Just thinking

I love playing. Mainly with shuttles and threads but I also love playing with the computer and the tricks you can do on it and with it.

Teri Dusenbury told me yesterday how she manages to get little hearts into her email signature. Thanks Teri - I was only being me - drop dead nosy!!!

It's the same with this blog. I love 'tinkering' with it - mind I do get 'shouted at' when I suddenly change the colours to VERY bright!!!!

When I found the 'followers' gadget of course, I had to play!! What's that saying about babies and playing? This IS my second childhood (who said 'only second'?) so I'm allowed to play. When I found it I added the 'followers' gismo to the blog. It's amazing to find that over 40 people now follow the ramblings of the 'old git in the UK'.

BUT what's really, really, REALLY good about this gadget is that you can follow other people. I find that this is an advantage as those I follow are easy to find on the dashboard. When they've updated their blogs it shows there straight away.

I use Mozilla Firefox or Opera as browsers as they have 'tabs' which you can leave open all the time. This way I can 'hop' from one tab to the other. In the first tab I've got my emails, the second is igoogle (customised to show all my favourites like the weather, the time, translator, currency convertor etc), the third tab has yahoo tatting groups, the forth my Etsy shop, the fifth has my blog (dashboard open!) and the other tabs are usually stuff I'm currently interested in.

This means I can just click on my blog tab and keep an eye on 'who's doing what' in tat land. It's a brilliant idea for a nosy tatter. Thanks, blogger.com. Thanks.

The last lot!! I hope!!!

I think this is the last of the Christmas dangles. Well, it will be IF I stop giving them away to all and sundry!!!

I've decided to 'dump' three people off my giveaway list. Why? Well it seems to be one way traffic with them and I haven't heard from two of them (apart from a card) for several years. In fact the one person I haven't ever met and another not seen since I was forced into another stage of my life - and that's a loooong time ago.

I suddenly realised yesterday that I don't have a 'set' of Christmas trees for myself to wear this season. So that's my next task!! I've listed all the ones I've made in my Etsy shop - how daft is that? So I will make myself a couple of brooches and a pair of earwigs. I may make three more brooches for three women who have 'put up' with me popping into their office many times over the past few weeks and who thought I was so wrong to trust somebody else. I must add that my trust paid off!!!

Change of direction

Why can't I ever stick to just one thing?

The story behind this owl is that I had a letter yesterday. Well, several and all in one envelope!! When I left school at the age of 18 (left as in 'almost' expelled for being a clown) the few of us that were left in the sixth form decided to start a round robin letter. This was almost fifty years ago now. We lost one or two during the years and one or two returned. We also picked up another who left school the year before us. One of the group dropped a BIG hint that she'd like a tatted owl so that's what I made for her yesterday. I'd forgotten how long they take to make so it almost didn't get finished yesterday evening!!! I had to get a move on with it as it's got a long journey ahead. Nita lives in Tasmania!!!

I forgot to mention too that last week I added some bits and bobs to my Etsy shop too.

Christmas Sequins

OK so today I'm going to show you really, really ugly tatting.

The story behind this is that one of my son in laws LOVES my tatted Christmas ornaments so requested some for their tree. I've done lots of these sequin dangles for giveaways but he particularly wants red and gold for their tree. (I might add here that I'm not fond of Christmas colours at the best of times!!).

So I've revisited the pattern. The one on the left below is OK but the one on the right (with the green) is really, really ugly. I'm going to make a couple more just to get over the ugly one.

Finished!

As promised - pictures of the finished jacket.

First one is of me trying to get back into the house on halloween. Nick had locked me out!!!!

OK, that's the day's sillyness over with!!! Here it is - done and dusted!!! I think I might wear it when I meet up with other lacers in a couple of weeks time. It needs an outing!! At the moment it's drying out as I rinsed it yesterday to remove the washable pen marks. I use one of 'those' fabric pens when I'm sewing to mark things like buttonholes!!

Back to the jacket!!

To Carol and anybody else who might be wondering what's happened to the animal jacket, let me assure you all that it's back in favour again!!!!

As is my normal way of working - I'd fallen out with it for a while!! I'm now working on some braiding for the cuffs!!! After some thought I decided (or rather, 'him wot must be obeyed') suggested that there shouldn't be animals on the sleeves. I agreed that it would be 'overdone' with them on there so have done some cuff trimmings. Jennifer suggested snakes for the cuffs and I may get two done for the sleeves. Not sure until the cuffs are finished if this will 'happen'!!!!

I'd like to add to Martha's comment on yesterday's post - and point out that giving blood is not only good for the community but also a regular health check for yourself!!

71 done - 4 to go!

71 blood donations and 4 to go until I may 'retire'!!!!

