7 March 2013

Netting needles

Before I start today I would like to tell you that I've slowly started sewing again!!!  The weather has been a bit warmer on a few days so I've been able to get in the conservatory.  New fabrics courtesy of Miranda (many thanks) have broken my vow not to make anymore bags.  I'm easily led astray!!!!  Here's the link.

OK, so here are the netting needles I own.

Just to prove (to myself more than anybody else) that I did do a bit of combining netting with tatting in the past here is a picture of a piece that I did for a little booklet produced by Margaret Hamer and Kathleen Waller.  Interestingly I learnt bobbin lace from Margaret - via snail mail to help her write the first  of a similar series of booklets she produced.

Can you see the picture at the bottom?  One is the net made into a square mesh and then stretched onto a frame and embroidered on and the other has a tatted centre with netting round it.  That was a nightmare to do as the picots on the tatting had to be just the right size to take the knots of the round of netting.  When I look back I believe I had more brain cells than I do now!!!!



6 March 2013

New technique page

Well I did it.  I got it done.  It's finished.  

Here's the link to the finished technique page for Lock Chain Block Tatting.

I hope you enjoy doing this as much as I did.  At the top of the page is a sneak preview of a pattern which I've been working on.  Well, actually, I've got two that need the pages finished off.  Just need to give brain cell 3 a kick up the 'you know what'!!!!

I've also listed some more Wrap It, Flip It and Mark It bookmarks in my Etsy shop.  This time they are seahorses!!!

Finally please check out the TIAS blog where you'll see number 107 from Mary Jo.  It's worth reading the link I've put on this post too.

5 March 2013

Playing and messing around

Playing with the same pattern again.  I'm still trying to do alternative centres to the rings in the original.
Messing with block tatting with a difference too.  Can you see what I've done?

Instead of regular block tatting I'm using lock chains!!!!  Now this is MY technique and nobody's to use it and IF they do they've GOT to mention my name and ask permission yada, yada, yada.

Just kidding!!  Honest.  TEASING!!!!!  Well you know I don't take this craft or anything very seriously - specially myself!!!

I'm working on the technique page for this type of block tatting and will have it completed for tomorrow - promise!!!!!  It took a bit of fiddling to work out the best way to do it but I think I got there in the end.  All I've got to do today is work out a conversion so any block tatting can be changed to lock chain block tatting.

I've also got two new designs bubbling away using this technique.

4 March 2013

Threads from Jess


Well after an extremely serious word with brain cell 3 just after Christmas we both decided that I'd got more than enough threads to keep me going for a good many years.  

Then along came Jess.  I met Jess and her dear little daughter Livie last September at Tat Days and was taken aback by the colours of threads on her table which she was selling.  Mind, Karey's was pretty darn cool and also Yarnplayers and all managed to leave a dent in my dollars!!!!  So after this serious word with BC 3 we both settled down and tatted and didn't look at anymore threads.

That is until Jess ran a 'free shipping' in her Etsy shop.  The stipulation was that if you lived overseas you should buy more than one skein.  Nothing but absolutely nothing was said about ordering four.  BUT once we both (BC 3 and myself) got into the shop that was what happened.  Here they are.

Left to right - Kaleidoscope, Carnival, Mindango Gum and Purple Pansy.

2 March 2013

Not tatting but netting.

When I was in my 20's or thereabouts my gran (who I'd learnt to tat with as she was learning too) gave me a bundle of netting needles and meshes which somebody had passed on to her.  I took it upon myself to find out what they were and how to use them.  I had a very good trip to the local library who searched down in their cellars and found me one book with instructions on  how to do the craft and so I taught myself netting.  I went on to accomplish filet too which is another story.

So roll on a few more years and I picked up The Lady magazine in a dentist waiting room (or it may have been the doctors as I had young kids then) and read an article on bobbin lace in there.  I'll never know why but I jotted down the address of the magazine and wrote and suggested they ran an article on netting.  They wrote back and said that if I wrote one then they'd look at it and maybe publish it.  Panic set in.  I had no idea how to type so borrowed an ancient typewriter and set off to use it!!!  Well I daren't tell you how long it took me to write it all down.  Weeks and weeks and weeks of laborious one fingered typing!!!!  

I was gobsmacked when they wrote and accepted it and I waited for about two years for it to be published.  You'll see that the date on it is 1973 so I was 30 years old and would've written it at the age of 28ish.

They paid me.  I can't remember how much it was but it was such a small amount for all the effort I put in that I really didn't think it was worth it but I was SOOOO proud.  You'll see that it's published under my married name P J Dunn which I ditched as soon as the M R Dunn part of the deal left!!!!  Why be Dunn when you're really an Eborall?!?!!?

1 March 2013

Meet Spud!

This is my new pet.  Well, actually it's my daughter's and I haven't met him yet.  Knowing that they were getting a puppy I decided to go ahead and tackle a doggy design.

Over the years I've been asked time and time again for doggy patterns but have always not quite 'got there'.  The main problem was that they were all different breeds or mutts.  We've only ever had mutts in the family and as you all know all dogs differ a lot.  It was too hard to decide on what breed of dog to do so I eventually decided on a puppy as they all look 'much the same' when they're little.

So, Spud was born.  

Want to meet him?  He's here.  

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Happy Beaks

Happy Beaks
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