Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Backlog & giveaway

I have so many things to blog about, just haven't sat down to do so...need to get on that. Heather over at Tatted Treasures is doing a giveaway of one of David Reed Smith's beautiful handcrafted wooden shuttles. Head on over and enter!

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Getting ready

The Judith Lind Tatting Club participates in Meet Yourself Tucson - spend a weekend letting everyone know we're there, show off our tatting skills and even teach a few people how to do it. We're going to have business cards to hand out, each with a little piece of tatting on them, so we're all tatting up little motifs. I don't want to do the same little motif for every single one (boring!) so I've been scouring my patterns for things that I could do.

LadyShuttleMaker had put up a pattern for a little treble clef a while ago but I had never gotten around to trying it out. I don't want to have to learn a new technique(folded ring) to do this, because I want this to be quick and easy. I thought if I change the pattern so I'm using the same technique Ruth Perry uses in her tatted Celtic snail, it could work out really well and I wouldn't have to worry about keeping to any stitch counts. I would also have more control over the look of the clef - I began learning to play the piano when I was in 3rd grade and picked up a few other instruments over the years. I've always thought the treble clef was beautiful, so I guess I'm a bit picky about the look.
The next ones will be even better. I suppose I'm not saving any time by not learning to do a folded ring, but I tried to understand the directions and my brain is just not getting it tonight. This Celtic way is easier to tat though - practically one long chain book-ended by two small rings. I think in the next one I'm going to make the top ring into a mock ring (a chain joined to itself)...might allow it to lay flatter.