Lobsters are red!

What a stupid subject line!!!

I made this lobster which can be found here after a conversation with a young lady who is at a London fashion school doing a degree.

I've worked with youngsters like this before and it's great. I like to encourage anybody with any interest in shuttle tatting to use it in their work. Not sure exactly what she'll want next but her first love is the lobster which I did over Wednesday and Thursday evenings.

Exciting day today - I'm meeting Crazy Mom Tats and we're going to spend the day together while I show her the local sights.  More on that on Monday.

Pearls of wisdom?!?!?

Or not - that depend on each individual's opinion!!!!

Pearl tatting is easy and very fast IF you have 'the knowledge'!!!!  There are many ways of doing this technique but this is my favourite way just because you can so quickly 'tat up a storm'!!!!

I decided that as I may need this technique while I'm at Tat Days or later on my visit to America I'd better take a long hard look at the page I did a few years ago once again!!!

I'm hoping that this will make this method of pearl tatting easier for folks to follow so here's the amended file.

Oh, and a picture from that page just to make this post a bit 'prettier'!!!!!

More progress on the mystery

Well here's the next round and you can now see why the last one was slightly 'odd'. 

 Isn't it clever the way the designer made this round?

So, I think the next part (and there's more to come) will need to be different colours.  I'll have to think about that.

Meanwhile back on 'Planet Jane' life has been busy.  Lovely weather for a couple of days brought on a rash of gardening and that, along with other things going on in life hasn't given me much time for tatting during the day.  

When I say tatting during the day - it's mainly working on the computer on tatting related 'stuff'!!!!

Final T-shirt!

Before starting - please take a look at number 94 on the Tat It And See blog here. Thank you, Ladytats.

The last of the trio of t-shirts got finished over the weekend!!! 

This time (to save getting bored) I used the SSSR 'trick' (hiding a thread in the first half) with a chain round. Well, I used that for the neck edging but then got fed up with that and decided on 'just' split rings for the sleeves. 

It's just enough, I think, to make the whole thing a little less boring.

An odd row!

Now to continue the mystery tat that I'm doing. Nobody seems to have worked it out yet!!!

Isn't this a strange round? The pink sections (note - another change of colour!) look like horseshoes to me. 

Easy round to work with 'just enough' interest to keep me going!!!  Looking at the picture - slightly to the left of the centre at the top you can see that the 'horshoes' are not very stable!!!!  Well a lot of that is to do with the way I flung it onto the scanner!!!!

Come fly with me!!!

I'm SOOOOO excited. 

My lessons have been accepted for Tat Days in September!! I'm going over the pond to join my friends old and hopefully new on the weekend I love the most. Palmetto Tat Days. Here's the link to their web site.  This year I've got to put on my bravest face and travel alone.  Sally isn't coming due to other commitments - I'm sorry to say.  I know she'll be sad that she'll miss the fun.  

I applied back in January or February (really can't remember) as soon as they asked for teachers as I'd secretly been discussing this with BC3.  I NEVER, EVER presume I'm going to get a place there as they might not like what I offer - or me either!!!  I always work on several patterns to give them more choice and thankfully they liked what I sent in!!!

This now means that I have a few patterns which didn't fit their constant search to offer a wide variety of techniques and fun things.  Those will be going up onto my pattern pages over the next few weeks - if I remember!!!!

Just wanted to show you the final green t-shirt finished.  

Green t-shirt

What I didn't tell you was that when I bought the yellow t-shirt for the eye, heart, T, A, T, I also bought two more as they were such lovely fabric AND cheap. You've got to realise this about this OG - I'm as 'cheap as chips' as the saying goes!!!!  Let me point out - that's English chips and NOT American ones!!!  There's a vast difference between the two!!!

If you look at the top picture you'll see that the garment has a sweet sort of edging already so I didn't want to cover that.  The first 'row' is simple split rings joined on one side (the variegated side) with a vsp.  I then went back along one side with a lock chain which lock joined into the vsp's.  Simple to make.

For the plain thread I used a 'somewhere around 50' cotton thread that I have in my stash. For the other thread I used a Perfect Quilter doubled.

IF I remember I'll show you the completed t-shirt which will hopefully have the same trim at the bottom of the sleeves too.

Mystery changes colour

So, I got bored after the purple and I worked the next two parts in two greens HWT'd together. 

This was a nice easy relaxing couple of rounds and thoroughly enjoyable.

Next time I add to this mystery I think you'll find it quite different.  I'm not saying anymore so just 'watch this space'.  Not the space between my ears but the space on this page!!!!

