Buzzing along

First of all thanks to those who helped with my problems yesterday - I'm not telling Nick how long I've spent so far on the diamonds!!!  He MIGHT insist I do some of the 'H' word instead!!!!


Yesterday I did a 'stint' of demonstrating tatting at the Buzz Cafe which is in the centre of town - about five minutes walk from where I live.  This is a new venture and a brave and forward looking one too.  Here's a link for more information about what happens there.  I thought you'd like to see some pictures of the cafe so that when you visit the town you'll know exactly where it is and where to pop in for a stonking good sandwich, cake, cuppa tea or anything they've got on their menu.  

So, the first picture is the outside.  The second picture is taken from exactly the same spot but I turned round about 45 degrees and zoomed in slightly.  Can you see that old building over there to the right of the tree? Well, that's Shakespeare's Birthplace.  

The third picture and the fourth pictures were taken inside the Cafe. 

Fretting about things!

Some people think I've got a good 'eye for colour' but it's not really true as I've never studied colour at all.  I use that good old fashioned thing called instinct!!!!

So, first today I'm going to ask you to look at the original diamond mat I made a few years ago.  See how the 'flowers' repeat in the rounds?  Now look at the one I'm working on this year.  I've repeated the flowers in this first round.

So here comes the BIG decision.  I've decided NOT to do the repeats in the next round.  No, no, NO!!!!  I'm just going to 'go with the flow'!!  The main reason is because I have so many drop dead gorgeous threads that I want to use and in some cases probably not enough to do 3 repeats.  Part of the reasoning for making this whole thing is to use the threads I've got and NOT order more (the temptation is always there, though)!!!!  

Now, can you see in the third picture where I've paired them up?  I've got a variegated for the centres and 'plains' for the outlines as usual.  I've also numbered the pairs so I know which should sit next to each other.  BOY, is this going to be fun?  I just need to finish the in fills of this round and then I'll be off on the next!!!  


When all the infills are done there will be 66 diamonds.  Each diamond takes roughly three quarters of an hour!!!  This means that I've already spent a long time over this - can anybody work it out for me?  Now the next 'round' of flowers will be made up of 90 diamonds but I'm not going to work anymore out as I'm hopeless at maths even at the best of times!!!  


I would love to know how many more days, hours etc this is going to take but there again perhaps it's best NOT to know!!!  

Book sale part 3

These are the final three leaflets - these are £1.00 ($1.50) plus post and packing.

11.  Coats leaflet number 988

12.  Coats leaflet number 461

Finally there's a crochet leaflet again from Coats and numbered 1087

Book sale part 2

All yesterday's leaflets are now spoken for - thanks, folks.


Following on from yesterday here are the rest of the booklets.  


Must quickly mention the Learn to Tat book (330) as it was from this (pages 6 & 7) that I re-learnt how to hold and manipulate the shuttle almost 20 years after I'd started tatting.  As I picked up the craft from my gran (she was learning too) the way of holding the shuttle was never mentioned!!!!  I'd lent my copy of 330 to somebody I was teaching and she pointed these pages out to me!!!!!

6.   Coats Tatting number 469

7.  Learn to Tat number 330

8.  Coats Time for Tatting number 813

9.  Coats Learn Tatting number 1088

10.  Coats Ten Tatting Designs number 1127

Tomorrow there will be three more leaflets which you may be interested in too - they will be £1.00 ($1.50).

Book sale part 1

Last week I won around 20 tatting leaflets/books on Ebay.  From the pictures I could see that a lot were ones I'd already got - several times over.  Some of those I bought new in the fifties/sixties and I've long since replaced them with 'less battered' ones.  Amongst the books were these three which I'd not got so I'm keeping these for little MEEEEE.

So, what to do with the rest?  Let me tell you why I bid on these booklets.  The seller had tried to get rid of them the previous week but there were no bids at all.  Odd, I thought, so put them back in my watch list.  I realised (things take time with me!) why they weren't selling - they were listed as 'buyer collects' which limits the take up for any item.  So I wrote to her and said I was interested in all of them (they were in two 'lots') and what would she charge for posting them.  We struck a 'deal' and eventually I won them all.

Now, as I don't want the following ones and as I don't want to make money out of them (just to cover my costs) I'm going to sell them at £1.50 ($2.50) each plus packing and postage.  

So if you see any you want below then let me know (please send me your email address and I'll put your name on it.  I'll hold on until you've seen all of them over the next few days then work it out and let you know what it will cost to post.  You'll need a Paypal account too.  Does that all make sense?  OK here's what I've got!!!

1.  Coats Tatting number 919

2.  Penelope Tatting Designs number 380

3. Penelope Tatting book 5

4.  Penelope Tatting book 2

5.  Penelope Tatting book 3 (I have two copies of this)

There will be more tomorrow so please take a look at those too but by all means 'reserve' any that you want of today's straight away.

Emilia's bookmark

A couple of weeks ago Emilia sent me a picture of these bookmarks.  They're made from my Friendship Bookmark pattern which is here.

Just realised that there isn't a date on the page but using the wayback machine I've found it was first put on the internet probably in 2001.  

SO, that makes it nearly ten years old.  Time to take another look at it, I guess!!!