A mystery

Well it is to me anyway. 

A week or so ago I spotted this shuttle on Fleabay. Whoops, I mean Ebay. I looked at it and wondered. As it was a BIN (buy it now) I flipped it into my basket and bought it.

Now I grew up using the original Milward black shuttles with the separate hook and know that they were made not far from where I live. Then the Aero was 'born' with the hook and bobbin and I converted to that (eventually) and never looked back. It was also made 'just down the road'. 

Now this new one has the Milward name on it and is blue and modern and made in Germany. Milward and Aero are related and Aero were re-located to Germany many years ago but what are these companies up to trying to confuse an OG? Does anybody know anymore about the Milward/Aero/Coats relationship?

I've just found another one like mine but in yellow on Fleabay (cheaper too, darn) and am now wondering if this is Pony (do NOT like their shuttles) who are now re-branding? The seller bought the blue one from a store near her a few months ago so that answers one question - it's new. She also said the shop was closing the haberdashery department due to Coats UK ceasing trading. Can the news for us crafters get anymore dire?

Something I've been thinking about.

Back when I started tatting in 1956 the only patterns I could get hold of were the old Coats (well, of course, they were new then!) and Penelope leaflets. 

The patterns in there were what I assumed tatting was all about and they kept me quiet for many years. Occasionally I would do a large project and the amount of thread needed was always stated as 'one ball' or 'two balls' of thread.

Sixty years on and people now want the exact amount of thread needed given in the pattern. This is soooooo annoying to me as it does take considerable effort (poor old BC3) to work out how much is needed and then to remember that people's tensions may vary and they may need more or less.   Even more frustrating as thread now costs much the same as it did 'back then' but was to me very expensive when I had to save up pocket money for it.

I struggle to add this to my patterns as I honestly don't see the point of this unless there is only a small amount of thread left on a shuttle or ball. 

I find, personally, that I get more leftovers that are too small to use by using stated amounts and would far rather not have the hassle of feeling I need to give quantities on a pattern. Having said that - I will do my best to continue to provide this - unless it's a doily!!!!

This is, I suppose a contradictory post but that's how discussions between myself (the semi rational part) and BC3 go!!!!  Happy Tuesday, folks!!!!

On the way

BE WARNED. I'm on the way!!!

No, not the men in white coats coming to collect me but me going to AMERICA. Yes, I'm delighted to say I've been chosen to teach at Palmetto Tat Days in September!!!! In fact you can now see a list of all the teachers who will be there. Some friends from past years (and via the internet) and (hopefully) new ones too. 

I've just 'stolen' the logo off their site and put one of the designs I've had accepted below it too.

 

Ooooh look at this

It's lovely when people send in pictures of what they've made out of my patterns. Makes me realise that somebody actually does use them!!! 

This is the square pattern that you can find here and which Jaycee sent in to show me yesterday. It's amazing how very pretty it looks made in just the one colour - I'd not thought of that. Here's what Jaycee says:-

"Dear Jane,

I tatted your Square Motif and was fascinated that it looks even better in a plain colour - though I also tatted one in 2 colours. The one colour truly shows off your lngenious design and it looks so dainty with 4 squares joined together! I am enjoying working these squares tremendouly and I can assure you that I won't stop at 4!!!

Here it is - done in size 60, Coats 503."

Am I boring you?!?!?

Sorry but if I am then I apologise but I must get these out of my system before I forget!!!! 

If anybody wants a pair of earrings to match then they can be made!!! I used a very subtly variegated Coats thread for this bracelet. I really like this one. No, Jane, you can't keep all you make. 

Now available in my Etsy shop here.

Deliberating diamonds

I decided that the pink wasn't 'quite right' so have started with two other colours instead. This time the variegated is Pink Cocoa and the plain is called a.n.other. Actually it's a very old Coats thread that I may have bought when I was a kid!!! Who knows - who cares?

Just thought I'd better let you know that we're now up to 109 pairs of scissors in this year's TIAS.  I've never had that many so early on.  Thank you so much to all who have kept this old git happy.

Continuing with the doily!

Well the Valencia doily is progressing but I'm changing the final round so that it stands out a bit more than just a round of chains. Not totally sure it'll work but we'll see.  This is where I'd got to when I last showed you.  

The light creamy rounds had to be done in a different colour than the centre due to the ball of thread having an untimely meeting with a cup of coffee!!!!  Even though it dried out just fine I decided to ditch the rest of the ball.  Well, I'd had it hanging around for probably fifty years so I thought it didn't owe me anything!!!  It had gone quite hard too.  It was a Coats thread.

