TIAS 1 2 3

I'm tatting and seeing! I started a little late and knocked off the first three days in one sitting. The only problem with doing it this way is it makes it soo hard to stop when you come to the end of the last day published. I am itching for Day 4. This thread is size 10 and I don't remember the brand. I bought a huge ball of it from Michaels because the color "simply spoke to me," as the hot buttered toast simply spoke to Toad in Wind in the Willows. As for what this entertaining pattern is a pattern of, my best guess is a stoplight. I don't think it can be actually, as Jane would have specified some colors if it was! But a square with a circle in it is the perfect shape for a stoplight, you must admit.

'Tis the Season...

to tat snowflakes! Yes, Christmas may be over, but it is still winter and in my book snowflakes are still fair game. Plus, I haven't shown you any of the snowflakes I tatted through December. Here is a sampling.

From the bottom left corner around in a clockwise spiral to the center, these snowflakes are: Angels in the Snow by Miranda, Star no 1 from page 39 of Blomqvist and Persson's book,

Beaded Snowflake from Vida Sunderman's book (obviously I tatted it unbeaded), Le Flocon Frivole from (of course) Frivole, and Ribbon Snowflake and Ribbon-Floss Snowflake also from Vida Sunderman. I have eyed Angels in the Snow ever since Miranda published it, bought it in June, and finally tatted it 6 months later. It did not disappoint! The pattern from Blomqvist and Persson was not intended to be a snowflake and I started it while at someone's house with only that book to choose from. I really did not expect to like it as a snowflake, but I do very much, and plan to make it again. The Ribbon-Floss Snowflake is the reason I wanted Vida Sunderman's Tatted Snowflakes. I adore it and it works up very quickly, making it a perfect gift. And Le Flocon Frivole is probably my favorite snowflake pattern this year. It is so gorgeous. Did anyone else note the similarities between it and Quatrain? I tatted them one after the other and spotted the identical stitch counts right away. With an ancestor like that and its recreation of characteristics from real snowflakes in a manner still true to the tatting it is made out of, this snowflake has it all.

Again from the bottom left, this picture has Frivole's Stellar, her Criss-Cross, and an adaption of Julie Patterson's Christmas Snowflake. Like Miranda, I am bothered by "snowflakes" that do not have six points. So I messed around with the stitch counts on this pattern, and found that with 2-2/5 on the split rings and a little blocking it will lie flat with six points. "Stellar" really means starlike, but fortunately the Stellar snowflake fits the meaning of the word not in the sense of resembling a star visually, but in the sense of "setting a high standard", as I have found all of Frivole's snowflakes to do. I am definitely going to buy "Regal." It is only a matter of time before I do.

I have given away most of these (and many repeats that are not pictured). Here are the cards I tucked them into. I just got happy with scrapbook paper, cardstock, tatted bits, and my very favorite Christmas carol line of all. It is a breathtaking thought -- Christ the baby, the silent Word, pleading, not yet verbally but by his mere existence, on our behalf.

These snowflakes were all tatted in December, but I have extensive plans for more snowflakes in the coming weeks. As mentioned, I will tat the Star no. 1 again (I wonder if anyone would mind if I renamed it?), and I also want to repeat the Beaded Snowflake (again, this is crying out for another name...), and I am still collecting a file of patterns I want to try. Some of them may have to wait for next year after all -- it is almost time to start tatting hearts!

Pop-a-Bobbin!

After hankering after a Pop-a-Bobbin for a year or so, I have finally treated myself to one! I tried for the cherry, but while I navigated first a surprise request from Etsy for me to create an account before they would send me to Paypal and second the chore of remembering my Paypal password, someone else bought the cherry. Fortunately I am just as excited about the walnut and I was able to snag that. It came quite quickly and I loaded it up as soon as I opened the package and tatted this little motif.
This shuttle is so smooth and light and cries out to be held, and it flies back and forth like a song. I'm not going to tell my family how much it cost; they would never understand how addicting it is to tat with a finely crafted piece of wood instead of plastic. I do love Clovers, but they don't even compare.

How to tell that the Canada Post is no longer on strike

I present my evidence in the form of a lovely package from Fox! Here definitely are good things coming in a small package. In just one envelope, a little bag of rings and filigree to tat on, a pretty piece of tatting, and a big spool of the thread she was generous enough to give away. I have obscured the tatting a little in the picture, as Fox wanted us all to know it was tatted a looooong time ago and she doesn't feel it meets her standards now. But I couldn't bear not giving at least a glimpse of it, as I personally love it and the colors and beads keep drawing my eye back to it and my hands creep over to touch it again. The thread also is making me very happy. As soon as I unwrapped it I started itching to get it on the shuttles and before the day was over I had finished this Small Motif of Jane's.