Eye love to tat

I actually made a start on sewing the 'bits' onto the t-shirt over the weekend but also had to undo and reposition twice. The eye was originally too high up and the two too!!! Then this picture shows the two re-sewn again but this time the '2' is crooked so I've got to take it off and do it again.

I (thankfully) abandoned the idea at the last minute of using fusible web stuff to hold the pieces in place before sewing - think of the pickle I'd have got into trying to get the 'stickiness' off when I wanted to re-sew!!!!

I also did this eye a little differently - not quite the same as the pattern. This is because in the pattern I used long picots which were cut. When I sewed the eye onto the last t-shirt it looked wonderful but each lash had to be sewn down in several places. That wasn't too bad as I've got a lot of patience.  BUT after many washes the lashes looked - well, manky.  This time I didn't do long picots - just ordinary chains so the lashes are sewn on with a black thread afterwards on this t-shirt. I'm sure this will wash better and keep it's 'good looks'!!!!

More on the mystery!!

First of all I must say Happy Birthday, Bill.  Bill?  Well more commonly known as William Shakespeare.  Well I really ought to acknowledge the old guy as he was born near me and spent a lot of time getting into trouble around this area.  Does that sound familiar? I swear, though, that trouble finds me without having to look for it.

Now this next stage in the mystery may look exactly the same as the last time I showed it to you. Well, must admit I thought I'd got into a muddle when I looked at my files!!!

BUT if you look closely there is a row around the whole piece now. I think I found a small mistake either in the last part or this so had to 'wing it' round the ends!!!! Made BC3 work hard on getting it right!!!

I'm still pleased with it but feel that if there's anymore to be done then another colour will have to come into play!!! It's getting boring now - colour wise!

Finally all components are finished!

Everything is sorted and ready for the t-shirt which is now found, bought and home!!!! 

Yellow is the colour I chose in the end and yesterday I pinned all the bits of tatting on so that today I hope to have time to begin the task of sewing them on!!!

In fact I may use fusible web to 'stick' them on first so that they are easier to sew and I'll then use my 'favourite' thread with which I have a love/hate relationship!!! It's the invisible kind - IF I can find it!! That's supposed to be a joke - invisible - find. Get it? Sorry!!!

Today I've uploaded the 2 and T A and linked them to the eye and the heart. Also added links to them from the eye pattern so all links SHOULD work in case anybody else wants/needs to do similar!!!

Did anybody notice the front page of my pattern site?  I've changed that slightly too.   I like to change stuff regularly - now, Nick, how about I change you?!?!?!!?  That was a joke too!!!

Part 3 of the mystery

Just showing you the next part of my mystery. Any guesses yet?

Must go 'off topic' and tell you about our trip to the vets with our cat last week. Catching Tilly is always a problem and we had the usual 'catch me if you can' event landing up under the bed in the back bedroom.

Going to the vet is something we ALWAYS dread. There is on street parking nearby but you have to (a) find a space and (b) pay to park in it. The vet's do have their own car park but it's a nightmare. 

First you have to negotiate an archway which is just a tad wider than the car. Once through there you have a small courtyard with a right hand turn up a steep ramp to a space where about six cars can park. Meet anybody on the way in or out and you've got major problems. So between us there's always a 'discussion' as to who should drive there. It's only about five minutes drive and twenty minutes walking. We've walked in the past but carrying a 'cross' cat in a carrier is hard work with frequent rest stops.

This year we both had the same BRILLIANT idea. Why not use Nick's mobility scooter? So, that's what we did. I walked as usual and Tilly's carrier just fitted on the foot well under his feet. 

When we told the staff at the vets how we'd avoided the car park issues they said they'd never had a patient arrive like that before!!! Tilly? Well she was not impressed with her annual visit as usual but we now know that this is the way she'll be travelling in future!!!

Next part of the mystery

Yesterday I decided to add a bit more to the puzzle that I set you here.

This may help you to solve my mystery adventure. There again it may not help at all!!!

Somebody somewhere in Tat Land must recognise it soon!!!

Meantime I'm pleased to report that I've found a t-shirt and will hopefully be adding my bits and pieces to it over the weekend.  I still know where they are too which is pretty amazing!!!!

T A T

OK so here are the rest of the 'bits' for the new t-shirt!!! 

Thanks to Maureen commenting on yesterday's post I've also managed to find a picture of the original t-shirt which was/is on my blog.  

The real one is now found in a crumpled heap by the side of my chair - UNDER a load of other 'stuff'!!!! So, here's a link to it!!!

I'm going to make a really determined effort over the next few days to source a t-shirt to sew all these bits onto. I know what'll happen, though - by then I'll have lost my eye, 2 and TAT!!!! First place to look will be under the scanner!!