Here's the progress so far.

Left overs

When I was a kid and learned to tat I used to buy the old Coats and Penelope booklets with my pocket money. In those they always said 'two balls of size 20 thread' or whatever. It never occurred to anybody to actually work out how much thread was needed for each item and that was the 'status quo'.

Roll on another forty to fifty years and it's now become the 'right thing' to do to add the thread quantities required to a pattern. I try to do this - just to keep up with the fashion!!!! However, I find it hard to make myself do this for anything larger than a doodle as I am aware that people's tensions are different and so they may well cuss and swear at me when they run out of thread before the end of a pattern!!!

Just for your amusement is a picture below of the amount of thread left on EACH shuttle after making a bracelet the other evening!!! I always wind thread back onto balls after I've finished a piece (frees up shuttles and keeps the 'right' thread on the 'right' ball) so when I wound the shuttles for the bracelet it was with threads put back on the ball from the time before!!! 

What a lucky old git I was, eh?

Well, well, well!!!

A month or so ago I bought a leaflet off Ebay and when it arrived I thumbed through it (as you do) and came across a very familiar pattern!!!

Familiar as I know I made it way back when the dinosaurs roamed the earth.  YES, I was/am a dinosaur in Tat Land as you know!!!  I knew I didn't work it from this leaflet as this one is all in Italian and I don't speak or understand that language!!

It's bothered me ever since I saw it so yesterday I donned my safari outfit and set out with courage by my side and fought my way to the bookshelves.  Why, oh why do we both 'dump' stuff in the back room and always in front of MY BOOKS?

Anyway, I arrived breathless and perspiring having fought off snakes, lions, elephants etc to find the folder with the odd loose sheets in - least I knew roughly where to look.  Now to my surprise - there it was.

This is just a loose sheet which I must have inherited when my gran died.  I've got quite a few but this one is a mystery as I've no idea which publication it came from.  Looking on the back of the sheet it wasn't a tatting book.  I'm wondering if it was from 'The Lady' as it's got an article about a National Trust property on the back.  When I have assembled an army of volunteers to accompany me again (well I'll ask the cat if she wants to help) I may take another trip to the bookshelves to see if I've got anymore that are from the same source but with more clues.  As it's suggesting that Coats thread is used I've a feeling they must have sold the pattern to the magazine.  

Bet you want to know the name of the Italian leaflet I bought?  It's Il Lavoro Chiacchierino 4.

No prizes for spotting that the Italian and English versions both have the very SAME photo!!!!  

There are other patterns in both my loose sheets and the Italian leaflet that are the same.  Does anybody know the history behind this?  Bet Georgia knows!!!

Why DO I do it?

I like to have an ongoing project during a designing phase that I can pick up and put down at any time (usually late evening) and which requires little to no thought.  This is one I've just finished which was started over a year ago to have something to do while I was in America last September.  Hmmmm, I hardly touched it as Sally and I were SOOO well looked after and entertained (plus the hummingbirds at Joanie's were a huge distraction) that I did very little on the travels.  So, the question is - WHY do I do it to myself?  

No, not the ongoing project bit but the fact that I choose to do so many hanky edgings.  

When I started tatting back in the fifties there was very little around that a budding teenager (crikey - I was one of those once!!) could make as patterns were few and far between.  All I really had available were the old Coats and Penelope leaflets.  A hanky edging was one of those things that was recommended as a starter's project as there weren't many motifs around.

Now, when you start tatting you're so slow that an edging like this must have put a lot of people off.  Yet here I am all those years later still doing them as a relaxing project!!!  How stupid is THAT?  Not only doing them but occasionally even designing them too!!!  This is the 'Oh, so Simple' one which you can find here.

Yes, I'm a lot faster now but I still get bored by them but can never leave a project unfinished so eventually rush to get them out of the way.

Now, what am I tempted to do for my next ongoing project?  You'll never guess but BC3 is already thinking of another hanky edging.  HELP!!!!  Where's the escape hatch?

Last brooches

Bet you thought you'd seen the last of these!!!  Well, you haven't.  Well, you have NOW as these are the last two.  Still debating what to do with them all as I can't wear them all!!!

I'll keep one or two to put on my winter coats to 'cheer up' those dull, grey days which will be here all too soon and some I may put into Etsy along with the one that's already there.

All this will obviously depend on whether I can find them when I want/need them next!!  My filing system, as you know, consists of chucking things in a box!!!!

Small trinket box

Again this must be ancient.  Around forty years old, probably.

It was in the days when I craved colour but there were so few in the only available threads - Coats and Twilleys.  This was when I resorted to silk sewing thread.