On Thursday I lost the little tatted hearts I made to give to the nurses at blood donor. I'd taken them to the talk I gave last Saturday and when I unpacked after that I 'put them somewhere safe'. As you do!!! They were so safe they were totally lost!!!

After two hours of searching I pulled my chair forward in tat corner and there they were - lurking on the floor. The nurses were pleased with them.

BUT the bonus of this visit wasn't the hearts but the fact that I met up with a friend I hadn't seen for over 20 years. I see her husband occasionally as he's my doctor but she's always been at another GP practice. It was a lovely, lovely surprise to see her. We made our cup of tea last well beyond the usual 'rest' time and have made appointments together for our next session.

I gave myself a treat yesterday

A treat to me is giving myself time to tat something really, really nice. I've had a major stressful time this last few weeks and it's not likely to end that soon. I even ended up taking an afternoon nap on Tuesday which only happens once every two years or so!!

Anyway, after the relief of sorting the pendant set out and sewing loads of animals onto the jacket I decided it was time to treat myself.

Due to some of the stuff going on at the moment I'm having a 'cautious' Christmas spend!!! One of the things I've bought is a dressing gown (in American that's 'robe') for one of the grandsons. I saw lots of jazzy ones with the usual 'themes' of Spiderman, Ben Ten, Batman etc but in the end saw a better quality plain one for a lot less money (M & S). So, I bought a plain grey one.

As soon as I saw it in the store I thought - ah, Martha Ess!!!! See, Martha, I do think of you in the oddest places!!! One of my favourite books is Martha's New Critters on the Block and I love the dinosaurs in there. I've made them for boy birthday cards in the past too. So, grandson's dressing gown will have two of these critters on it. Maybe more.

Another of my favourite patterns to tat is Martha's 'naughty' mermaid.

Sorted!!!!

Finally and after many, many 'tweaks' of the stitch count the pendant set is sorted. Yipppeeeee, I can now allow myself to do something else. Perhaps a good tidy up of tat corner should be a priority!!!

Rest of pink 'set' and more

I finally got the pendant 'sorted' so that it can be worked entirely in a 20 thread. I showed the earrings a few days ago and now here is the matching pendant.

This set will be off to my friend's daughter in law who lives in Dublin.

The black and white earrings are also for my friend to give as Christmas presents. I just HOPE I don't 'mislay' (lose!!) them before I give them to her!!!!

Well I'll be ........ jiggered!

I found this little purse that I made from my original Mrs Beeton's Book of Needlework. I would've tatted this some probably thirty/forty years ago!!

I found it when I was 'tidying up' Well, not really tidying - more rummaging through stuff, don't worry!

As you can see the thread has yellowed. I may, just may re-do this again one day as I remember that it was tatted with a Twilley's thread and I don't and never did like that thread. It was probably all I could get at that time.

The clasp is probably very old as my gran gave it to me and it was old then.

Talking the tat!

Talking the talk. Walking the walk. Whatever!!!

My suitcase and I set out on the wander through the town to the venue of the Widow's Club.

A smashing bunch of people with an avid interest in everything. I arrived in plenty of time and got out my tatting. The talk went very well and I found it difficult to stop!! Now, now, who said 'what's new'!!!!! Well, my favourite subject is tatting as you've probably guessed!!!

More progress on the pendant in the evening so I'll be able to show you the results tomorrow - I hope!!!

At last!!!

Finally I've got a good result on this earwig. I started back on tackling it late yesterday afternoon. My main 'problem' is that I'm trying to make it simple enough to do a lesson with it.

Now a lesson is totally different from a design that I put on my web site. I like to get most of the 'new' stuff in the first part of a lesson so that a student can go away with the item probably not complete but in a state that I know that they'll be able to complete the task. This makes for a lot of thought which isn't easy when you keep 'losing the plot' like I do!!!

Anyway, below are the earwigs finished - well, apart from the hooks!! Next will be the pendant.

When I last worked on that I used a number 40 thread for the centre and a 20 for the outer part. I later realised that this could be a problem for students and/or people who pick it up from the web. So I've got to tweak the stitch count on the centre and use 20 throughout.

This afternoon I'm doing a talk at the Widow's Club in town. I did a talk for them two years or so ago and they want me to do another! I said that I would only be talking about the same thing but they seemed keen to have me back! I think they're desperate for speakers!!! Mind I've got some new stuff to show and I have had a few adventures in tat land since then. Ooooh, I could tell them about brain cell # 3, couldn't I?

Actually I enjoy doing these talks. I do have a sort of 'agenda'/notes (which I usually manage to forget to take) but find that once I get started I have a job to stop!!!! I bumped into one of the club members in town two days ago and she said she was looking forward to Saturday - should I send for the 'men in white coats'?

