Friday, July 29, 2011

Finally Finished!





Finished and flattened.So happy this is done; I enjoy tatting but sometimes a project just becomes a chore :(





Annika over at Tatting It Up was giving away some handmade shuttles; Got it a while ago, along with some of her lovely hand dyed thread but had no ideas on what to start working on. Luckily our local tatting group, the Judith Lind Tatting Club, meets once a month and during this summer there are technique demonstrations. For July, we learned front-side/back-side tatting:


I'm excited to incorporate this technique into more projects! Now I must plan for August's meeting: I'm teaching the split chain! The first time I was introduced to the split chain was this geekalicious bookmark by Anne Bruvold. That bookmark ended up leading to a slightly larger geeky project, but I think I'll save that for a future post.

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Almost Finished!

I started a doily pattern from a '78 workbasket. It takes a while because none of these patterns use split rings/chains, so in order to not have to constantly c+t I have to essentially re-write the pattern. Just 2 more repeats on the last row to go! ...and then *lots* of blocking.

Ma bebés have grown so much!

My succulents have grown so much in the last 1.5 years! Pics of Euphorbia gorgonis, Euphorbia suzannae when they were little, and both today together in pic 3.

Friday, July 15, 2011

From Fox

Fellow tatter Fox wished to pare down her thread collection, and asked if anyone was interested in helping her do that.  This is what I received in the mail after the strike finished!

The tatting is lovely! The color choices make it especially so. I have no idea what to do with the metal findings (I mean, I've seen what Fox has done, but I don't think I've been tatting long enough to start designing with findings). No idea what I'll use the thread for...so many projects going on...

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Delusional Knitter give-away

The Delusional Knitter is having a give-away to celebrate the opening of her etsy store! You can check it out here.

Learning Puncetto

I was browsing the tatting vids on youtube when this came up. "I must lean this!" I thought. Many months and hours on google later, I came across a short tutorial that was actually in English. Not all the steps were listed, but enough to get the gist of it. Here is my progress so far:

Progress is from L-R. I had followed the written directions to the letter, which meant a lot of space b/w knots (which looked nothing like what I saw in the vid).










So I decided to ignore the directions a bit and that got to something that looked more like what's in the vid!









I think I'm going to go back to tatting for now, I spent 3 straight days with just Puncetto :)

Monday, July 11, 2011

Beginnings and an Awesome Acquisition

I've been thinking about starting a blog for a bit now, flip-flopping around "should I"? "shouldn't I"? but it's time. And while I'd like to promise to keep this strictly to my fiber arts hobbies, I don't think I'll be able to keep my other geeky interests away. :) While living in Seattle over a year ago a friend of mine headed up her church's knitting group. A lady donated some items to the group, and my friend immediately called me up and asked if she could come over. I said, "Of course"! She brought me these! (not the shuttle or finished tatting) 6 boxes of DMC sz 40 thread! 10 balls in each box! That's (carry the five) 14,940 yds of thread! Also a little book of angel patterns, but that's packed away in a box somewhere. So, what to do with all this thread? I mean, I have to go for something huge, something that will take years. And then I found Jon's pattern here. It's perfect! I am going to change the small motif on the two ends, just so there's more of a line. And when I'm finished, I'll have a huge piece of tatting to hang on a wall, or as curtains, cover a couch or small bed.... It was a little frustrating starting this piece...I do wish there was an easy way to not have to c + t so much between all the motif, but that's not something I can change. It helped a lot when I figured out how to properly hold the huge shuttle :) The shuttle I won from Diane here. It's the perfect thing for this long project. I've got about 1' x ~4" of the piece done.