I was quite pleased with this 'back then' but nowadays wouldn't give it a place outside a drawer or a box in the loft!!!!  Strange how your tastes change over the years!!!

This is the truth

The whole truth and nothing BUT the truth.  It's official - I've REALLY lost the plot.  

Over the years I'm still asked whether I've got a technique page on this, that or t'other.  One of those being joining the second side of the SR to a picot on a previous element.

Sadly I'd never 'quite' got round to doing it.  BUT the other day after doing the 'joining in a new thread' page I decided I'd settle down (yes, the weather still isn't much good) and do the SR join.  

When I start on something like this my first task is to set up the folder and files to store the drawings, documents and pictures in.  So, in my enthusiasm off I went to do just that.  First the  new folder (in my tips and techniques section on the computer), then a text document (safely stored in the new folder) and an EazyDraw file too.  Great - but then I wandered off to do something else!!!!!  

I got back to the computer an hour or so later and thought I'd left the aforesaid files open but I hadn't.  That meant going to 'finder' to do a search.  What did that reveal?  TWO documents of roughly the same name!!!!  On further snooping around my filing system I found a whole folder (with a slightly different name) on the join in question and actually started in September 2011!!!  I'd almost got it finished too and then I must've forgotten!!!  Send for the men in white coats!!! 

So, I finished it off and here it is!!!

Thread colours

As you've probably gathered over the years - I love colours.  I've no idea how to work with them and have never studied colour charts or the likes.  I rely on BC3 and just being brave with them!!!  I do think hard about what goes together as I pull them out of the cupboard or thread drawers and usually find that very few 'don't work'!!!  Strangely what looks 'good' on the balls often looks dreadful coming off the shuttle!!!!  Many a time I change my mind!

I've now got a vast collection of Lizbeth threads along with the older generations of Coats, Manuela, Flora, Floretta and many more.  A few weeks ago I 'helped' a friend who was selling her Lizbeth threads off as she's closing her online and 'real life' shop.  I bought threads that I didn't like.  Well, when they arrived, I realised that they were lovely.  Apart from one which is a bit pale for me the rest will get used - eventually!!!!

Below is Denim Whisper (Lizbeth) which I've had for some time.  On the ball I didn't like it.  Not one bit.  When I started working with it I fell in love!!!  Here's a small portion of what I'm working on at the moment and I've paired it up with a plain Manuela (another I didn't like for ages) to get a stunning combination.   

Must send BC3 to 'colour school' for lessons!!!

Serious stuff - please read.

Now this is really serious today.  It's about a tatter in Canada.  Sadly, a needle tatter.  

As a lot of you will know I am not a fan of needle tatting.  I'll repeat myself here as I know I've said this before but needle tatting isn't 'real' tatting (IMHO) as it was only invented in the 70's although there is some small evidence of it being around once or twice before that.  I suppose that people realised even back then that it wasn't giving the same results as the shuttle.  Anyway, tat's enough of tat!!!!  Off my soapbox and on with what I really wanted to say but you needed some background first!

Some of you may have realised that I've been a bit sneaky lately.  I've put two lots of shuttles in the Etsy shop without warning y'all (as my friends in SC say), but only because I've had so few of them.  Imagine my surprise when an inveterate needle tatter who hasn't YET dropped the disgusting habit, ordered her second shuttle.  Well, I thought, this is it.  She's finally had an epiphany and has seen sense at last!!!!

So on Saturday I had a message from her.  In fact I'll copy and paste it here:-

"Morning Jane

Just wanted to let you know that the shuttle arrived Friday. I found it in the mail on my way to work!!!

The shuttles are nice and smooth to the touch!!! I thought I would see if I could give it a try........but I am not sure if I am holding it right. Have a look at this picture and let me know!!

Thanks

Kelly"

Well when I look at emails first I see a very small picture of the attachment - a thumbnail.  I glanced at Kelly's and thought 'how on EARTH is she holding that shuttle'?  Then I opened it up and LOOK at what I found!!!!!

Sadly I fear that dear Kelly hasn't yet taken the plunge - come on, Fringe Tatters, get her over to the shuttle, please!!!  Oh, on second thoughts, I'll not be able to tease the socks off her if you do!!!!!  Perhaps I'll have to come over there one day and really nag her into it.  Meantime could you send the men in white coats round to 'have a word with her' and explain how to hold a shuttle and tell her it's much less stressful on the hands than a needle.

Kelly has a blog here which I'm sure you'll want to see.  

Pretty toes, Kelly.

