Running the TIAS

So, for those who are interested I’d like to explain how I manage the TIAS (Tat It And See) once it goes ‘live’.

I have two email addresses so that I can log into two different browsers as it would be too frustrating to have to log in and out on one.  As far as I know you can't have two blogger accounts on the one email address.

I normally use Safari as I have Apple products and that’s what ‘comes with the appliance’.  For the TIAS I have to find another browser and this year I chose to try out Microsoft’s Edge which worked extremely well.  

Each day’s progress is, as you’ve already found out, placed in a new post so that there’s not so many to scroll down to get to the bottom.  

As the emails arrive in Safari or Mail (depending on whether I’m on the big Mac or the iPad) I select the message, copy and paste it into the post on the TIAS blog (which is on the Edge browser).  I’ve found that this then needs to be formatted to try and keep the look of the blog consistent.  

Pictures are downloaded into downloads on the big computer or into photos on the iPad.  Sometimes I decide to crop them to show the tatting up a bit better and then I go back to the TIAS blog and insert the picture from downloads or photos below the message.  

Next I delete the picture from ‘downloads’ or ‘photos’ so that I don’t get BC3 muddled and accidentally put the wrong ones against the wrong person.  Finally (the bit I like best) I reply to the sender.  All emails come straight into the itatlots inbox even if they’re sent to the lovetotat one.  I set up ‘forwarding’ on the lovetotat one years ago just so it made my life a bit easier!!!!

So, that's how it happens.  If anybody else would like to do a TIAS and use the blog then I can add you to the admin.  It's a fair bit of work but real fun.

I don't have a picture to show you today so instead (just for a laugh) I'm adding one of me when I slid gracefully and elegantly into a muddy field a week or so ago.  

Back almost to normal

Well on this blog, I hope.  

Christine asked me how I design the TIAS so I thought I’d tell you a bit of what happens and how I work it.  It’s much the same as an 'ordinary' pattern.  First of all I have to decide what I think will work.  It has to be something that people will recognise all round the world.  With animals I use google images and particularly cartoons.  

Sometimes I do the design as per usual but then often realise that that particular design would be guessed too soon so have to start again from a different part of the pattern which throws up many different complications.  

I draw the whole design and do all the notation as a whole pattern and then, once I’m happy with it I chop it up (drawings as well).  This means lots of work checking the chopped up bits especially the drawings.  

After that it's a case of deciding on names to use for each url.  This I do while bearing in mind where they’ll show on the server.  Thus the AADAY1 etc names.  This keeps the current TIAS all together at the top of the server.  Once everything is uploaded I then send the links to a test tatter (thank you Ruth) who gives it a go as if it's a TIAS.  Obviously there are hiccups that have to be sorted!!

More soon on how I then run the TIAS from Planet Jane!!!

Meanwhile Mr Fox (or it could be Mrs) is available as a whole pattern here.

Forgot to show you

Towards the weekend life got a bit 'out of control' in that several things needed sorting.  The TIAS continues apace and I'm thrilled to tell you that the guesses are really good.  As you know I never admit whether guesses are right or wrong until I have to admit 'defeat'!!!  

So today I'm showing you progress on the poncho.  This has slowed down considerably due to the TIAS but there's no time schedule for it so I just keep plodding along.  

A couple of changes

Just to let you know that I've done some amendments to the large giraffe pattern thanks to Cheryl who's so kindly helped me out.  

This is an old, old pattern written (I believe) before the birth of BC3 so it had a few glitches.  Now they've been put right thanks to Cheryl I'm a very happy old git.  Oh, here's the link.

Also while I was on the file manager on my site I did a few small alterations to the wording on this file too.  I needed to make the reasons for it clearer - I think!!!  

This is now my preferred way of starting any piece of tatting as there are no knots involved!!!  I also added a link from that page to this one for ending a piece (again I always use this nowadays) which leaves only one end to sew in.  

If ONLY I could find the enthusiasm for housework and stuff then life would be a lot better!!!!  

Covid

Yesterday I put day 3 out on the TIAS blog here.

I also had my first Covid jab too which gives a small sense of ‘light at the end of the tunnel’.  

I took some Covid tatty bits with me and gave them to the wonderful NHS staff who’d given up their Sunday to do this mammoth task.  They were very pleased with them but the doctor who gave me the jab was over the moon!!!  I’ll have to make some more for the next time I go which will be in around 11 weeks.  Here's the link again for the pattern.  Wouldn't it be good if we all did that and thus spread tatting instead of the actual virus?

After getting home from the hospital I prepared the evening meal and then decided to go for a walk to get the vaccine moving round the old body!!!!

Meanwhile I’m still working on the poncho and will take another photo sometime this week.

Day 2 of the TIAS

To find the link to day 2 of the TIAS please visit the blog which you can find here.

Trudging along

With my poncho.  

Things get done nowadays in between uploads to the TIAS blog.  Still it keeps me out of mischief!!!

It all starts TOMORROW!!!

What am I talking about?  Well the Tat It And See.  

I'm sure lots of you are fed up with hearing about it but every time I put out a count down post there are more people who haven't heard about this year's TIAS.  

So, are you ready?  Just a last minute check with the introduction maybe a good idea.

Picture is the result of a previous TIAS.

Seven days to go

Until the start of the TIAS.  

For those who haven't visited the dedicated blog - here's the link.  

I'm getting excited now and really looking forward to meeting those who take part via email etc!!  Little things please little minds!!!

Another of the past TIAS patterns.

Going round the bend!

Well you may think I've been round the bend for many, many years and others would confirm that too.  

