Two old birds!!!

The next set of doodles to hit the web page are these two guys.  I wonder how they'd get on together in 'real life', eh?

It always amazes me how the 'odd' ds here and there can either make or break a pattern/design.  I can't tell you how long it takes to make the smallest things - far longer than the big designs if you were to analyse it.

Being a 'bear of little brain' when it comes to anything to do with numbers then I'm glad I can't analyse!!!  Suffice to say that I spend a lot more time fiddling with tatting than doing anything else in my life - like for instance, housework!!!!!

Nearly forgot to give you the link to these two!!!  

Popular Crafts 1993

Well I honestly didn't realise that this was SOOO long ago 1993.  

Well I'll be jiggered.  When I did these earrings for this magazine I was working totally on my own (no internet) which goes to prove that great minds think alike as this design has been done numerous times before me and since.  Least I'm pretty sure it must've been done before me!!!  Surely?  

I know I had a lot of tatting books even back then but I also know that I was aware of copyright laws and would never have used a design out of an already published book.  So, BC 3 must've been born quite a time before this was published!!  Why?  Well because I'd already made numerous earrings before this!!!

I remember making lots and lots of these trees for friends and others around that time.  

An egg

No, I haven't laid one but some people may call me an old duck or even an old hen!!!!  

My sister (who's blog is here) is into all Christian customs and that includes Easter (whenever it is!) and so she started dropping subtle hints about it coming up soon.  An egg just might keep her busy if I designed one.  She did a stonking great little egg herself last year which is here so I've no idea why she wanted another!!!  

Anyway, I dusted off BC 3 and off I went.  I was left with approximately six really, really naff eggs before we were both happy with the shape.  I googled 'eggs' looking for a good outline image but there were so many and they all slightly differed.  I guess everybody has a different idea of what an egg shape is!!!!  Well, except for the mother 'whatever' who laid it!!!!

Anyway, here it is in all it's 'eggness'!!!

Octopus!

First of all a reminder that the shuttles and hooks will be in my Etsy shop here at 20.00 GMT this evening.  I've set an alarm to remind me!!!!

Beware - there's an octopus about.  This is one of the doodles that was on the Palmetto Tat Days agenda last year.  Here he is!!

I'm desperately trying to get all the C @ * P off my computer and onto the pattern pages but it takes ages to do each one so please bear with me.

I'm currently working on the doodles but meanwhile playing with an Easter pattern too - in my spare time!!!  In fact the Easter egg may well be ready by tomorrow - if life doesn't get in the way!!!!

New lock chain block tatted motif.

I must apologise for the delay (yet again!) on releasing this pattern.  Don't know why it is but it seems to take me ages to remember to do the links and uploads etc.  There's an awful lot on this computer which is ready go go 'live' and I'm working on that at the moment.  All the remaining patterns (doodles etc) which I taught last year at Tat Days.  Don't worry - they'll be 'there' soon.

OK - I'm done with this!  Here's the link.

A cedar shuttle

This is the cedar shuttle I spoke about yesterday.  It's a tad smaller than the others that 'im in the garage has made and thinner too.  It's really lovely.  Sadly there's only one this time.

Don't forget I still have two bobbin holders left too from last time.  They're already listed.  

I was hoping to make more of the new season's bags before I listed the shuttles but it's been SOOOOOO cold that the brass monkey has left the UK!!!!!!

New shuttles and hooks

I spent ages getting a new lot of shuttles and hooks with hats on into the shop yesterday.  They will be released on Thursday 14th at 20.00 GMT in my Etsy shop which is here.  This time some of the shuttles have been oiled with a Danish oil.  When 'im in the garage came round with them all on Friday he told me that they were oiled and later thoroughly rubbed to remove the excess.  I'm totally in love with them.

3 COCOBOLA ROSEWOOD $33.60 each

3 PURPLEHEART $32.70 each

1 EBONY $36.25

2 ZEBRANO $32.70 each

3 OREGAN MYRTLE $28.00 each

3 MAHONIA $33.60 each

2 AMERICAN BLACK WALNUT $28.00 each

3 CHERRY $28.00 each

2 APPLE $28.00 each

3 PEAR $28.00 each

1 LABURNAM $28.00

2 SEQUOIA $28.00 each

2 MAHOGANY $28.00 each

2 ROSEWOOD $28.00 each

3 EUCALYPTUS $28.00 each

Then there are the hooks.  These vary too with many different woods.  Some are 0.4mm and some are 0.5mm.   They now have the plastic caps which came with the original hooks.  'Im in the garage said that the wooden ones took him far too long to make and he felt his time was better spent making more shuttles!!!  I agree.

