Back to the pouch problem

Well I decided that I really needed to write this pouch pattern down in words and pictures for myself.  Obviously this isn't my pattern so I won't be publishing it in another format even though it's probably OK to do so. 

The adventure started with the pictures shown below (and trying to follow the video) and as I was putting such a lot of effort into it I decided that I'd 'involve' the velcro idea too.  

Now I have a 'thing' about velcro showing on the outside of a finished item so where to put the second velcro so that it wouldn't show when the pouch was closed was a BIG problem!!!  Poor BC3 took ages puzzling it all out. 

Here are the pictures that I took as I was making it.

Another little basket

This time one in cream.  I'm really going to have to give some of these away soon as they're taking up space.  I'll be looking for 'victims' so be warned!!!!  

I'm sure somebody will like them but I may have to resort to stopping people in the street and foisting them onto them!!  They keep me happy making them and that's all that counts!

A better looking visor?

I'm taking you on another trip down 'memory lane' but it's not that far to go this time!!!  

Remember what I thought was the ugliest visor ever seen?  Here it is.

Well - it was!!!!  Below is the new rendition of it.  I wanted something in more wintry colours and this fabric just happened to be in my stash.  It looks a big wrinkly on the band part but it isn't as bad as it looks on the photos.  Anyway, I'm a happy soul now that the ugly has gone!!!!

A new little pouch

Do you remember my Monday moan from last week about video patterns?  If not then here's the link.  

I really struggled to make this little pouch but got there in the end!!!  

I did this one exactly as the pattern showed but with one difference.  I used an old fashioned press stud to close it.  Here's the pattern I'm talking about.

Now I don't own one of those popper tools anymore as I could never get on with it.  I've decided that the next pouch I make will NOT have a press stud but velcro instead.  

Of course this will add to the problem so BC3 is going to have to have his thinking cap on for the next one!

A lavender basket.

Now after the success of the knitting basket which you can see here I decided to use some more of my finer threads to make a smaller ‘trinket’ basket.  

What I love about these is that you can make the base (which is a pretty standard ‘pattern’) and progress it until it’s the size you want.  Then you just carry on without increasing.

It’s ideal for BC3 when he’s in an ‘I can’t be bothered’ mood!!  

Another project

I wandered into an outdoor shop a week or so ago as I was looking for a visor to protect my eyes.  This is the only one they had and I think it’s probably the ugliest one I’ve ever seen.

It had one good thing going for it - it was cheap as nobody wanted it.  

I took it to the till and said to the young lady - ‘this is the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen’!  She was surprised I was buying it but I assured her that it wouldn’t look like this in a few days!!!!

Time to get BC3 out for a bit of sewing, I think!

Monday moan

OK so today I’m going to be quite controversial and I know that a lot of you will totally disagree with me. 

I’m not talking about tatting videos but they do come under the same moan really.

My lovely friend Sandra sent me a link to a video on how to make a pouch - a sewing one.  I’ll show you another day.  Now this is ONLY on a video.  There are no written instructions.  No sound except music and not a lot of text either.

I am afraid that I’m of the ‘old school’ and I need written ‘destructions’.  Videos are fine for a technique but to do a pattern takes a lot more skill from the presenter.  With a video I miss being able to make my own notes on the pdf as I go along so poor old BC3 has to keep rewinding all the time.  GIMME proper written patterns with diagrams/pictures any day.  This constantly rewinding drives me MAD!!!  I suppose being an OG (old git) has got a lot to do with my problems but honestly ……..

I also am wondering if videos (now talking tatting) won’t make people ‘lazy’ and finally unable to read a written pattern.

Back off my soapbox and back to the wretched video.  Here’s a picture to cheer you up!

A new knitting basket

I hate to throw things away and after taking apart the waistcoat which I fell out with I had the two balls of variegated 4 ply yarn to ‘deal with’. 

The balls of plain purple and green are becoming a scarf which you can see here.

