Good news!

Well it is for me but not sure about anybody else!!!

The good news is that I've now got funding to keep the pattern pages up and running for another year or so. I fund the web site by running ads at the side of the blog here. Each time somebody clicks on an ad I get a tiny amount from Adsense. I rarely look to see what I'm earning as the amounts are so small but around every nine months or so I receive a payment of approximately £65.00 which then goes to Freeservers who are my web site hosts. Bless their cotton socks!!!!

Yesterday I had a message to say I'd been paid!! Sometimes there's a bit 'left over' so you can guess what I spend that on!!! You've got it - thread and beads!!! Well an old git has to tat, doesn't she?!?!?!

People earrings

It's probably 30 years since I started designing earrings to amuse the kids I was teaching. I had the reception class in those days and started wearing daft earrings to encourage the children to settle into school. The parents used to encourage the children to come to school to see what the teacher was wearing in her ears.

I used to wear anything - from teabags, dog biscuits, sweets, bath plugs and also the  children's homemade earrings (often made out of toilet roll middles) that would fit onto ear findings. Then I started to design my own tatted ones which formed a lot of my doodles (seen here).

I DO wear 'normal' earrings nowadays but I was feeling a tad boring recently so decided that people earrings would be something to cheer up the winter months. I used the tat beads as inspiration and only slightly shortened the arms, legs and skirt to achieve these earrings below.

Pattern uploaded!

Thanks to Sarah for the gentle reminder about the rabbit - I've now uploaded the full pattern to my site. 

Here's the link.

There are now 74 rabbits on the TIAS site here.

Playing

That's right - playing - just playing!!! 

I wanted to try out the diamond pattern to see how small it would be when worked in a size 80 thread. I wanted to know just in case anybody asked!! Not that they have and probably never will!!! Anyway, after I'd made this a few weeks ago it went missing!!!

No, this time it wasn't under the scanner - it was put away 'safely' as it may be needed for another day. More about that when I know more about that!!!!

This is the diamond pattern which can be found here. There are six of them joined together and the little doily measures (from point to point) 3½".  I did think it maybe useful to know what each single diamond felt like with regard to making earrings from the pattern but have decided that number 80 may be just a BIT too fine and 'bendy'.  I like earrings that will keep their shape and not be so flimsy that after a few wearings they will bend.  Heavily beaded earrings do tend to keep their shape well but it would be too fiddly to add ears to this pattern in too many places without taking the thread off the shuttle in at least one place.