there's a name to remember as an icon in tat land.

Teri has been making turtles and now has lots and lots to sell.  Her blog is here.

Now if you'd like to see her list (with pictures to drool over) then please drop me a line and I'll send you a copy of her inventory with all the prices, contact details etc.  My email address is in my profile.

I have a turtle that Teri kindly gave me a couple of years ago. - the pink one below and I've 'captured' one of those she has for sale too (that's the turquoise blue one) and put him underneath my necklace.  This necklace has travelled back to the USA with me to be shown off at Palmetto!!!!!

Terri has a wealth of tatting knowledge and has known of a lot of the famous, sadly now parted tatting icons.  It's worth putting aside some time to read the pages at the top right of her blog too.

Earrings

Following on from the 28th October I present a pair of earrings!!

Now the reason for these are the pretty red heart beads that Ridgewoman sent me for my birthday.  They have holes going from side to side which I thought was a little more challenging than usual!!!  Thus I had to pull out brain cell three to come up with this idea!!!

This is again using the floating chain but adding the beads as you go.  Whoops - I see that I've got the one heart bead 'twizzled' upside down on the scanner.

What do you think?  Is it worth going any further with this idea?

Look at this!!!!

It's always very reassuring to find out that people actually make up some of the patterns that are on my pattern page - or elsewhere!!!!  

Elizabeth sent me this last week along with this comment:-

"Here is my first leaf.  I will tat some more to put on a shirt.  I ordered the Palmetto CD just to get your leaf and bird.  It is a very good CD.  Lots of nice patterns."  

Well I left the last sentence off cause it made me blush!!!!

A start on the Victorian purse

Now you saw my post (or maybe not!) last week (or it could've been the week before!!) over the purse in the Mrs Beeton's Book of Needlework so, after that I'd said all that I, thought 'why not'.  Why not what?  Why not another try!!!!!

Back when I did the black and white version we didn't have computers or such like so everything had to be 'jotted down' on paper.  This made sorting out this pattern back 'then' almost impossible as it's not easy to understand in the first place!!!!  Also I was about thirty years younger, with young kids, teaching full-time and all the complications that brings to one's craft life.

This time round I realised straight away that the centre of the black and white one is wrong but I sort of remember thinking that it wouldn't work so did it 'my way'.  Well it doesn't 'really' work but I used the instructions this time round and followed them to the letter (no, sorry, number)!!!!  Of course the fact that it doesn't 'sit' right could be down to the thickness of the thread or the size of the beads - not sure.

Then onto round 1.  Softly softly catchee monkey!!!  I did this exactly according to the written word too. 

Looking closely at the picture in the book it does look as if it's OK but I'm not happy with the way some of the beads have turned towards the inside of the rings.  Still 'upwards and onwards' and all that guff!!!!!!