Surprise, surprise

A BIG thank you to Judy who sent in her alien. It's never too late to be an alien on the TIAS blog!!! Here's a link to see it.

Fabric and playtime!!

Now what do you think of this fabric? Isn't it - well, ummm, errrr, bright? I was given it in a free cycle pickup and fell in love with it straightaway. 

This was at least a year ago and it was thought about, put away, brought out to 'deal with', put away again and finally a week or two ago I got it out again!!! 

Originally I was going to make a 'floaty' kimono sort of long jacket thingy for myself but realised that the fabric doesn't drape enough for that.

Also one has to consider that I'm short, dumpy (one 'could' say fat) and don't really 'do' that sort of garment. So out came BC3 and the pattern you see below.  

That's NOT what I'm aiming for but it's a start. I'm going to place the front and backs on the fabric but allowing for a cut down the centre of the front (so it will become a jacket). There will need to be allowances for it to fit over other garments and so sleeves will have to be made larger under the arm and also to compliment that - in the fronts and backs too. Lots of input from BC3 will be needed but I think it's going to be fun. 

I am much braver with this sort of project when I know I haven't had to lay out loads of money on the fabric in the first place!!! 

Right - here we go!!!

Martha's Dragon

This is another of the  test tats for Martha's new book.  I really need to do this again as I'm afraid I didn't get the wings as well as they should and ARE in the pattern.  

There's absolutely no problem with the pattern but it's my fingers and brain which were at fault.  I was trying to get it finished before bedtime and (you all know how it is) I wasn't concentrating well when it came to pressing it.  He's a really lovely tat and I'll certainly be making one for Jayne along the road.  She's from Wales and her husband is really into dragons.  

Leftover cats

Yesterday I told a lie. I apologise. I said that all the cat fabric was gone but when I was tidying up I found there were four left on tiny scraps of fabric!!!!

So I experimented with ‘half cats’ (or even less than half) and found that if I put them onto the iron on batting ‘stuff’ then used the scraps of black lining I had leftover from the box and used a very narrow zig zag stitch I could make some little ‘dangly’ cats!!! 

Nothing wasted in this house!!!!

Ta de dah!!!

Blow the trumpets and bang the drums!!!! It’s finished.

It’s not the ‘best’ piece of sewing I’ve ever done but the person it’s been given to seems pleased with it. I loved that cat fabric but it’s now ‘all gone’. 

I haven’t got any sewing planned at the moment - the table is ‘almost’ tidy so I’ll have to get BC3 thinking about the next adventure. 

I have a glorious piece of fabric that I want to make a ‘floaty’ sort of kimono or waterfall thingy (jacket?) out of but as yet I’ve not had the courage to start. I really don’t want to buy a pattern as I think it’ll be pretty straightforward. Perhaps I should just do a ‘go with the flow’ project with it? Suggestions are welcome.

Meantime the patchwork jacket is waiting for it’s embellishments!!

The cat box progress

Remember this project? Well I haven’t forgotten it but heat and a busy life got in the way for a while!!! 

This is a ‘make it up as you go along’ project and it seems to be going quite well. The box part is almost finished and these pictures show the lid being constructed. I found some iron on sort of batting stuff in my stash and had enough for the sides, bottom and lid. 

Sock it to me!!!

Off on another adventure!!! I have a ‘client’ for socks in the family, I’m delighted to say. Like gloves - I like knitting socks but this time I wanted to knit them t’other way up. Starting at the toe and going upwards. 

Now Sue has been a huge help with sending me lots of free patterns and ideas/advice and my knitting group have chipped in too. 

I bought the yarn from Hobbycraft

This was my second ‘start’ as the first one left me with a very narrow toe bit. 

Martha's kitty

This is another of the patterns in Martha’s new book.  Isn’t it so cute?  

Thanks to Martha I’m now back in designing ‘mode’ too so watch out for some more fun to come.  

The King has arrived!

Nothing to do with crafting today!!  I’m posting this because - well, just because.

I have a boring grey car like so many other people here in the UK.  I am also HOPELESS at knowing any car’s make or model and class cars as ‘posh’ or ‘just a car’.  In fact cars to me are ‘that red car’ (a rare thing) or ‘looks expensive to me’.  So years ago when I realised I had this ‘brain problem’ I decided that I needed to have something to enable me to find my own car easily.  We have on street parking and you often can’t find a spot near the house so it’s a case of ‘hunt that grey car’ when you’ve forgotten where you left it a week or more ago.  

