I'm a dozy mooooooo

I'm going to admit this publicly.  I'm a DOZY moo.  It's the solid truth too!!!

I work away at designing stuff and then forget what I've done!!! I have stuff on this computer that just has never got onto the web.  The joy for me is simply in getting things to look like a crazy idea that brain cell 3 has had - oh and in getting them 'just right'.  Once that's done I FORGET THEM!!!

I was contacted a few days ago by somebody who wanted a sheep pattern.  They'd seen one on my blog and when I looked through the blog I found it!!!  Completely forgotten I'd done it too!!!  How STUPID is that?

Well looking at the sheep (which I'm now finishing off - it only needed one final test tat) I remembered the 'no onion' ring smallies I was working on a few weeks ago.  So, here they are (now unforgotten!!).  First the owl, then the elephant and finally the pig!!


These three got 'converted' into bookmarks and are in the Etsy shop now.  Well, what do you do with a surplus of rampant, neglected and cross animals?


We now have 87 goats on the TIAS blog - thank you, Sunset and Carol for sending yours in.

A tip

Without Gina I'm sorta lost and didn't know whether to hold back on posting for a few days or not. Then I thought 'what would Gina say' and she'd be all for going on.  We never discussed the 'what if's' of her illness but only her desire to go job hunting as soon as she got back to work (that's partly why she got her wig).  So, for this reason I think I'll carry on today - still with a very heavy lump of lead inside me where my heart should be.  So, here we go.

I'm always amazed at why little holes are always put through the middles of post shuttles and are also on bobbins too - at the top.  

Now you're going to think I'm bonkers (well, I guess you know that already) but they're pretty darn pointless I think.  Those holes, I mean.

If you look at the picture below you'll see what I mean.  I've seen people struggling to poke their thread through the hole to then tie a knot.  What an annoying thing to have to do.

Me?  I'm WAAAAYYY too lazy to do that!!! I simply make a loop in my thread with a slip knot.  Like this.

Put the shuttle (post) or bobbin into the loop and pull the slip knot closed.  Like this.

Then all you have to do is wind your shuttle/bobbin AGAINST the knot and it will stay tight and not slip.  When you've finished you pull the small tail that's left to open it again and you can slip the shuttle out.  There - Bob's your uncle!!!  Well, not my uncle and probably not yours either!!!  Actually I don't think I even know a Bob either.

Gina

I had the saddest news yesterday.  My dear friend Gina (tattinggoddess) died on Monday.

Gina and I met online many years ago and I enjoyed her wonderful friendship.  We gossiped and exchanged ideas and eventually met at one of the early Palmetto Tat Days.  We didn't always agree on everything and she was always a calming influence when I got my knickers in a twist about things.

One year she and I met in Tennessee and she took me down to Tat Days and gave me a lift back to Cincinnati afterwards.  What a wonderful time I spent with her that weekend.  We met again a few years ago when she and Gale 'kidnapped' me for a day in Cincinnati.

Last July we met once more when she drove all the way from Lafayette to Cincinnati to spend a day with me again.  We hunkered down in her motel room after lunch and just talked and talked tatting!!!  She gave me the sweetest little RPL bell which you can see below.  She showed me lots of her work too which she kept in very well organised folders.  A wonderful afternoon.  This is the only photo either of us took where she has the backdrop of sunflowers.  That to me sums her up.  

Last September she hadn't appeared in my inbox for a few days so I sent her a message to say she was 'too quiet'.  She replied with the news about her fall at work and the subsequent finding of the cancer in her lung.  I went through that dreadful journey with her.  The down days and the good days.  The days when sleep was all she wanted and the days when she moved stuff round the house in her ongoing attempt to 'tidy things up'.  Sadly her new curtains will never be made now.

Sometimes she'd be up in the middle of 'her' night and would release comments on her blog which would land up in my inbox.  I'd hit reply to tell her to go back to bed.  That always amused her.  She was SO brave and SO positive and finally a few weeks ago came the good news - she was in remission.

Things were looking good a few weeks ago and Gina offered to test tat the goat for me.  I thought everything was going really well - and then ..........

Gina, I'll miss you SO, SO much.  My time in tat land will never be the same without you to gossip and giggle with.

Now for public consumption!!

Suddenly remembered yesterday that I'd got two patterns which I did for Donna to use at Palmetto Tat Days last year and which hadn't yet got put on my web site!!!

I finally got a cooperative few moments out of brain cell # 3 and got them up there!!!

Here's here's the Star Motif and the OctoStarFlake 

Back to normal?

Well, hopefully NOT!!!  I do hate 'normal'.  Mind, I'm not really sure what 'normal' is!!!  Just a quick additional note here before this scheduled post goes 'live'.  I have 80 goats and this old goat is dancing, dancing, dancing.  I don't think we'll get to the 100 but it doesn't matter as it was such fun and that's the main reason for doing it.

Today I have two links to give you.  First of all I'm pleased to announce that there's a new supplier of Lizbeth here in the UK.  Drum roll, please.  There.  You didn't want the link, did you?  SHEEEESH, do you expect me to do everything for you guys?!?!?  OK, here it is!!!  Now, the best part of this site is that the postage is FREEEEE.  How's that?  I do like free post and packing.  

I also finally got round to listing some more bookmarks in my Etsy shop.  I also put that lovely pendant in that I made a few weeks ago.  This one.