So as I needed another means of containing the yarn while I’m using it I crocheted a ‘basket’. I’ve used the two balls of yarn together to give it some ‘body’ and it seems to have worked.

Finished duffle bag

I did enjoy this challenge and the best thing about it is that I haven’t ‘damaged’ the original bag at all and could easily ‘restore’ it in the future. This is what it looked like originally (second picture). 

Now I’ve got a bag, which I’ve always enjoyed using, but which is a bit ‘brighter’ and in which I can put my cup which I take with me when I go ‘walkabout’ in case I ‘need’ a coffee while I’m out!!!!  Also I can put my hats inside when I go indoors without losing them!  

If you look at the last picture and the one above it you’ll see I’ve lined the bag and that I’ve used the original metal eyelets as they’re very well reinforced.

Mimi’s snowflake

It’s always a delight and a surprise to see that people actually use my patterns and none more so than a well known lady in Tat Land. Mimi Dillman who is a fantastic teacher of the cluny technique in tatting. How do I know that? Simple - I’ve been in two of her classes over the years.  Here’s Mimi’s page which is WELL worth a visit.

She wrote the other day to show me the Scintillating Snowflake she’d made and she did comment that her bugle beads weren’t ‘quite’ long enough so she’d added a seed bead to the ends of them. 

 Now this made me realise that when I did the other pattern using this technique, which you can find here, I did put the extra bit in about using 4 seed beads instead of the bugles. When I get the time (and inclination) I’ll add that to the Scintillating Snowflake pattern too.

More progress on the Coats doily

Now back in the dark ages (well, not quite!) I started on this doily and you can see the progress I’d made just over a month ago.

Well I finished the next round of motifs and have just started on the next round. The end is in sight but it won’t be happening any time soon as I’ve been distracted by ‘other things’!!!  Just tracked progress back to the start of this project and it was on the 7th March so it’s going pretty well - for an old lady with just a BC3!!!

Another hat

Well this one was a BARGAIN from a charity shop.  Of course it 'had' to be decorated, didn't it?

I actually sprayed both hats with Scotchguard - not to make them waterproof but to try and keep them from not getting 'quite' so dirty 'quite' so quickly.  I wonder if that will work?

The large motifs are the new one I put on my pattern site last week and the butterflies are the SCMR one also on my site - somewhere!!!  

Zigzag finished

Finally I got my act together to finish off the web page for this amazing doily.  Many thanks to Bev for all her help with it as without her it would never have got put down on 'paper'.  

I started working on it before Christmas and here's the previous one done in size 20.

I just absolutely LOVE this pattern.  This yellow version is done in a size 40 thread and measures 15” in diameter.

There are split chains but no split rings (are you reading this, Diane?!?!) and the split chains could be avoided too.  

Excuse the 'wobbly' look to the picture but I took it out on the grass which is by no means totally flat!!!

Here's the link to the pattern.

Patchwork project

The start of another idea.  

Pamela in Ireland gave me this duffle bag (second picture) waaaay back in time.  I used it a lot and it’s a really sturdy bag.  I re-found it recently lurking underneath other odds and ends and decided that it was waaaaay too good to be sent to a charity shop and even more waaaaaaaaaaay too good to be thrown away..

As our poor old planet is suffering from global warming and as I have leftover fabric from the patchwork jacket which is here I decided that I should cover the bag with the leftovers from the jacket!!!

Each square is 2” and I need a lot of those to cover it.  

I now ‘need’ a bag when I go places where I need to ‘park’ the new hats and that’s a ‘problem’.  I need something to put the hats in that I can hang on the back of a chair - or whatever.  

If you can’t follow my ‘reasoning’ then don’t worry.  My brain works in a strange way!!!

A hat!!!

As I’m getting old.  Yes, old.  I’ve realised (and been told!) that I need to take certain ‘actions’ like wearing a hat to protect myself from ‘summat up there’.  