To make sure I can find my own car I had a solar ‘jiggly’ on the dashboard - our late Queen.  Sadly last winter she got knocked flying as I was trying to de-mist the window and she became crippled beyond repair.  

She’d been given to me by some good friends round the corner and I replaced her with a snowman just because there happened to be one nearby!

They saw this and decided that I really ought to have a King in the car and very kindly bought me a King.  So Charles is now guarding my car and I’ll be able to find it again when I need it!!!  Thank you, S & S.  I really appreciate my new guardian.

Starting the second scarf

As you know I bought two balls of this yarn but this time I wanted to use another pattern.  I went on a search but couldn’t make up my mind (I’ve got an honours degree in dithering) so decided to look into crocheting one instead!!!

I found this one on Ravelry  

I need something I can do while I’m chatting.  Guess what?  I’ve still managed to make mistakes!!! 

This is growing much more quickly because it’s crocheted so I’ll soon have to find something ELSE I can do while I’m talking!!

Test tatting

Before I start I am delighted to say that Etsy removed the offending item and has contacted the seller.  

I had the very great pleasure of test tatting again for Martha Ess and her new book which should be ready shortly.  In fact I’ve got another one to try for her which I will show you another day.

It’s always a pleasure to test tat for Martha as her patterns are SO well written.  It becomes (for me) a real ‘test of a test tatter’ because the patterns rarely have mistakes in them.  I find I have to concentrate really hard which does mean that BC3 has to be wide awake!!!

Major Monday Moan

Some years ago a tatter contacted me to ask permission to teach one of my patterns and I pointed out that it was far too long for a class.  However, without any further contact with me she did take part of my pattern, repurposed it and offered that as a class.  She re-wrote it (badly in my opinion) and the organisers recognised it as part of one of my patterns so added that her pattern was ‘inspired by’ myself. 

Roll on to another occasion when I happened to be sitting in a room not far from this person and heard her complaining about ‘her’ pattern being stolen by another person on another continent who had had it published in a magazine.  Here was I within hearing distance listening to MY pattern having been stolen by a thief.  What did I do?  Well, nothing.

Roll on another few years and this person is doing it again.  This time she’s selling an item from my pattern site in her Etsy store.  I have reported this to Etsy as I have a Creative Commons licence on my site.

Why do I have this licence?  Think about it.  Many months of work are spent on making a design and I don’t see why people should then take MY hard work (which I give freely) and make money from it without even mentioning their source either.  

End of Monday moan.

A new friend and new fabric

A new lady joined us at the Friday knitting group a few weeks ago.  She fitted in straightaway but that’s really not hard as they’re a fantastic group.  They’ve helped me renew an interest in knitting and crochet with many tips (and tricks!).  

She’d mentioned she’d got some fat quarters she’d like to give me as I was talking about my new patchwork jacket.  Last Friday she gave them to me and here they are.

I wanted to say thank you and decided to offer her a microwave soup bowl cozie which she said she’d like.  I’ll show you next week - AFTER I’ve given it to her today!!!

Here are the fabrics.  First of all the front and then the back of the three bundles of fat quarters.  OR is it the back first and then the front?!?

Another project

This time sewing.

I have a small amount of this cat fabric left from other projects but it’s an awkward shape!!  It’s like a cross shape but I forgot to take a photo before I started.  There’s a sketch below to show you the ‘problem’.  There was also another small amount too.  

A dear member of the family spotted the fabric and she just LUVS cats so I thought - that’s got to be something for her.  A box, I thought.  So I cut out four sides and a bottom.  I’ve got plenty of wadding at the moment so that was brought into the equation too.  

Now I’m hopeless with bag and box making.  I cannot find exactly what I want on pattern searches so I thought I’d do what I usually do and ‘wing it’.  

So far, so good!!!

                                            

It’s finished - the scarf

Well here it is in all its glory.  On probably the hottest day of the year, so far, I finished it!!!  

BUT - I have a problem, Houston!!!  More next week, probably.

Competition time but no prizes!!!!

The competition is to spot the old git who’s tatting!!!!  That wasn’t hard, was it!!!

The photo was taken by a local paper’s photographer in Alcester library a few weeks ago and I thought it was worth sharing.  

