A total failure

After the success (well, in my opinion) of my last Dora Young project I'm showing you just two pictures of this failure!!! 

This is the pattern on page 18 of the Dora Young book.  It's not an easy one to follow but has been made more complicated by trying to 'train' BC3 to use a picot gauge.

When I started tatting there were no such things as gauges and when they did finally become 'available' some forty years or more later I just didn't see the point as I'd got pretty good even picots by eyeballing them.  BUT when it came to this pattern it states categorically that all picots should be 3/8".  I decided that I'd better use one.  Well first attempt (not shown here) resulted in a real mess.  This was because I din't know whether to lay the gauge (made out of a milk bottle container), alongside the core thread or standing up!!!  Once I'd determined which way (standing up) I then made another which lay alongside as that made for faster tatting (for me!).  Lots of experiments to get the 'right' sized picot resulted from that!!!

It took these two attempts for me to realise that it wasn't going to work using a gauge when making lock joins so (for now) I've abandoned this pattern.  I WILL go back to it as I truly love the motifs when they're attached to each other - the negative space is pretty darn cool. Meanwhile I'm off on another Dora adventure so - watch this space!!!

New technique page

Well I've finally remembered to get this one onto my pattern pages. How long does it take? How long is a piece of string?!?!?!

Now this technique could be used to add beads to the centres of motifs like this one, this one or this one (which I've already done in a previous post). 

So, do you want the link to the 'how to' page? Well, here it is!!!!

Here's a 'taster' for you too!!

While Rome burns!

We've been fiddling!!! 

The source of that phrase (fiddling while Rome burns) is the story that Nero played the fiddle (violin) while Rome burned, during the great fire in AD 64. Bit bizarre really as there was no such thing as a fiddle back then!!  No proof that this happened but we'e definitely been fiddling on Tuesday mornings!!!

Anyway, I digress. If you take a look at the picture below you'll see seven fiddle muffs that the Tuesday morning group have made over the past month or two. 

This is the group that got together last year to make bunting for the street party that we had in honour of the Queen's 90th birthday.  We enjoyed it so much we've continued to meet!!!

If you want to know what fiddle muffs are then I suppose I'd better explain! Patients with dementia/Alzheimer's often get fidgety and like to touch things and play with them. The muffs are made (knitted or crocheted) and then objects attached so they've got something to play with - both on the outside and the inside. They can be anything from cotton reels, pieces of ribbon, velcro, curtain hooks or any item which has texture. Yesterday Sue and I took these seven muffs to a local home for patients with dementia. We had a very warm welcome from the staff which was lovely. Next project? Knitting and crocheting squares for blankets. 

Page 15 done and dusted

FINISHED. Isn't this lovely? 

This was a pleasure to tat and easy to follow but (like my last Dora Young) I had to keep counting and checking on stitch counts!!!! I really, really love following patterns and will be tackling more from this special book. Watch this space!!!

Charity shop find

Two weeks ago I was in Alcester as I was going to Crafternoon. My trips to Alcester are a delight after a busy week. I always go early so that I have time to mooch around the town. This town is like Stratford used to be some forty years ago - full of small family businesses selling the sorts of things that the people want/need.  No big multiples - well, only Waitrose which is a small supermarket.

There's a greengrocers, a 'fifty pence' shop (that's what my parents used to call it), a chemists, a few estate agents, a bridal shop, coffee/tea shops, a 'vintage' shop and a few charity shops. It's mainly the charity shops that I visit.

I found this necklace in one of the charity shops. I see lots of necklaces with rings in them but most of them have 'gaps' in the rings and are rather 'bendy'. This one hasn't got any gaps and isn't bendy in any way. So, what will I do with it? You'll have to wait and see, won't you?

One more

Thinking of Diane here as this one is in blue. Well, two blues, actually!!!  Now why did I write that last sentence?  It's obvious that there are two blues!!!  Old age and senility rearing it's ugly head again!

If I remember rightly this was two polyester threads.  I'm not sure I like this one as there seems to be a lack of definition in the threads.  They appear to be 'fuzzy' to me but perhaps that's cause I've got a fuzzy head!!!!  Back to the shuttles, Jane and forget this one.  

Having got my new gloves finished the weather has decided to go warmer!! Perhaps I should crochet gloves all year round to keep the weather mild!!!

Gloves finished

It's gone really cold here so I got out my scarf and gloves to wear this week. Then I remembered that I hadn't shown you the latest gloves that I made. I showed them to you when I'd started one a few weeks ago but then forgot to update you.

These are crocheted and I've deliberately not finished off the ends of the fingers as I like to use them to get money out of my purse or use my phone. Yes, I'm still playing Pokemon  Go (level 16) when I remember!!! 