So, I bought this hat.  It is a nice hat (even though I’m not a ‘hat person’) but it was boring.  Plain and boring.  So I’ve decorated it with a couple of seahorses.  That’s a ‘selfie’ and I apologise for the ‘grim’ expression on an otherwise pretty old and boring face!

A quickie today

Just wondering if there are anymore dragons to come in from the TIAS? 

It’s a month since the last one arrived and that was number 85!!!

When I’m sure there are no more to arrive I’ll put the whole pattern on my pattern pages.

New snowflake motif

I put a teaser of this pattern on Facebook last week.  Now I have added it to my pattern pages.

This uses a technique that I came up with a while ago and used on this design and this one.

What I like about this new one is that it’s quick to make and is ‘just the right’ size to make as giveaways for Christmas.  I’ll confess - I’ve made loads of them already!!!  

Here’s the link to the pattern.

Finished blanket

This is the blanket I started waaaaay back to use up my stash of yarn.  It’s a good sized knee blanket as opposed to one for the bed.  Why?  Well I didn’t run out of yarn (reduced it by half) but I got bored.  Just couldn’t face another 11 knitted squares (at least) to make it bigger.  So I put a crochet edge around it and ‘called it a day’!!  

This will get donated to a charity - just got to find one that wants it.

For those who’ve not seen this before here’s the link to the pattern which I used and which meant no sewing the squares together at the end!  Win, win for me!

Monday moan

My moan today is about myself.  Well I’m allowed to do that and get away with it!!!

I use the cloud a LOT.  I keep anything I’m working on up in the cloud then sometimes I get worried that I might lose it so download it onto my main computer as a ‘just in case’ thing.  I must’ve done this a long time ago with the Square in a Square pattern which I added to my website and blogged about a month ago.  The blog post is here.

This meant that when I came to finish it off and upload it to the pattern pages I’d inadvertently put up the WIP version.  I missed downloading the one I’d been working on from the cloud!!  I only found out because somebody wrote to me asking for help with it.  I can’t believe I could be such a dumbie.  I think it goes to prove that either people were afraid to say that the pattern didn’t have any diagrams or that nobody wanted it (except the one lady) anyway. 

I’ve put my stoooooopid mistake right now and the right version of the pattern is here.

Zig Zag doily - getting a move on!

Well I can get a move on at times and  as I've said before - I really enjoy making this doily.  It'll eventually find it's way into the box of finished tatting!!!!

Cushion

I'd forgotten to show you the finished cushion.  So, here it is.  

I managed to put 'window frames' round each square just to bring out the differences in the colours.  There's also a dark strip round the outside too.  The back (last picture) is reasonably 'plain' in a wonky sort of way.

Can you spot the added bits of 'tit and tat'?  Oh, I mean tatting?

Zig Zag doily

Do you remember this project?  

It's the translation of a Dutch doily which I absolutely love.  I think the pattern is almost ready to 'go' onto my web site but I do want to check it through once more.

Bev has done a terrific job test tatting it too and made lots of really good suggestions.

So I've started another but in yellow and size 40 thread.  I had to search through my stash to find two balls of size 40 but this is what I decided on.  As the design is so interesting and as there are very few cuts and ties during the whole pattern I decided to make it in just one colour again.  I'd like to see it in a variegated thread but I think you'd lose the beauty of the flow.  

Purse to match

Just occasionally I find I need a little coin purse.  I do have a little leather one but the zip 'catches' on the currency notes (£5.00, £10.00 etc).

So I decided to make a crochet one (same idea as yesterday's post) which I've also lined. 

This zip is a finer one and doesn't 'catch' on the notes.  Can you see I've lined this one too.  

It must be six or more years ago when I started using my phone to pay for everything and the only time I really need cash is when I'm dealing with people who can't accept digital payments.  This should solve those times (Friday market and visiting sole owner shops) - unless, of course, I forget to put it in my pocket before I leave home!!!

