A visit is on the agenda

Tomorrow I have two grandkids coming to stay for a few days.  SUCH excitement.

Abbi is nearly five and loves to have my odds and ends of tatting so there's quite a collection on the end of my table where she 'finds' things!!!  Nathan aged nine has grown out of this so I'll find other things for him to 'find'.  Anyway I've added this ballerina to the collection - 'just because'.  If anybody wants the pattern then it's on my site somewhere.  Oh, hang on - here it is!!

Meantime I must get on with the day - we had to have a new central heating boiler and yesterday it was 'the' day it was installed.  Fabulous guys who didn't make any mess and were very pleasant.  Gallons of coffee were drunk and they worked tirelessly all day without a break. Now I have to sort the bedroom out where the boiler 'lives' and make some space for the kids!!!

The horrors of writing patterns down.

I'm not sure if I'm the only person who spends so much time on the writing and illustrating of a pattern but if others do too then I'm normal.  If they don't then - well please send for the 'men in white coats' as I'm obviously NOT normal.  Then again you all know that already so what AM I blathering on about?

So having tested the second bracelet pattern I went off to do the drawings and put the page back together again.  

Horrors of horrors when I read the instructions for the first bracelet whilst doing this I was convinced they were wrong.  Back to making the first version again with a fresh brain cell and a tad more concentration.  

Another bracelet

So I showed you the bracelet I was working on here but what I didn't mention was that there are actually two versions of this on my site - both on the same page.  I thought I'd better check version two while I was still in the right frame of mind and that's what I've done here.  

Well I thought it was all going very well until I'd finished this one and started putting the drawings back into the page.

DUH, was that join up, down or in between!!!  I've now got to check the first version once again.  I'll not be beaten by a few yards of thread and a few hours of work so it's 'back to the drawing board' again!!!

IF I win the lottery (fat chance of that as I never buy a ticket) then I'm going to invest in an extra brain cell.  What do you think?

SSSR LCh bracelet

Going back to the lanyard and the bracelet I thought I'd make another type of bracelet but with a more 'flowery' look to it.  

If you look closely at this one you'll see that there's an extra chain going round the SSSR's too. I do like to see what brain cell 3 can come up with!!!  He needs a bit of stimulation from time to time just to keep him awake in the evening!!!

Thank you

I'd like to say a big thank you for all who helped with suggestions on my 'avoiding the folded join' join page.  If you can follow that!!!  Particular thanks go to Suzanne who spent ages on the task.

It was reassuring to find that I wasn't the only one who just 'didn't get' the idea of folding the one bit over to make the join and also it was great that it might help one or two people to be able to tackle the 'problem' from a different perspective too.

As a result of the wonderful input (Saturday blog posts are normally very quiet when it comes to comments) I was kept busy all day nattering to friends all round the world - great excuse for another 'H' word free day!!!

This morning I have added the page to the 'tips and techniques' page and a direct link is here if you want to see what I've now done.  Of course I'm always willing and able to discuss this further and make other improvements/adjustments to the file!!!!  I'm a slave to tatting!!!