Last winter I wore a knitted pair that I'd made where the fingers were knitted upwards for just a few rows. I loved them but the fingers still got cold on very cold days. This new idea may prove better but only time will tell. Anyway, saves taking them off (and losing them) when you need to get money out of your purse. 

This is a free pattern I found on the internet but, obviously, I had to translate it from American to English crochet terms.

Making up my mind

Now that's an impossible thing to do as I'm a real ditherer. I need nagging/prompting to make decisions but once I make them I act!! I really couldn't decide which colours to make the next snowflakes out of - thus the dithering.

Today I've got two more of the Snowflower pattern to show you. The green is a variegated cotton thread but the red is polyester.

You may ask 'why' or 'does it work' - mixing the two types? 

Well the answer to the first question (why) is because I'd got the green cotton thread out to work with and forgot a contrast. Rather than get up and potter back into the other room I grabbed what was sitting on the table next to me and that happened to be the polyester thread which came from Edda. 

I've not tried 'burning' the ends as recommended but automatically sewed in the final ends.  Not a problem at all!!!

Something else I did yesterday is to stop all notifications from the tatting Facebook groups. I was finding it was generating too many emails which distracted me from other things. I only really 'pop' into Facebook in the morning or when the rare email tickles my interest!!! I'd rather tat instead!!!

Another project finished

Do you remember these flowers that I made sometime ago? I asked if anybody knew what or why I'd made them? Well here's the answer!!

First picture is the back of the brooch. You'll see that I've made a circle of tatting (chains only round one tiny ring). I did two of these rounds joining the second one to the first but before I finished I inserted two plastic circles to keep the shape rigid. It's amazing what you can do with plastic milk containers!!! 

Forgot to say - I sewed a clasp to the back of one of the tatted circles before joining the second one to it. 

When everything was done I sprayed with Scotch Guard to keep the whole thing clean. Why? Well it's going to be worn on my winter coat!!!  

In fact (as of yesterday) it's now on the coat and I'm now having to wear it as it's gone very cold.

Dora's progress

More progress on the Dora Young doily on page 15.  My original post is here.

Actually this isn't hard to tat but it's hard trying to keep track of where you are!!!  I'd appreciate somebody inventing satnav for tatting but meanwhile I'll stick to my coilless safety pin and 'good old' BC3!

As I said - it's easy but it's wise to keep counting the number of picots you've got and now the number of chains too. As you can tell by progress - I'm REALLY enjoying this experience and can't wait to try another pattern from the book.  Meanwhile I've GOT to finish this one and won't allow myself to start anything else before it's done!  Well that's my story and I'm sticking to it!

An apology

I apologise to all who were upset by my blog post the other day.. I thought someone had done a similar design after they had seen mine, but I was mistaken. They had 'got there' by their own means.

I would like to point out that I was in no way accusing anybody of copyright theft, please take time to re-read my original post. 

I guess I was excited to see a pattern I recognised. The whole situation got very personal and out of hand which has been immensely hurtful to all parties and this is not good for the tatting community.

Over the weekend I seriously considered taking down my site as it would appear that the only valuable designs are those that are paid for and that free ones are under valued. I decided not to as it’s something that I enjoy doing.

I will not be publishing another design based on my original but will (in time) add a technique page showing how I added the beads to the centre of the one I did.

Finished and two patterns available.

Well in the end dear Nick solved the problems I was having with Pages and EazyDraw.  Not sure what he did but he 'bullied' Libre Office into working!!!  Every time I exported as jpg's from EazyDraw and inserted them into Pages they came out really blurred.  Horrid wasn't the right word for them.  I spent hours agonising over settings etc and in the end gave up.  Quietly, and while I was out, Nick sorted the problem.  No idea how but he did.  Same drawings but no blurring with Libre Office!!!  Go figure as my American friends would say!!!

Now the top snowflake today (the Snowflower) is done with a cotton HDT thread but the outside plain pink is polyester!

The bottom one is made with Eda's metallic thread - two colours, naturally.

So, does anybody want the pattern?  Well here's the link to it.  I've updated the main snowflakes, motifs and doily page too.  WHEN I found that my original had got itself stored on the cloud and not on my computer.  I must've had a ditzy day yesterday!!!!

NEW Star and more snowflake talk

Yesterday I finished another star (below at the top) which now has beads in the centre too.    Here's the link to the new one.  I'll be updating the main motif page when I get the Snowflower Snowflake done.

The lovely thread on the snowflake at the bottom is one given to me by Phyllis Schmidt and is called 'Daybreak'.  This was another gift from Tat Days. I was SOOOO spoilt this year. 