Ear pods

I've had these little ear pods for a few years now and wear them a LOT.  Most of the time when I'm out walking. 

I've carried them around in their little container which also charges them when I get home.  The little container is quite bulky in my trouser pockets so I decided they needed a new home.  This is a simple Amigurumi type of crochet 'thingy' with a very small zip in.  I can now hook it onto my trouser belt and it's easier to put them in when I go into a shop.  

Genius, eh?  Well, no, not genius but a pretty good idea, I think.

Continuing from last Monday's blog post

Last week I was talking about the posting the shuttle and an extra half double to make the work neater - see this post.

I did mention that some people reckon that it makes it easier to open the ring if you post the shuttle but I don't understand this as Ive never tried opening a ring from it's base.

So today I'm mainly trying to ensure that people who make mistakes in a ring (which is something I do regularly) don't panic!!!  

Forget trying to open from the base (shuttle posted or not) and go for the last picot in the ring.  There aren't many rings that don't have the 'odd' picot in them whether large or a vsp.  

Oh, heck, here's a new page I've done explaining it better - I hope!!!!

Cyril's Swans

Here in Stratford we have swans. Not as many as we used to have as we sadly had a bout of Avian flu over the winter but we still have half of them left and hopefully the Spring will see some signs of them breeding in earnest! 

Cyril is our unofficial (I think) swan person. He's got a dedicated swan bike which was recently donated to him and he is called out at all hours to rescue swans who have got tied up in fishermen's lines, got ill or, sadly, died. He does an amazing job and is well thought of by all us locals. 

This is the reason I'm calling these guys 'Cyril's Swans'. I've made him a couple to sew onto his jacket or whatever he wants. We met a few weeks ago outside the library and he was really chuffed with them. 

I expect you'd like the pattern, wouldn't you? Well it's on my free pattern page or via a the direct link here.

Coats doily again

Well I also found time to get the border of the Coats doily done and I must say that I'm pretty pleased with it. 

I have oodles of this thread in size 40 so I will continue on my merry way. It's going to be my 'take with me' project when I go to the craft groups so it will be a long time in the making!!! 

I'll add another picture of the completed doily which will now become a cloth just so you can feast your eyes on what it will look like - one day!!!

Monday thoughts - not moans

Yes it's that time of the week again!!!

This time it’s not a moan but more a matter of talking to myself about a couple of ‘techniques’. Well I think they’re more ‘suggestions’ than techniques as such. 

The two which I find most amusing is ‘posting the shuttle through the ring and/or doing an extra half double before closing’. Now this is meant to make the base of the ring lie better and to make it easier to open the ring if needed. 

When I first heard about this idea I adopted it. In fact I used it for several months until I decided that it was a pain in the ‘you know where’ and which also slowed me down. Anything which means letting go of the shuttle slows the tatter down and this certainly slowed me. 

So, I rang up BC3 (for those who don’t know BC3 - he’s the only brain cell I’ve got left and is a good hardworking soul) to ask him to check it out. 

It dawned on me that the only reason that the rings might look better is because I was being more careful when closing them after 'posting' the shuttle and that if I went back to my old ways and closed carefully I’d probably get the same result. So back I went to my original method and it was true - when I closed more carefully (without the posting and/or extra half double) the rings did look better. It was also the same with doing the extra half double. 

Then I questioned myself and realised that I didn’t want ‘perfect’ tatting (whatever that is!) but wanted to enjoy the craft so I went back to my ‘good old ways’ and life is good!!!

Four squares make a

Cushion!!!

Well a long way to go yet. I forgot to take a picture of 'just' the pink one!!! 

I'm going to put these together with a frame around each block and the whole thing so just have to wait for another warmer day - or two. 

I only sew when the weather's warm enough for me to do it in the conservatory and that's not happened a lot lately - the warm weather, I mean.