15 today

8th May 2006 is a date not to remember!!!  Least it is for me.  

I was fiddling around with the blog a few days ago and noticed that tomorrow will be my 15th anniversary of when I started nattering to all and sundry somewhere 'out there'.

It still fascinates me that people 'listen/read' my ramblings - I certainly don't!!!!!!

This is the first post I ever made and I'm still wondering why I'm here but I still keep talking to myself (it IS a sign of insanity I'm sure!).  

Beige t-shirt finished

I've finished the t-shirt from Mary's design called 'Fan and Ribbon'.  This is from her book 'A Pattern Book of Tatting' but I 'invented' a feature motif to go at the centre front.  

I didn't join it to the others because I couldn't decide on joining places that would look right to me!  I will NOT be sharing this motif as it's far too close to the original which is still, obviously, under copyright.  It does take a bit of working out how to do it and it did stretch BC3's poor old brain cells but it was well worth the effort.  

As you can see from the motif I did use vsp's to give me some joining places while sewing it down - as I did on the main edging.

I'm really, really pleased with this t-shirt and will be moving onto the next one  shortly!!!

The poncho on another model

I had a visit from my daughter and most of the family on Saturday and I persuaded Abbi to try on the poncho for me.  

I wanted to see if it was a case of 'one size fits all' and was pleasantly surprised to see how good it looks on her.  She looks gorgeous anyway and it was very reassuring to see that it fitted so well.  She's about the same height as me now!!!

Many thanks to Abbi for her patience with her old Nanny Stratford!!!!

Squirrel shopping!

Well not quite 'shopping' in the regular meaning of 'going shopping' but this time I'm talking again about my Etsy shop.

As I've said before I was lost after the poncho was finished and decided to set up shop again in Etsy.  This has been a huge success not only in sales but it's made my poor old BC3 focus on little things that need another looking over on my pattern site.  

It's amazing that something you've designed even a short while ago will be improved by the slight tweaking of the design.   These rabbits are one of those patterns.

Although I was pleased with them when I uploaded the pattern, I wasn't quite so pleased when I came back to look at them last weekend.  The problem is that when you're designing something as tiny as this even one double in the wrong place can throw the whole thing 'out'.  This then means yet another re-tat.  I think I spent two days just tweaking these two.  Yes, there are two - one a bit bigger than the other and both different.  I'm a glutton for punishment!!!!

Progress with the first t-shirt.

As you know I picked this edging (details are on this page too) for my t-shirt edging.  

But I didn't like all the picots as they're a pain on trimmings for clothes etc.  Well that's what I think!!!  Here's part of it on the t-shirt for you to see.  

When Mary started publishing her patterns there was a lack of tatting patterns in a more 'modern' style and the books brought a whole new range of work.  I bought all her books as they came out and that was at a time when I didn't have a lot of spare money.  My books have been well used!!!!