Grrrrrrrrr

I did some more sewing on the jacket yesterday afternoon. It rained most of the day so it was a good excuse (after the morning 'chores') to do something relatively useful.

In the evening I decided to re-visit one of the patterns I am working on. I have an order from a friend to make a pendant/earring set for her daughter in law and I'm intending to submit this as a lesson for 2009 so a good 'excuse' to test the pattern yet again!!!

What a wasted evening!!!! I decided that I could possibly make the start a little easier for the lesson idea so changed it. Well I spent the entire evening working with just one ring!! Yes, one ring!! Various ways of constructing a ring or a mock ring and also many combinations of beads - small seed ones and slightly larger ones. At the end of the evening I'd achieved two rings which I was marginally pleased with for the earring part but I was not totally happy with them. Why aren't I showing you the 'mistakes' or 'test' rings? Because I snipped the bigger beads out of them (they were 'special' ones) and threw the resulting mess away!!!

I'm hoping to get this sorted properly today with an idea which occurred to me in bed this morning. When/if this works I will show you all!!! Gives meaning to the saying of being 'tied up in knots' - the mind is as well now!!!

TIAS 1 - Richard the Welsh hippo

The sewing on of the animals is going well. Occasionally I 'lose the plot' AND the invisible thread I'm using but that's just because my concentration goes!!!

I had to save the best until last. Not sure if it will be the last animal as I may do a lot of small crittery/buggy ones to fill up spaces. I'm not sure either how much longer my committment to this project will last!!!!

Anyway, here's the hippo!!

Now for dolphins and another visit from # 3

OK, so I've started adding the animals to the jacket. My artistic adviser (aka Nick) is SO good when it comes to telling me that things 'don't work'. Not the words he uses but I've sworn not to swear on my blog!!!!
The thing is, it's difficult to hold these critters in place with pins AND sew them on at the same time. So, brain cell # 3 was sent for. Thankfully he'd not gone back to 'brainland'!!!
It occurred to me (with the help of # 3) that it might be an idea to 'stick' the animals on first of all so I thought of 'wonder web' which you can see here.
The problem with wonder web (I actually think it's fabulous for most enterprises) is that you need to dampen the work.
When we were at Ikea last Spring we bought some curtains. These came with a some iron on hemming tape a lot like wonder web. The main difference is that you have to use it 'dry'. Great stuff. So I have 'started sticking' the animals onto the jacket using this tape. Next I can sew them on by hand using invisible thread and they won't fall off and the pins won't 'jab' into me. EUREKA!!!

I've been badgered

Not only that but 'seahorsed' too. You can tell that it rained all day yesterday and that I decided to sit down and tat in the afternoon as well as the evening (shock, horror - must be getting old!!).

Must pin these onto the jacket today and check if it needs more!!! Brain cell # 3 struck me in the middle of the night and I might be able to share a 'good idea' tomorrow. If it doesn't work out then it will be 'a bad idea'!!!! Keep all fingers crossed, pretty please!!

I'm feeling decidedly crabby today

I made this one straight after the lobster for obvious reasons - those being that I was too idle to get out of the chair to source (that means rumble in my tatting cupboard!) other threads!!!

I also had a stroke of luck yesterday as I was sorting through my drawer. I found a whole load of penguins!!! I'd made them while I was working on the pattern so I'm not sure they're totally 'perfect' but they'll certainly 'do' for the jacket. In fact I've looked at them really closely and the reason they got put aside was because I'd used different beads for the eyes. How silly is that!!!

I've started pinning on the animals now - SO depressing as it just shows me how many MORE I need to make!!! So, back to the shuttle, eh?

Brain cell number 3 has returned!!

I'm a little bit excited!! Number 3 has turned up again!!!

Two weeks ago we had our bedroom decorated and have downsized a tad on furniture. This means that the 'mess' I used to keep on my bedside table had to be downsized too!!! The mess (or should that be muddle!) consisted of containers of earrings. Yup, I DO love my earrings!! I'm not very good at putting them away at night so they remain in a huddle on the surface of my bedside drawers whilst also spilling out of the containers!! Something HAD to be done about this.

I've thought about the storage of earwigs for years and years but suddenly brain cell number 3 arrived back home and I had the idea of making a wall hanging to put them on. Below is my first and very rough trial.

Improvements I need to make.
1. Space the lines out vertically a tad.
2. Choose prettier fabric!! I think I need plain colours.
3. Make a 'curtain' to fall down over them to keep the enormous amounts of dust (which we also collect in this house) off them!!
4. Add some sort of stiffening to the top.
5. Add a hanging loop.
I'll get a better one done later today and probably make a travelling one too. I wonder if anybody else would like one? I can see making these becoming addictive - like making roly poly tat bags!!!

SUCH excitement to have number 3 back again.

g

Later in the day!!!

Here's a completed hanger!!