18 Hooks with plastic caps will be available at $10.00 each.

Oh, there's one gorgeous post shuttle but I'll tell you about that tomorrow!!!

More netting

Just to prove that this craft can be useful I wanted to show you one of the four windows I've hung netting in in our house.

Our house is a terraced one and the front 'garden' is roughly the size of a large postage stamp!!!  This means that people walk past close to our windows all the time.  I HATE net curtains with a passion but we do need some privacy.  I made some filet crochet curtains which have been up now for years and cover the main windows but got fed up with making those so resorted to my netting needles and made these. 

I've put both pictures up for you to have a giggle at the first one.  I went outside to take the picture looking back into our room.  You can see the houses opposite and the old git in the reflection!!!

Ready for consumption!!!

Finally I've got the page finished which has the pattern with the lock chain block tatting in the centre.  This was my first time using that technique and the pattern is a conversion of the snowflake on a ring (number 3) which is here.

Also on the page is the version with a large bead in the centre - I used a shell bead but any would work.  The page is now finished and up on my page here.  

Just to remind you - this is what it looks like!!!

Netting needles

Before I start today I would like to tell you that I've slowly started sewing again!!!  The weather has been a bit warmer on a few days so I've been able to get in the conservatory.  New fabrics courtesy of Miranda (many thanks) have broken my vow not to make anymore bags.  I'm easily led astray!!!!  Here's the link.

OK, so here are the netting needles I own.

Just to prove (to myself more than anybody else) that I did do a bit of combining netting with tatting in the past here is a picture of a piece that I did for a little booklet produced by Margaret Hamer and Kathleen Waller.  Interestingly I learnt bobbin lace from Margaret - via snail mail to help her write the first  of a similar series of booklets she produced.

Can you see the picture at the bottom?  One is the net made into a square mesh and then stretched onto a frame and embroidered on and the other has a tatted centre with netting round it.  That was a nightmare to do as the picots on the tatting had to be just the right size to take the knots of the round of netting.  When I look back I believe I had more brain cells than I do now!!!!

New technique page

Well I did it.  I got it done.  It's finished.  

Here's the link to the finished technique page for Lock Chain Block Tatting.

I hope you enjoy doing this as much as I did.  At the top of the page is a sneak preview of a pattern which I've been working on.  Well, actually, I've got two that need the pages finished off.  Just need to give brain cell 3 a kick up the 'you know what'!!!!

I've also listed some more Wrap It, Flip It and Mark It bookmarks in my Etsy shop.  This time they are seahorses!!!

Finally please check out the TIAS blog where you'll see number 107 from Mary Jo.  It's worth reading the link I've put on this post too.

Playing and messing around

Playing with the same pattern again.  I'm still trying to do alternative centres to the rings in the original.

Messing with block tatting with a difference too.  Can you see what I've done?

Instead of regular block tatting I'm using lock chains!!!!  Now this is MY technique and nobody's to use it and IF they do they've GOT to mention my name and ask permission yada, yada, yada.

Just kidding!!  Honest.  TEASING!!!!!  Well you know I don't take this craft or anything very seriously - specially myself!!!

I'm working on the technique page for this type of block tatting and will have it completed for tomorrow - promise!!!!!  It took a bit of fiddling to work out the best way to do it but I think I got there in the end.  All I've got to do today is work out a conversion so any block tatting can be changed to lock chain block tatting.

I've also got two new designs bubbling away using this technique.

Threads from Jess

Well after an extremely serious word with brain cell 3 just after Christmas we both decided that I'd got more than enough threads to keep me going for a good many years.  

Then along came Jess.  I met Jess and her dear little daughter Livie last September at Tat Days and was taken aback by the colours of threads on her table which she was selling.  Mind, Karey's was pretty darn cool and also Yarnplayers and all managed to leave a dent in my dollars!!!!  So after this serious word with BC 3 we both settled down and tatted and didn't look at anymore threads.

That is until Jess ran a 'free shipping' in her Etsy shop.  The stipulation was that if you lived overseas you should buy more than one skein.  Nothing but absolutely nothing was said about ordering four.  BUT once we both (BC 3 and myself) got into the shop that was what happened.  Here they are.

