A secret is revealed

Well, a really exciting secret honestly. Least I'm excited. 

As you know from yesterday's post I'm currently working on a Dora Young pattern which I was given a scan/photocopy of when I was in America. 

Now I'm a great, great believer in respecting copyright so my conscience has been pricking me ever since. The only reason I had a copy was to help another friend who had the book (not available to buy anymore) and who was having a bit of trouble understanding it. As 'they' say - two heads (or even three as another friend had the book too) are better than one!!!  I'm enthralled by this particular pattern and by others I saw in the book.

The book was published during my early days of tatting. I was born in 1943, started tatting in 1956 and the book was published in 1974. I can't think why I never got hold of a copy when it first came out but can only guess that at that age I was working my socks off and trying to raise my two lovely daughters. Also in those days the only way I could get the book would've been by putting dollars in an envelope and sending it off via surface mail to the USA. That's, of course, if I'd even heard of it!  Anyway, suffice to say, I don't have a copy although I've been haunting the web ever since my trip.

People have been asking me about the book and an intriguing comment was left on this post a few days ago. Since then I've tracked down the commenter and have been in touch. Thank you, Heidi. 

This is a link to her page where she mentions that she'll be re-printing Dora's book soon. Can't come soon enough for me. 

Heidi is the lass who wrote a great book on the American tatting shuttles more about that can found here. You really need to buy a copy of that book too - very interesting. 

So now the secret is out don't you DARE get in my way in the queue to buy the book. I'm FIRST!!!  REMEMBER THAT!!!!

Three motifs and four to go

Remember the Dora Young motif I started working on when I was with my 'gang' of friends in South Carolina? Well here's the progress that I made and continued with while I was still in America. A comment was left on this post by tatkrazy saying that the book is going to be re-printed next year. I'm trying to confirm this with her and will let you know more when I find out.  I've just found the pictures in my photo album!!! It's been 'one of those' weeks since I got home but I'm beginning to get on top of things and unpacking is going well. 

Least it has until I realised late yesterday that I'm going to have to take things out of the tatting cupboard and sort it out - AGAIN!!!!! Things are now falling out when I open the door!!!

Beads galore

Before I start - there's a new rabbit on the block!! This one is from Shirley and here's the link so you can pay him (or her!) a visit.

One day when we were staying with Gloria in South Carolina another dear friend (Karen) made an appointment for us all to visit a bead shop. 

Well this was an unforgettable experience. When you think of shops (or stores as the Americans call them) you think of many shops in a mall or along the streets of a town. In this case it wasn't like that at all. The shop was right out in the sticks. I mean RIGHT out in the sticks. It was in a beautiful spot but we were all focussed on BEADS!!!

This is what I came out with around two hours later!!! While I was there I did spot something that may prove to be the inspiration for next year's TIAS. I'm not quite sure whether the callipers will prove useful or not but they were cheap and I thought they may well be a good thing to have when measuring larger beads.

Am I spoilt?

Simple answer - yes! 

These threads were all given to me at Tat Days. As you can see some of them have already been wound onto Ezy-bobs and some are waiting for me to find the time to deal with them.

I have thread from Sue Anna (those are the Yarnplayer ones), Phyllis and Sue Hanson. All yummy and waiting to be used. 

All I need now is a good dose of time which I'm hoping to have next weekend.

Nearly back to normal

Whatever that is!!!

I've had a LOT of personal stuff to sort out since I got back. Both physical and mental (think BC3 is still on holiday, though) but hope that by the end of this coming week it'll all be 'done and dusted'.

I'm still struggling with unpacking the suitcase and I'm going to blog what's been in there over the next few days. Problem is - where do I start? I have no pictures of the lessons I taught as they were very busy. I spent most of the time trying to help people - just hope that helped.

The first thing I'm going to show you today is SOME (a very small some) of the goodies that were in the grand prize - which I thought they were kidding me about when it was announced I'd won!!! I promise you - this was only a very small part of what was in there. 

I love the little pouch on the left of the light. It's a squeeze one which you give a squeeze too and then it opens. Glittery too. More thread heaven too and lots of thread and beads. The foldaway LED lamp was in there too. Funny story about that. When I was at Gloria's house we got it out and put the batteries in. It instantly lit up. Problem was that we couldn't fathom how to turn it off!!! Three of us (Gloria, Joanie and I) thought, in the end, that we'd have to take the batteries out. Finally we worked it out!!! There isn't a 'switch' but a light touch pad to turn it off. Brilliant piece of equipment.