Can you see the lady in the pink trousers with the gorgeous white hair sitting at the front?  Well that’s Betty.  She’s 97 now (waiting for a second hip replacement) and next to her holding her ball of yarn is Nicky who is one of the library staff.  Betty knitted - well, I’m not going to tell you as it says in the article which you can click on to enlarge.  

Nicky helped with the bobbles for the hats and she provides us with the thermos of water to make our cups of tea.  You can’t have a Crafternoon without a cuppa, can you?

Josephine ring/picot

Now why oh why didn’t I think of trying this out before?  

As regular readers will know I'm not that 'fond' of Josephine rings - well, not the traditional way of making them by using just the first half or just the second half of the double knot and so many years ago (14, I believe) I discovered this way of making them and abandoned the traditional way forever!!!  I've no idea where the idea came from - probably one of my older books and I've no idea if it's got a special name either.  Perhaps somebody 'out there' will know the answer!!

I find that the actual JR sits much better if this method is used so that's the way I always do mine!!  I'm old, stubborn, but know what I like and don't like!!!

A few days ago I actually got thinking about it again as I caught a glimpse of a comment online so this made me wonder what the 'bottom' jp method would look like if I did the bottom idea but made picots!!  So would these be picots on picots (jp's)?  I tried it out and here's the result.

The picture at the top was scanned using 300dpi (dots per inch) and the bottom one is 600dpi.

Can you see how that lovely twist really 'perks up' the technique?  I can 'see' earwigs made out of this idea!!!!

Let’s see how the jacket is getting on!

Well here it is.  If you look closely at the left sleeve you’ll see that I still need to sew up the end.  I added more fabric to give me enough to turn under and sew back onto the fleece inside.  One sleeve is half sewn up but the left still needs to be ‘dealt with’!!!

In the second picture I’m showing you the inside.  Because I took the zip pockets out and used the inner part to become part of the body it left an ugly inside.  Now this shouldn’t be a problem as nobody ‘really’ looks at the inside of a fleece - do they?  Well in case they do I had a rummage in my fabric stash and found some black cotton fabric and there was ‘just’ enough to line the body.  I didn’t have enough to do the sleeves and had already decided they just didn’t need it.

Jacket finished - almost.  BUT I have another plan!!!  There’s always another plan when crafting, isn’t there?  Do you see those plainer squares?  Particularly the yellow ones?  What do they need, I asked BC3 and he said, of course, TATTING.  So I need to go through those ‘boxes in the cupboard’ where all my finished items finish up and see if there’s anything suitable to go on the jacket. 

I’ll be back when it’s finished!!!

Temptation

Well the title should be ‘trying to resist temptation’!!!

I occasionally shop at Hobbycraft now that we have one nearby and they’ve ‘found out’!!!  I know that because I have one of their loyalty cards and they occasionally send me a voucher for five pounds!!!  

This results in a walk to the store to have a look around.  It’s not a big shop so they don’t have any tatting related ‘things’ so I go with knitting and sewing in mind!!  A few months ago I spent my fiver (well I spent more than five ‘as you do’) and came home with two balls of this yarn. 

The idea was to knit a scarf for a present and that’s what I’m doing.  I found an ‘easy’ pattern from Ravelry and added an icord edging to it.  Really easy pattern to take to groups and that I could do while I chat.  BUT, of course, the best laid plans of mice and men meant that it’s taken me much longer to knit as I keep going wrong!!!  My BC3 just doesn’t always work properly!!!

Here’s the progress so far.  I’m over halfway through now.  See those stitch markers green and pale pink?  They mark the halfway point!!! 

Monday moan - iMac

First of all I want to say that I’m delighted that most people understood last week’s moan. 

My moan to MYSELF this week is that I sometimes regret not charging for my patterns.  Why?  Well I could really have done without a big unexpected bill at the moment.  

The bill was for my trusty old iMac which died.  Died dead too.  I went to use it and nothing happened.  It had closed itself down and wouldn’t re-start.  I read all I could find about how to get past this problem but nothing worked.  Not even the one where you have four fingers on keys (which needs both hands) and then (whilst they’re there) you also press the on button!!!  Thank goodness Nick was around to press the on/off button!  

Next decision was ‘what to do’ and I had two options.  Buy a new one (this one was ‘born’ in 2015) or repair it.  I looked at the current prices of new iMacs and Mac minis and nearly fell over.  Repairing Apple ‘stuff’ is so specialised that I knew it would need somebody who had those skills.

