Earrings

I'm pretty sure that it was Joanie who gave me the earrings you can see in the top picture here when Sally and I were staying with her.  My apologies if it wasn't.  

Anyway I've looked and looked at them and finally the aged brain sort of decided what to do with them.  The bead is REALLY sparkly so I didn't want to hide it inside the tatting like my first thought would've done.  I was originally going to use this pattern.  It would've been fairly simple to construct this round the bead in situ.  

After some thought and a dash to the tatting cupboard to find my pliers I took it apart instead.  The bottom picture shows the finished pair.  

As you can see the beads in the chain are moved into position on the core thread.  BUT me, being me, I decided that this earring needed to be finished with no ends to sew in.  Thus the final chain is a split chain.  I had to work out how to do this with the beads still on the core thread - it's not hard but took me a few minutes to work out.  The pattern itself is really quite a generic one which has been 'designed' many times by many people so I don't really think I can call it my own.  Beads are added over the small shirt button in the centre.  Now the question is - do you think it's worth me putting a page together or not?

My Weekly February 2003

This is the last of the magazines - I think!!!  Bet you're glad about that!!!  

You'll see that this one was one of my first 'experiments' with buttons.  Well, buttons AND beads, of course!!!  The pattern is now on this link if you should want it.

Since this foray into buttons I've done several other button patterns too and am playing with them again at the moment.    

Curtain progress

I haven't given up the day job (crochet) and this is just a quick update on the first curtain.  The curtain is what I'm going to do while sitting in the garden this summer.  Main problem is that summer came and went.  It lasted two days which happened last week.  In fact we're now back to winter so I'm doing it inside on spare minutes in the afternoons.

The top picture is the original 'picture' one that's up there at the moment.  

The next picture is a 'long distance' one to show you progress.  At the moment I've done 11" of the 30" (ish) required so that's just over a third of the way - IF that's how it turns out.

Of course I have to keep reminding myself that there's another to do and MAYBE another pair (slightly smaller) for the bedroom but I'm not planning on that (the bedroom) at the moment!!!  Time and inclination comes into that equation!!!

The final picture is a closeup so you can see the pattern that's repeated.  Here's a link to find the pattern.  It's interesting enough to not get boring but not complicated like the picture one.  No rows and rows of 'just open filet' to work either.

26 motifs - HOW many?

A further update on the Ferris Wheel motif and the mat I'm still working on.  Least I call it a mat although it's not going to be useful for wiping feet on!!!  I mean, who ever would imagine a doormat with huge holes and gaps in it?

Anyway, it's now up to 26 motifs.  The ones in the middle have all been done round a button but the surrounding ones are 'naked' and have no buttons.  I'm quite pleased with it so far.  Time will tell if I'll still like it or not!!!

Giveaway again!

Hope the title has caught your attention!!!!

Dear Elizabeth who won the Irene Waller book puzzled about it and then realised it was in a box of books she'd still got packed away.  She's kindly offered it up for 'giveaway' again.  

So, back to the iPhone app and this is the random number it generated this time.  Number 51.  This is Rukodelka who lives somewhere where the language is Czech!!!  How do I know that?  Because this is her blog and when I visit it my browser translates it into English and that's what it says at the top - 'translated from Czech to English'!!!!  

If you go down her page you will see some stunning tatting.  I'm so pleased that this time the book is on it's way to another country too.  The reason?  Because the friendly Post Office staff are always interested in the places I post to!!!!

Congratulations to Rokodelka - please send me your address so I can get this into the post as soon as possible.