Friday, October 24, 2008

A little of this, and a little of that

You may have noticed that I haven't been posting much lately and for the one or two who wondered, here's what's been going on. During most of August our front yard was dug up due to the burst water mains. Twice during that period the driveway was unusable and I had to use a bicycle to get around which meant that just doing things took much longer leaving me less time for other, more interesting things.


Then a number of local folks decided to get a craft group going for socializing and for teaching, so I have been showing some people how to tat. The ladies in this group are keen on finding ways to sell their finished goods and I have been coaching them on how to use the internet as a selling tool. This has resulted in some one on one hours spent showing them how to set up PayPal accounts, showing them how to use things like Ebay and Etsy, helping them to take pictures of their goods, explaining why it's important to crop out blank spaces and re size their images and showing them how to use software to accomplish this.


I mentioned that I was discontinuing the Tatted Lace Pattern Collection newsletter and a number of people have taken that to mean that I wasn't going to be designing any more. That is far from true. I have a small doily completed, in addition to the elephant flake seen in the disaster photo, 5 more motifs and part of a bookmark designed and recently I have been stuck in a rut doing these beaded snowflakes. For some reason, this design just makes me happy and I want to tat them in a whole rainbow of colours. The pink one is half done and the beads are already loaded for the yellow version and I have an idea for a necklace that I may or may not do.


Some of my time has been spent just being there. Hubby, who has been diagnosed with Meniere's was relatively okay during the summer but as soon as the colder weather hit, he started having drop attacks again. Let's just say life's not fun.


On another note, I sent out notice that another set of round robins would be starting and I've been trying to match people up and get mailing addresses to get them started. In the middle of this I was reminded that some of the tatting from the earlier round robins hadn't made it home yet, so I started chasing them down.


In the mean time the awesome volunteers on the 25 Motif Challenge blog have been keeping everyone up to date. It's a good thing too, because I certainly haven't had any time for it.

7 comments:

LadyShuttleMaker aka MadMadPotter said...

Sending my best wishes to you Sharon, and a little reminder that you ARE appreciated!
Big Hugs,
Sherry

Tattycat said...

The snowflakes are beautiful. It is so good to see you tatting and designing again!

Unknown said...

How nice to see you posting! I really think that snowflake is really something special! It's so pretty! I'm glad to see that you are still designing and (selfishly, of course) am wondering if you are going to be sharing that fabulous snowflake pattern anytime soon?

I think it's great that you are teaching people to tat and coaching them on internet sales. They are very fortunate to have you around to teach them all of those fabulous things!

Jane Eborall said...

LOVE the snowflakes - I'm just SO into beads!!! I look forward to seeing what else you come up with too. Sorry to hear about all your problems. Not fun, eh?

Sharon said...

Thank you all for your heartfelt expresions of understanding. I haven't left off tatting or designing. I have been in a flurry of creativity with about a dozen new designs drawn that need to be tatted up and several ideas for things to tat that I just haven't had the time to turn into lace. A couple of the designs I'm working on didn't work out the first time around so I have to re-do them. I'm hoping t get a new book out before Christmas. Terminating the newsletter was the only way I could find the time for some serious designing.

Stay tuned for the beaded snowflake. I'll be posting it as soon as I get a chance to get the drawing done properly. I often work from a rough drawing that's good enough for me to understand, but it takes some tweaking for others to follow it.

Gina said...

I didn't get a chance to respond to your comment on my blog but I did know you were only discontinuing the newsletter, not designing. I apologize if I gave the wrong impression. It was a quick post before I left and I may not have been clear. Will have to remedy that! Love the snowflake!

Sharon said...

No problem Gina. I just didn't want other people thinking I was getting away from designing altogether. Especially when I'm planning on plunging in to a whole bunch of new books.