2

That's the title of this blog post!!! Just '2'!!!

Here it is the number 2 for my yet to be sourced t-shirt!!!

You will notice that I'm using lots and lots of different colours. The reason is simple - I have no idea what colour t-shirt I really want. Oh, except that it won't be blue as the last one with the slogan on was blue. Let me see if I can find a picture of the old t-shirt. No, not to be found on the computer anywhere.

Let me see if I can FIND the old tshirt to take a picture of it.

Heart

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.  Distracted from yesterday's project already!! 

Having told you about the tshirt idea on Friday - (here) I thought I'd do the heart ready for when I got the 'right' tshirt to sew them on. So, here's the heart. 

The pattern is this one - only cause I knew it was the right size to go with the eye!!!

Next I'll have to work on the 2, T and A but being a dozy old moo I didn't write them down last time I made them for the old tshirt so I'll have to start all over again!!!!

The start of another tatting adventure

This is going to be my relaxation project for a while. Probably for a few weeks as I'll always continue to have 'other things' on the go too.

Now, I'm NOT going to tell you what it is or where it comes from.  I'm going to challenge you all to tell me which pattern it is.  There may well be a prize at the end - something I've made probably OR a tatting leaflet or more.  We'll see.  The pattern does have a name, by the way and it isn't my design!!! 

I will tell you two things about it:-

1. It's going to be large.

2. It's going to be made with HWT - hand wound thread.

The plain colours of this project are reels of quilting thread that I found in a sewing shop in Cincinnati more years ago than I dare remember (see pictures below)!!!  The family was shopping in Krogers (think it was that store) when I sneaked off to the shop nearby.  Two or so years later on a return visit to Cincinnati I managed to sneak back there for more colours!!!  I did manage to sneak in the King Tut with the plain pink for this part!

Talk about value for money - doubt these reels will ever run out and I've used them loads of times for HWT.

Updated

Just a quick post today to let you know that I've updated the eye pattern which can be found here.

The reason for doing it right now is because I 'need' to make another one for a new tshirt/top I hope to buy!!! There will be an eye, a heart, a 2 and the letters T A T.  I found a few mistakes in the original and also needed to redraw all the pictures as they'd been done on a PC and I now use a Mac.  Then I decided to notate it for front/backside working too.  A simple job turned into a 'not so simple' one!!!

The tshirt I originally did the pattern for in 2006 is now being retired to the charity shop as my body seems to have outgrown it. OR, as I'd rather believe - it's shrunk in the wash. Cough, cough, splutter, splutter!!

Another task finished

Must be old age but I'm beginning to finish things I've started and not that long ago either!!! I think a health scare last week focussed the aged brain into getting my computer and tatting corner tidied up!!!  Won't last long now the scare's sorted so don't panic - I'm not leaving you all yet, I hope!!!  As I said to Nick - gotta stick around longer just to annoy people and I included him too!!!

So, here it is - the square motif finished in all it's 'glory'. A reminder picture is below although I know you've seen it before!!!!

Now this pattern isn't for the faint hearted.  I've been on Facebook for a long time now and have realised that people nowadays want fast, easy projects to do.  That's fine but it won't progress our craft and that's what I try to do.  Why?  Well if it's a bit more interesting than rings and chains then I'm hoping that people will want to try more challenges.

Well, whatever - it keeps me amused to try new 'stuff'.

Ah, but wait til you see what I'm going to do next - you may want me to eat my computer!!!!  A few years ago it would've been my hat.  Not sure which I'd prefer to eat!!!

Yesterday

Last week I was asked if I could possibly help a local WI group as their speaker for the meeting had been taken ill and couldn't manage to do her stint. 

Interestingly the chairperson is a lass I taught to tat about 400 years ago (well you can take a nought off the end of that!) so I was very happy to say I'd step in. Well that meant a grand rummage and sort through the two large boxes and the suitcase of tatting (all full to the brim!) to find out what I could take to show.

It's some years since I did the 'talk circuit' so I was a bit nervous. I started off explaining a little of the history and showing the knot itself using cord and a Tatsy shuttle. Then I spoke about how I'd stumbled on tatting via my gran and the time just went so quickly that I was surprised when the chairperson started to fidget as if I should shut up. So, I did shut up - after few more minutes!!! 

The highlight for me was when one of the members came up to me at the end and said that she didn't know who had been booked originally to give the talk but that she was very glad that she couldn't come and that I did!!!! RESULT - one VERY happy OG and BC3 wandered their way home for several LARGE cups of tea!!!

Now, I'm wondering how many other groups in the locality would like to be inundated with knotted thread for a couple of hours?!?!?!?