Left to right - Kaleidoscope, Carnival, Mindango Gum and Purple Pansy.

Not tatting but netting.

When I was in my 20's or thereabouts my gran (who I'd learnt to tat with as she was learning too) gave me a bundle of netting needles and meshes which somebody had passed on to her.  I took it upon myself to find out what they were and how to use them.  I had a very good trip to the local library who searched down in their cellars and found me one book with instructions on  how to do the craft and so I taught myself netting.  I went on to accomplish filet too which is another story.

So roll on a few more years and I picked up The Lady magazine in a dentist waiting room (or it may have been the doctors as I had young kids then) and read an article on bobbin lace in there.  I'll never know why but I jotted down the address of the magazine and wrote and suggested they ran an article on netting.  They wrote back and said that if I wrote one then they'd look at it and maybe publish it.  Panic set in.  I had no idea how to type so borrowed an ancient typewriter and set off to use it!!!  Well I daren't tell you how long it took me to write it all down.  Weeks and weeks and weeks of laborious one fingered typing!!!!  

I was gobsmacked when they wrote and accepted it and I waited for about two years for it to be published.  You'll see that the date on it is 1973 so I was 30 years old and would've written it at the age of 28ish.

They paid me.  I can't remember how much it was but it was such a small amount for all the effort I put in that I really didn't think it was worth it but I was SOOOO proud.  You'll see that it's published under my married name P J Dunn which I ditched as soon as the M R Dunn part of the deal left!!!!  Why be Dunn when you're really an Eborall?!?!!?

Meet Spud!

This is my new pet.  Well, actually it's my daughter's and I haven't met him yet.  Knowing that they were getting a puppy I decided to go ahead and tackle a doggy design.

Over the years I've been asked time and time again for doggy patterns but have always not quite 'got there'.  The main problem was that they were all different breeds or mutts.  We've only ever had mutts in the family and as you all know all dogs differ a lot.  It was too hard to decide on what breed of dog to do so I eventually decided on a puppy as they all look 'much the same' when they're little.

So, Spud was born.  

Want to meet him?  He's here.  

Snowflake with LOTS of beads in centre

No, this isn't the new and exciting idea - this one is NOT going ANYWHERE!!!!  I wasn't happy with this at all and the notation I did for it has been thrown out of the window!!!!  Well, not quite but it certainly got deleted!!!!!

Another attempt will be tried out over the next few days.

Kathy woke up brain cell 3

In the comments section of the blog two days ago Kathy said:-

"A couple of words stood out to me: 'magazine' and 'doodad'. Did the magazine do an interview also, in addition to printing your pattern? And apparently you were using doodads back in 2000!"

Well that prompted another trip up into the loft to look for the patterns I did back then for a magazine here in the UK.  No interviews and no mention of my name either!!! 

All I really remember is the craft lass rang me up and asked for 'tatted snowflakes', please.  I'd done things for them before which I will show you another day.  Well I suppose I've always had a rather unusual way of looking at tatting so I decided to do something that nobody I knew of round then had done before. These were done in 1999 at the beginning of my 'four bad years' so this was a real morale booster back then.

In those 'good old days' there was a lady who had a tiny, tiny wardrobe sized outlet in one of the antiques arcades in town. In fact many times you had to wait outside for the only customer in there to come out so you could squeeze in!!!! 

I found some (now called doodads) metal findings in there and promptly set about doing four designs for the magazine. Three were published as you can see below.  Unfortunately they took over a year to be put in there and as these sorts of metal findings were so hard to get the lass in the arcade had run out of one sort!!! That's the reason that one of the snowflakes below doesn't have a doodad!!!!  I wonder why they didn't use the other one?  I'll never know now.

So, for those who missed previous posts here are the links to the patterns that came about because of this.  First the altered original here on rings and currently I'm working on updating this one - which wasn't published!!!!

Snowflake with big bead in centre

First of all - please take a moment to read today's TIAS blog for an explanation of the failings of brain cell three!!!!  I have also amended yesterday's file to give thread quantities.  Must've had a bad few days with the aged brain!!!!

Now I'm playing with another of the old patterns - this one.  I've put a bead in the centre just like I did with the old one.  I'm off into the loft later to see if I can find the magazines that had the originals in - watch this space!!!

I'm pretty pleased with this idea but I want to try something new and exciting out too.  Well, it might not be new but it's certainly exciting!!!  Watch this space!!!

Last of my playtime!!!