The saga of the poncho continues and I've now got about halfway through, I think!!!

This is the link I used to get the general idea of how to make mine.  Basically it's two rectangles joined together.  So that's what I'm doing.  If it doesn't work out then I'll be able to adjust it when they're done, I hope!!!

So here are a couple of pictures - one of how it looked a few days ago and the other the ongoing choosing of threads to use.  

Another snowman!!!

I LOVE this snowman from Mary Jane. A definite improvement with the mask as well as the Covid-19 virus too.

The snowman pattern is here and the virus pattern is here.

Meanwhile I'm making preparations for the TIAS and am continuing to do the Fandango poncho.  More about both next week!!

How many?

If anybody EVER says they're bored in front of me they get a humungous glare!!!  In all my years I've never been bored.  There's always something to keep me interested and involved whether it's crafts or people, problems to solve etc.

The only two things I'm not keen on are cooking and gardening!!!!  I could happily skip those but I do them albeit reluctantly.

Even a semi lockdown Christmas didn't mean any boredom - no family visits but no boredom either.  This is the Fandango poncho at the moment.  160 motifs!

I can't get bored with this because of the way I'm working it.  As you can see there are 8 motifs in a row so that means I 'hit the stash of threads' every row or so to work out what I'm using next.  This is part of the way I don't get bored.  

It may look as if one end is wider than the other but that's perspective causing that!!!  

More planning and more progress

This is another row being planned on my 'not quite sure yet' project!!  Still think it might become a poncho.  

Would you believe that I still make mistakes from time to time and either have to unpick or sometimes even abandon the odd square.  

Also when winding the shuttles I sometimes get the threads sort of tangled. Some motifs have two HWT together and some have three.  Occasionally just one which is a relief!!!

Another project finished!

After my stupid hiccough with the oven gloves and a few minutes undoing the stitching I was back 'on the case' as 'they' (whoever they are!) say.

First of all I sewed the edge of the lining along the main part and in the right place this time!!

Next I crocheted doubles through the two parts of the outer pocket and including the inner lining too.  That was a bit of a struggle at times!!

I then found that I'd got enough odds and ends of cotton yarn left to add a stabilising couple of rows of double crochet to the joining part between the two gloves!!!

I've since tested them and they work a treat.  All for the price of nothing!!!  Some of that yarn by the looks of the label must've been almost as old as me - if not older!!!!!  

Where things went wrong!!!

I think BC3 decided he was on holiday far too soon and this is what he did next.  

First of all I divided the remaining pink/green into two and made a treble crochet 'filler' (don't know how to explain it any better!) to join the two pockets and I had 'just enough' to make a good space between the glove ends.  I started from each pocket and joined in the middle 'just in case' I hadn't got enough to reach and had to infill with the cream.

I sewed the two ends to the lining and started to put it all together.  

Then the penny dropped (as they say!) and I realised that I'd sewn the extra lining into the wrong place!!!  Not a huge problem and it was soon undone and put right.  I've done a second photo to show where I should've sewn the lining - follow the black arrows!!

Progress on the oven gloves

Having done the 'hand pockets' I tested them out and realised that just the one thickness of double crocheted fabric wouldn't be enough to stop my poor old aged hands getting burnt.  So, next plan was another layer.  

I realised that another layer of crochet would make whole hand pockets far too stiff so resorted to knitting a layer to put inside the palm part of the pink/green pockets.  

Good idea and it worked.  (Tested it out on Sunday when I was cooking a chicken).  

Odds and ends

I've always liked making 'something for nothing' which I think is inbred in all of us crafty people!!  

Going through my yarn stash a week or two back I found the odds and ends of cotton yarn (roughly double knitting size) and wondered if I could use any of it to make some oven gloves.  We have several oven gloves but both of us always go to the one set which are heat proof and ''bendy' too.  

I decided to crochet the two pockets for the hands first.  I knew I'd got plenty of this green/pink yarn.

I’ve caught Covid-19

Well thankfully I’m teasing although I hope I’m not tempting fate!!!  I've not seen anybody or heard of anybody in Tat Land catching the Covid virus, thankfully. I've lost two friends and had one other catch it and survive (late 80's).  

That and the snowman from the other day made BC3 think.  

As  you know here in the  UK the first vaccine is being rolled out.  I won't get it yet as I'm a mere Spring chicken in my late 70's but hoping it won't be too long.  Nick will get it soon, I hope.  

Anyway, I thought I would award myself a badge/button to show I've had the vaccine.  We won't be given 'I've had the vaccine' stickers or any other type of acknowledgment that we've had a needle stuck in our arms so I'm going to give myself THIS!!!!

There are two versions - one suitable for an earring and the other to wear as a brooch - it’s tatted onto a button.

A snowman with a difference

I have a friend who lives ‘round the corner’ and who rang me a few days ago to ask if I could make a snowman for her.  Not just an ordinary snowman, though!!  

Well I showed her this one and she said that was fine BUT would I be able to replace the walking stick with a Covid virus!!!!  Apparently it’s a family ‘thing’ where she sends a snowman each year and she likes it to have something to do with the year so what could be more ‘right’ for this year than a snowman carrying a Covid virus!!!

So, here it is!!!

About halfway to halfway???

I decided after a few rows of the second ‘start’ that it wasn’t a particularly good idea so joined those rows to the original.  Made for an interesting row to work which was a ‘good thing’ as it made it moderately more challenging!!!  One HAS to keep BC3 on his toes, you know.  

This is progress a few days ago.  It now measures 32” in length and there are 118 squares!!!

Meanwhile I’ve been sidetracked yet again onto another project which I’ll show you in a couple of days.