I've outlined it with a plain colour on the second round - with the inevitable beads too!!! Thank you, Phyllis.

I'm working HARD on finishing the pattern but I've had a glitch or two.  

I've been working with Libre Office (free software) for years and just lately it's refused to work on the iMac (works just fine on the laptop!) so I've started using Pages.  I'm not a happy bunny but I will work through this somehow!!!!

Sparkly star

When I saw this post the other day I thought it looked rather familiar!!!! So, off I went on a voyage of discovery.

I found it here!!

This design must be at least twenty years old now and is now on it's third re-generation.  The first generation of this was done on a fancy metal finding and was submitted to a magazine along with three others.  The findings were quickly unobtainable so after a few years I decided to put them onto cabone rings (second generation!) which are easily obtainable and thus the pattern on my site was 'born again'!!! 

Now having seen Frivole's 'take' on the same one I thought I'd re-re-revisit it once more (third generation).  SO, in a couple of days time I'll get the pattern up on the web site - for free, of course!!!  Meanwhile I may tweak the centre but I quite like the shapes I've got here.  Maybe I'll make those chains a bit longer/shorter?  Who knows.  

The thread is some I had from Eda and it's lovely to work with.  The beads are so, so glittery too.  Sadly the scans don't give the true sparkle.

Two people to blame for this

As you know I was so, so kindly given a copy of Dora Young's book a couple of weeks ago by Patti Duff and I cannot leave it alone!!!! I am forcing myself to do snowflakes in between but I simply HAD to start another doily - this time it's the one on page 15. So, I name Patti as the first person to be blamed!!!

The second is Bestitched who dragged me away from my promise NOT to buy anymore threads at Tat Days. 

I was doing pretty well on Friday and Saturday and only bought 3 balls of 'essential' colours that I was short of. Then on Saturday evening/Sunday morning they announced a price reduction and 'sadly' this packet of pastels 'fell' into my bag!!!! 

Those who were around at the time were astonished that I chose these plain pastel colours and at the time I had no idea what I was going to do with them either. BUT the blue was the first choice for the page 15 doily.  Oh, these are size 40 which is my new favourite size!!!

Snowflakes are falling off my shuttles

Well here's another one!!! I think they're improving.

The thread is from Sue Hanson who gave it to me at Tat Days. Isn't it pretty? I did the centre with Sue's thread and then outlined it with a plain orange on the outside round. 

The motif is made with three shuttles. Well, you can get away with two, really.

Now with beads

I thought it would look better with beads but in this case a bad choice of colour as they don't show up very well!!! Still an interesting try. 

Better luck next time, old git!!!!

Copyright theft again

Very apt after yesterday, I feel!!  Yes this pattern is copyright theft and/or plagiarism but I'm claiming as my own.

Why? Well cause I've stolen it off my own site. Well, sort of.  I was sitting trying to think up something truly wonderful for a giveaway for this year's Christmas and was totally in the doldrums over it.  Nothing particularly inspiring came to mind so I decided to use something I'd done before and play with it. 

Actually at this stage (and this is only an early one so far) it isn't a lot like the original pattern (just been back to check). Obviously it needs beads and obviously I need to draw it and write it down AND it needs better thread colours but I don't think it's too bad for a first attempt (well, apart from the other trials that went in the bin!).

Copyright notice

Found this on Facebook the other day. I can't remember who posted it or which tatting group it was on but I think it's GREAT.

I might add (very selfishly) that I'd hope it applies to those who give work away too.

Crochet gloves - the start

I have a 'thing' about gloves and socks. I love knitting them. I never wear the socks I've knitted so I've banned myself from knitting them. I also struggle with knitting gloves too as I use four needles and suffer with that gap you get at the base of the fingers. In tatting we call that gapsosis and I feel that's a good name for my knitting problem too.

So, I decided this year that I'd have a go at doing some crochet gloves. Thereby started a long adventure on the internet looking for crocheted gloves. Yes, there are patterns aplenty but not many that are offered in 4 ply (sock wool to you Americans!). Most crocheted gloves seem to be in thicker wool. In the end I found this pattern which is WONDERFUL. Just what I wanted (not sure of the flappy bits on the finger and thumb) and the instructions look clear.

Oh, did I say they looked clear? Well, yes they are BUT they're written in 'American'. As you know that means different terminology to the English patterns. So, it's time to learn a few new skills and new terms too. That should keep me quiet in between frustrations of doing the TIAS!!!! 

Here's the start on glove number one. The bottom picture is the true colour of the wool - the sun came out before I took the top photo!!!