Another 'before I start rambling' note.  Yesterday we reached 99 prams - wonder who will become the magic 100th?

Finally here's another pattern completed.  

This is an update of a pattern I did round about 2000 for a magazine here in the UK.  After a few years I took the doodad out and replaced it with a cabone/curtain ring and the pattern is still lurking on my site here.

A while back I wanted to make a newer version along the same lines so that's now done and dusted too.  Here's the link for the new one.

Back to the snowflake again!

Well after the TIAS there's time to play and I'm back to this idea again!!!

I've almost sorted the revised pattern too so must get it finished and off my list of 'things to do' next week.  I love the top one here - don't the colours zing.

On the subject of the TIAS - we're nearly at the 100 mark now.  I wonder who will make number 100?  There seems to be a bit of a 'thing' about becoming 100!!!

Both small cats and Godzilla

Another 'before I start' post.  We've now got 95 prams (beginning to think we might 'beat the goats' in numbers) but I'd love you to read Katharine's comment which tickled me to bits.  More about her sense of humour below.

First I want to show you the two cats together so you can get an idea of how they could look.

I love to see what people have done with my patterns but this one came as a shock!!!!  This is the pattern - a kangaroo and joey.  Imagine my shock at seeing what Katharine has done with it.  Shock but WHAT a hoooooot.  Don't you just love people's imaginations?  This one even breathes fire!!!  Thanks for a humungous giggle, Katharine.

Small cat stretching up

Just when you thought it was safe to visit this blog - this is what happens!!!  Another feline appears.  This is part of the reason you never got the other cat until yesterday.  Not only did I have problems with tweaking that cat but this one just didn't want to be designed back then!!!

When I remembered the two patterns a week or so ago I just picked up this one and it 'happened' straight away!!!  No idea why sometimes I struggle and other times things fall off the shuttles.

Anyway - here's the companion to yesterday's cat!!!!

Small cat.

First of all - thank you to everybody for your comments and private messages about the TIAS.  There will be another next year and it will be mainly the same as before but with one or two small improvements.  Please check this link too to see the three TIAS's sent in yesterday - there's a surprise on there!!!!

I have been clearing out my computer with a confession or several to make.  

This little moggy was started and was ready to go about two years ago but I wasn't quite happy with parts of him so he got forgotten!!!!  I also wanted to make a companion too!!!!  I like animals to be 'doing something' sometimes so this little critter was 'born'.

Well finally the pattern is ready and is here.  

I've got his alter ego nearly ready to go too and just hope that I get time today to finish him off.  It's the links and uploading odds and ends which seem to take the time.  Anyway, enough rambling - happy tatting!!!!

A sort of a questionnaire!

This year has been the sixth year of the TIAS and it occurred to me the other day that I'd never asked what I could do to improve it.

I'm sure there MUST be improvements I can make so I'm taking notes now in preparation for next year's 'effort'.

I need to know things like are there too many parts to the designs?  I aim for around 10 but should there be fewer?

Is each part of the pattern released too soon or is the gap too long?

Do you feel you are obliged to send in comments and/or pictures?  I don't want this to happen although I do like to have a first and a final one from everybody just so I can see if it's worth doing another the following year.

Should there be some sort of 'signing in' to do the TIAS in future whereby those people and only those get the links?

I'm also curious as to why so many start and then roughly only half finish.  I know things like 'life' get in the way but does it mean that people give up because either they can't manage it or because (when they realise what it is) they don't want the finished item.

Any help or suggestions would be very welcome and I'd appreciate if they were sent to this email address.  lovetotat @ gmail.com.

A host of bookmarks!

Well, not quite a host - more like 7 to add to the other 3 already in there!!

Over the past ten days or so I've been making more of the Wrap It, Flip It and Mark It bookmarks for the Etsy shop.  

I've been using one of these since I first came up with the crazy idea.  Well, it seemed sort of crazy at the time but they actually work very well.  

You take the tape and fix it round the back of the book cover (this is adjustable) and then the motif can be flipped into the book to mark your place when you've finished reading.  

Here are a few of the ones I've listed.

Snowflake 2 again

Well I'm still playing with this snowflake.  I'm like a dog with a bone and can't leave it alone.  Sheesh, that rhymes!!!  

As you can see this time I've used one of the shell beads for the centre AND it fits in a ring too!!!!  So, do I feel another play session starting?  Well I had to do another - just to check the pattern out!!!!