It felt kind of wrong tatting something with Fox's thread and not putting beads on it! But I don't think I have any beads small enough for this thread yet. Still, it was meant to be a connection anyway, for just a day or two after I finished it what should pop up on Fox's blog but a familiar motif! I would be more surprised if I didn't know we had both taken our cue from Miranda, whose rendition is what put the Small Motif in my mind anyhow. This isn't all I've tatted with this thead by any means! I've done another small motif and am starting on an edging, and all in the space of a week. I'm definitely enamored. It tends to fuzz up a little with too much handling, but that is all right with me, because I like the way the colors flow on this thread and I have been really hankering after small thread sizes the last month or two. It is just perfect for me right now. Thank you, Fox!

Effective Advertising

I was in Michaels the other week for an unrelated purchase, but couldn't resist checking to see if this location sold tatting shuttles. I'm always jealous when I hear about other tatters casually going to Hobby Lobby or JoAnns and picking up tatting shuttles or Lizbeth thread. There aren't any Hobby Lobbys around me and my JoAnns seem to have never heard of tatting. The best they can do is huge balls of size 10 thread, advertised as for crochet, with maybe a brief mention of tatting in small print on the label. Sometimes there are balls of size 30 mercerized thread, but only in ecru or black. This time, I still had no luck with shuttles, but I was very excited to find size 80 thread, in a color other than white, black, or ecru, and most amazingly of all, clearly labeled "Tatting Thread". In fact, I was so excited that it was labeled specifically for tatting that I decided I needed it and bought it straightaway. Thread manufacturers should take note: It is such an ego boost to find tatting recognized in a store that if they advertised their mercerized thread for tatting, sales would jump! Well, among tatters.

A Small Portion of the Reason I Love Garage Sales

Look at those lovely beads! I went garage saling today, on my way back from an appointment. For an investment of two hours, a tad extra gas, and $17 total, I gained an assortment of possessions including a coffee table, bookcase, glass bowl and vase, salad spinner, six or seven books, cards with extra envelopes, a picture frame (watch this space to see it united with some tatting!), a board game, some shirts, a ball of 100% cotton yarn, some scrapbooking materials, pretty ribbons and gold wrapping paper. These seed beads were only $1 per vial and will look gorgeous in some tatting as soon as I decide what patterns to showcase them in. But my absolute favorite part of the haul was two small square apothecary jars. I saw them and loved them and said sternly to myself, "What will you use them for?" Fortunately, thanks to Diane, I was able to immediately think of a great use for them and so earned the right from myself to bring them home.
See how pretty with balls of thread inside of them! I am really happy. This is also functional, since, to fill the smaller one, I didn't transfer any balls of thread from other containers, but scooped them up solely from the litter on my desktop.

In other news, I have chosen a pattern for a wedding doily for Elisa and her fiance and am steadily working it up. I will show it to you all after the wedding, which is only two weeks from today! By my calculations, I'm about halfway done, although it is made up of motifs, so I will have a little leeway on how big it is, and if I grow desperate in the days before the wedding, it may end up a little smaller. I would like to make it as big as possible, but it is definitely stress-relieving to have options.

Advice?

Remember the doily I made for a wedding present? Well, another one of my friends, Elisa, is getting married now and I am searching for the perfect pattern to make for her and her husband. I want something intricate that will be fairly large when made in smaller thread (40ish) but not too frilly or girly. It also needs to be gorgeous and in Elisa's style. (I realize these last two are highly subjective!) I am kind of thinking of something square or rectangular or diamond-shaped, rather than round. Finally, it needs to be a free pattern or from a book I already have. I've got no time to wait for anything to ship, as the wedding is June 4th and I am not Superwoman. (This, sadly, rules out anything by Jan Stawasz, even though his doilies are almost exactly what I'm looking for.)

I'm afraid I'm setting way too high of a standard for this pattern and that I'll never find one in time. So I thought I would ask you all for advice. Suggest anything, even if you don't think it matches every one of the criteria. It may lead me to something perfect that on my own I would have ruled out without looking at it.

Tatting in the Skies

Guess what? It's no problem to bring small scissors into an airport nowadays! At least, not this past weekend. I breezed through security both on the trip out and the trip back -- less than five minutes from start to finish. No line, no bag searches, no backscatter x-rays. The thing that took the longest was dumping my things in bins to go down the belt into the x-ray machine. After I was free to tat as I pleased throughout the trip, and here is what came of that. I love this pattern so much. Isn't it funny how the first row of it looks so very different from the complete two-row cross? Yes, that unfinished one on the right is the same pattern! Speaking of two rows, I tried split-ringing out of the first row on these to avoid some of the ends needing to be hidden. Not sure I prefer it this way, though -- The split ring on each is definitely a different shape than the other ones and to me it sticks out and looks wrong. Can you find the split rings? What do you think?