Once upon a time

Once upon a time somebody somewhere bought a long necklace consisting of brown stripy beads with tiny gold seed beads between each stripy one.  Now who it was is a complete mystery and where they bought the necklace is buried in the mists of time - BUT .........

One day an old git decided to wander round the charity shops in her town and visited one and spotted the aforementioned necklace.  No, she didn't buy it straight away because she told her BC3 that she had too many large beads still to play with.  A few days later she wandered back into the same shop to give them something that needed re-cycling and lo and behold, there was the same stripy necklace.  Temptation was too much and the beautiful necklace went home with her to be cleaned and cut!

Roll on a few months later and she was visiting a friend and enjoying a cup of tea in her kitchen when the friend said 'oh, what a pretty bracelet you're wearing'.  It was a blue Winsome Drop bracelet and the old git asked if she'd like one too.  Anyway, on returning home and diving into the tatting cupboard she remembered the stripy beads and this is what became of them.  

So, I give you a happy ending.  Well, not quite!!!!

Second attempt at Abbi's bow!

So, back to the 'drawing board' over Abbi's bow!!!  I explored my stash of threads and found what I thought was the 'right' colour.  

Here's bow number 2 with slightly longer 'tails'.  Why longer tails?  Because I can't read or count.

I've put the other pink bow below the new one so you can see the difference.  SOOOO many 'pinks' it's no wonder I needed another attempt to get the right one!!!

Why DO I do it?

I like to have an ongoing project during a designing phase that I can pick up and put down at any time (usually late evening) and which requires little to no thought.  This is one I've just finished which was started over a year ago to have something to do while I was in America last September.  Hmmmm, I hardly touched it as Sally and I were SOOO well looked after and entertained (plus the hummingbirds at Joanie's were a huge distraction) that I did very little on the travels.  So, the question is - WHY do I do it to myself?  

No, not the ongoing project bit but the fact that I choose to do so many hanky edgings.  

When I started tatting back in the fifties there was very little around that a budding teenager (crikey - I was one of those once!!) could make as patterns were few and far between.  All I really had available were the old Coats and Penelope leaflets.  A hanky edging was one of those things that was recommended as a starter's project as there weren't many motifs around.

Now, when you start tatting you're so slow that an edging like this must have put a lot of people off.  Yet here I am all those years later still doing them as a relaxing project!!!  How stupid is THAT?  Not only doing them but occasionally even designing them too!!!  This is the 'Oh, so Simple' one which you can find here.

Yes, I'm a lot faster now but I still get bored by them but can never leave a project unfinished so eventually rush to get them out of the way.

Now, what am I tempted to do for my next ongoing project?  You'll never guess but BC3 is already thinking of another hanky edging.  HELP!!!!  Where's the escape hatch?

Abbi's bow

When I had the second spell of grandchildren I had Abbi who is five going on fifteen!!!  One of the requests I had from her was for a bow to put on her dress!!  She told me it had to be pink and have beads on it so I decided that this was what I'd do.  The pattern is an old one and can be found here.

Well stupidly I didn't check with my daughter on why Abbi wanted this bow but after they'd received it she said she THOUGHT Abbi wanted it for a special new dress she's got for a wedding they're going to and that that dress is a salmon colour!!  DUH.  Back to the 'drawing board'!!!

More in the shop!

First of all - I've managed to put the rest of the Tatting Tidy pots into the Etsy shop over the weekend.

Apart from doing this (and numerous other odd jobs) I also had a new pram to put onto the Tat It And See blog too.  Here's the link to number 122!!

This blog may not be updated so often over the next few weeks as I struggle with the 2014 Tat It And See design.  Yes, there will be another in January!!!!  A little bird has told me that there may be another one before that but that's all I'm saying!!!  Actually I've already started one idea for 2014 but that's been scrapped as it may have proved too boring for everybody!!!!

Now, do I cut out more Tatting Tidy pots or retire from sewing for a while?  Decisions, decisions!!!