So a trip to the shop in town to talk to Tom (this is his outlet).  He said it was the hard disk that had failed and he brought his ‘ambulance’ round (his car, actually!) and took it into his hospital.  He performed the operation and restored my data from my separate hard disk and after a while in intensive care the same ‘ambulance’ brought it home.  

If ONLY I had decided to sell my work things wouldn’t have been quite so traumatic - or would they?!?!?  

Another Monday moan - copy tatting

I seem to manage to get myself into trouble on Facebook without even trying!! This past week it was because of copy tatting. 

I asked a lady for a link to a pattern of an item she’d made and posted on Facebook.  She didn’t know what the link was as she’d copied the stitch count from a picture.  Which she was very proud of.

This time it happened to be a piece that she’d seen for sale somewhere but had reproduced it from pictures.  Easy enough to do and, in many ways, a good insight into how patterns are made and the process of designing. BUT this has now denied the seller of her income from their hard work. Yes, it is hard work and can be expensive too to make a design when you consider the amount of thread ‘wasted’ and time taken plus the cost of listing and charges for selling too.  

It is actually morally wrong to copy tat as it is considered copyright theft by many and also intellectual theft (which it is) - even if you’re NOT claiming it as ‘your’ pattern it is ‘assumed’, when shared or re-posted many times, that the pattern belongs to the copy tatter’s.  

If you do copy tat I BEG you NOT to publish it or tell anybody what you’re doing. It is clever but it’s encouraging others to do the same which will eventually lead to fewer and fewer sales for those who sell patterns and they’ll give up eventually.

Now, personally, when the internet was young and I put my first pattern on my site (not the current site but another which ceased to exist) I had to decide whether to link to Paypal or not.  I did not have a lot of money coming in and was working three jobs some days.  I did, however, decide that it was more important to promote the craft than to make much needed money so have always given my work freely.  Thus I rarely get copyright/intellectual property issues.    I have had issues with publishers who have blatantly taken my patterns but in the space of 25 years they’ve been very few.  

So if you feel the urge to copy tat at anytime in the future - please think of the designer and KEEP QUIET about what you’ve done.

Below is a picture of a motif I showed last week.  Here’s the link for more information.  

The jacket progression - or not!

Well the fabric is made but unfortunately all is not going well at the moment!!!

I think it will take a little sorting out but I need a space of time to make that happen.  

I had planned to ‘fit’ the fabric over the fleece and make slits in the fabric to give access to the ‘already there’ pockets in the fleece.  However when I got to that point I thought it would be somewhat foolhardy.   The placket around the fleece zip was rather thick and to get the new placket on the fabric to fit EXACTLY over the right place was a risk too far. 

So I’ve made patch pockets instead!!  Now I haven’t just made them out of just ‘patchwork pieces’, I’ve added in some fleece lining to give them a more ‘padded’ look/feel and then added plain lining to hide it.  

Another ‘problem’ is that I’m not happy with the sleeves as they’re too bulky under the armpit.  Back to the unpicker gadget and another ‘date’ with BC3!!!!  When the sleeves are sorted and the pockets are placed in the right place it ‘should’ be quite straightforward - I hope!!!

A new Houtz book

Have you seen the new book by Gary and Randy Houtz?  If not I suggest you take a look at it.  It’s called Tatting Chain Around.

Sue told me one day that she was ordering a copy from America and asked if I wanted to order with her to save on postage.  I’m not sure if the book is available yet in the UK - worth a check, though.  Anyway, I digress.  

The book is full of fun things and it’s interesting to see how those ‘crafty guys’ have managed to make decent sized motifs without ever starting and stopping.  The motif below (which is on page 30) is a classic example.  

I’m now working on the motif on page 36 so you’ll HAVE to buy the book to see what that’s going to look like!!!

My dress is finished too!!

If you’ve seen this post and then this one you’ll know what I’m talking about!!!

If you haven’t then please visit them and you’ll see that I’m not ‘quite’ a copycat as I used a different thread to my sister, Sally!!!

Which leads me to an announcement. Sally has changed her blog address and you can now find her on this one. 

Adding the edging

Once my dress had arrived earlier this week I searched through books to find a pattern I liked and also online but in the end I thought I’d use the same one as Sally!!!! She makes good decisions. 

This is the one we both settled on. We are both using different threads though!!