Lucky Clover part 2

Tomorrow will be Day 8 of the TIAS.

Well I've been quietly working away at the Lucky Clover doily that I showed you here.

Now I thought it might be a bit overpowering in just the variegated thread so I decided to use plain for the chains.  The problem is - I hadn't got any plain thread of the same sort (Perfect Quilter) so I went and dived into my stash and came up with two threads that matched - one thinner than the other.  The thicker one is a quilting thread which I picked up in Ciincinnati many years ago.  The thinner one is a Coats and Clarkes polyester.  All I really know is that they work well together!!!

I'm really pleased with this but am now wondering what to use for the final round.  Time to put on the thinking cap OR send for brain cell 3 who seems to have been on vacation recently!!!

The horrors of writing patterns down.

I'm not sure if I'm the only person who spends so much time on the writing and illustrating of a pattern but if others do too then I'm normal.  If they don't then - well please send for the 'men in white coats' as I'm obviously NOT normal.  Then again you all know that already so what AM I blathering on about?

So having tested the second bracelet pattern I went off to do the drawings and put the page back together again.  

Horrors of horrors when I read the instructions for the first bracelet whilst doing this I was convinced they were wrong.  Back to making the first version again with a fresh brain cell and a tad more concentration.  

Spring is in the air!

Before I start today - just to let you know that blogger (bless them) are having problems with scheduled posts.  A lot of us are finding that our posts (which we've set to go at certain times) just ain't behaving.  Easy to get around if you've got a brain and are near a computer at the time or shortly after - but ..........

Even OG's like me get mildly excited when Spring shows itself!!!  

After the flurry of sorting out all the patterns I submitted for a teaching job at Palmetto I wanted/needed pure relaxation and a thought occurred to me!!

I usually (as  you've probably noticed) use number 20 threads for most things as this is what was readily available in local shops when I was a kid.  I also think it's ideal for most of what I use my tatting for - throwing in boxes in the cupboard!!!  Seriously I do wear/use a lot of my stuff and I find this thickness is wearable and washable.

BUT I DO love using size 40 and finer and love size 80 too.  So for pure relaxation I turned this time to size 40.  I have been a very spoilt old git over the past few years by people sending me lots of lovely HDT.  I had quite a few eazy bobs with size 40 on so out they came along with my container of 'all 40's').  So this wee mat was made with - HDT, Omega, Coats, Lizbeth and probably  other threads too!!!  I finished it a few weeks ago then forgot it - as usual!!!!

I think this has turned out to be very 'Spring like'.  Oh, the pattern is this one.  The version without the SCMR.  It's the same as the HWT one that I showed you yesterday but this probably 'needs' a finishing row.  Not sure.  Maybe.  One day.  Perhaps!!!!

More of the 3D butterfly

Scream if you're fed up with hearing and seeing these.  I can't apologise because they've become an addiction and I now need counselling!!!  Or send for the men in white coats.  Over the past week I've made these.  The pattern is nearly ready too.

I've been doing a search round my computer and have found several patterns which need finishing off so they're going to be my priority over the next few weeks.  Watch this space!!!!

Well, it wasn't a PROMISE!!

I didn't actually PROMISE I wasn't going to post every day - it was just a sort of 'suggestion' to myself and you guys!!!  So as it wasn't a 'promise' I can break it, can't I?

I do have a very, very good reason to break my 'promise'.  

After a discussion with Natalie at the Yarnyard (here in the UK) and via another lass I met online, she kindly sent me some silk HDT thread to tat with.  This was silk she'd hand dyed herself (she's an expert at this - been doing it for years) for the embroidery and knitting 'market'.  I loved the colours which were grey to black but it was just a bit 'fuzzy' for me and I suggested that probably a good six core thread may be better for tatters.  You can see a picture of my tryout down below - just a quick 8 ring motif that I did to try something for somebody else!!!  I didn't start the two shuttles tied together so that's why it looks a bit 'odd' after the SR!!!  Anyway, off Natalie trundled and got some Lizbeth to try.  

Meanwhile she opened up an Etsy shop for the silk threads and by yesterday had some HDT Lizbeth for sale.  Well, you know me - I was like a 'rat up a drainpipe' and was in that shop at the drop of a hat!!!!  Good job too as the one called 'birthday' quickly sold out - I got a skein of that!!

Natalie is learning to tat too and her blog is here.  Fancy learning to tat with HDT (OK, she says this one didn't pass her quality control but it would've passed mine!).  When I learned all we had available was white Coats.  If you scroll down her blog you'll see all the colours she's doing in threads and I'm sure she'd help if there's anything you want.