As Sally is quite a bit younger than me (we have a brother in the middle!) she'll look like a spring chicken in hers while I'll look like my normal self - an old turkey!!!  

Finished the doily

Finally I’ve finished Robin Perfetti’s doily. I’m so pleased with it and also I have an important announcement to make. 

It will NOT be going into a box in the cupboard!!! A friend was watching me make it a few weeks ago and said she liked the colours I was using. I asked if she’d like the doily and she said yes please. So, Joan, this is your doily. Just hope I remember to bring it to Alcester with me tomorrow!!!

Progress on the new jacket

This is going well at the moment. Long may that last!!! All the fabric is made although there may be places which need more squares or adjustments. I’ve also done a zigzag stitch to anchor and give more substance to the fabric. Now to plan how to add this to the original fleece. Bring out BC3!!!

The top picture shows all the pieces laid out on the grass and the second shows the zigzag round the squares. They need a good pressing under the iron and then I’ll be trying to puzzle out how to proceed!!!

A new dress

Sally (my little sister) was telling me about a new dress she’d bought last week. She showed me a picture of it and sent me this link too.

As you can see it’s denim and I love denim. So I decided to copy my sister and buy one for myself!!! We both plan to add some tatting to our new dresses which will be fine as we’ll never be seen together in the same dress.  Sadly we live 100 miles apart. Shame as we never get to meet up nowadays.  Least we have email and WhatsApp etc.  

Monday moan

YouTube. Yes, that’s the subject for today’s moan!! 

I love YouTube in so many ways (I managed to fix the dishwasher a couple of years ago by watching a tutorial) but there are some videos that I find truly a ‘waste of space’. 

Yesterday I found I was watching one which showed a ‘free tatting pattern’ being made. 

This was a generic pattern that’s been around for years so it’s not ‘new’ as such. But it was the quality of the video that was so poor and misleading. No soundtrack (please NEVER play background music) and text on the screen which wasn’t that useful either. There was no explanation of the starting method either.  

Ah well, back off my soapbox and on with the day!

Another round!

This is the penultimate round of Robin's doily called Jan's Doily.

I will be finishing the next round hopefully by next week as I have another project in mind!!! 

What I've loved (apart from the design itself) about this pattern is the way it's been tweaked by Robin so that each stitch count works perfectly on every round. It lies flat, flat, flat and hasn't needed any blocking so far. Not that I ever do block as I haven't the patience!!!

Back next week with the completed doily - I hope!!!

Bookmark by Angie

Angie popped in one day last week with this bookmark she'd made. 

I wondered whether she'd made a mistake as I honestly didn't recognise it!!! I looked it up as this is what she said:-

"I made your bookmark! Thanks for the pattern! 😍😍

I was using up leftover shuttles, so color choices... well they are what they are. Lol."

I like her colour combinations and I eventually found the pattern here on my site!!! 

I wonder where I would've got in my life if only I had been born with a brain!

I have been

Plodding along with my bright green sweater.

Talk about 'straining the brain' - this one certainly has.  It's taught me the excitement of never knowing 'what comes next' in a pattern.

The top picture (look at right side of photo) shows how I finished up with what looks like a ‘strap-y’ top which is NOT what you want a sweater to be!!!  

If you look at the left side of the same picture you’ll see that the ‘strap’ is almost gone.

The bottom picture (although it’s not that clear) shows how I’ve picked up stitches around the armhole and have almost finished the short rows to make the top of the sleeve.  It’s a very interesting experience and not for the faint hearted.  The pattern can be found here.

The next project!!

Well this and yet another project are now 'on the go'!!!

After the huge success of this jacket I decided to make another but this time with squares.

I'd got an old fleece which I rarely wore (the black one in the picture below) and which will hopefully make a warmer piece of clothing. The original is a Spring/Autumn weight and I wear it a LOT. I'm often stopped by people who say they love the jacket - complete strangers (we get a lot of tourists in the town) and it always pleases me no end. Specially when I point out it's homemade and onto an old shirt. 

Here's a few pictures to show you where I'm at as I started this new one a couple of weeks ago. 

The first picture is the fabric for the back completed. Then there's work in progress and finally the 'original' fleece. The thing with doing this sort of project is to not plan too far ahead!!! After my last jacket I thought I'd make all the fabric first this time and then fit it over the fleece. I may top stitch over the squares but I'm not sure yet. Any advice would be VERY welcome!!!