Better late then never

In 2007 I started embroidering 8x8 inch squares in butterflies, thinking that I'd make enough for a quilt. After I'd done a few, and couldn't find pictures on line of things I wanted to use and a little bit of math told me that it was going to take years to have enough patches embroidered, I scrapped the idea. 

In 2018 I finished larger bird and flower picture which is also an odd size that's hard to find a frame for. Not being able to frame this picture made me think again about what I could do with a few very densely embroidered patches. The problem is that an 8x8 patch works for a quilt square and not much else. Then I had the bright idea of stitching the small patches onto a bigger square and mounting the larger square onto some masonite that would allow me to stretch and block the embroidery flat. Concentric rows of dense embroidery results in hugely puckered fabric so stretching was definitely necessary.

I had some 11 inch square sections of masonite which I used. The embroidery was done on cream coloured fabric and the outer square was white. I wanted a royal blue mat large enough to cover over the white fabric so that all that would be visible was the original 8x8 patch and a plain 11x11 frame. I kind of just wanted a blue frame, but I couldn't find what I was looking for and couldn't find anything in the appropriate size frame. There's no way I'm going to pay for a dozen customized frames. So the patches have been stitched up sitting here waiting for years for me to do something with them.

I kept ruminating on different ways the I could get the blue framing I wanted. I have the mat and that would cover the top, but then what do I do with the sides........if only the white fabric could be covered with some way to wrap the colour around the edges.....Then I had a Duh! moment. The obvious solution was to rip off the white fabric and replace it with royal blue!  A week's worth of effort and here are the pictures with blue frames stretched and blocked and finally, finally hung. It only took 15 years.

I got smarter, when I embroidered the flowers I did in the winter of 2019 and spring of 2020 and bought the frames first. The pictures were made to fit the purchased frames so that all I had to do was stuff the embroidered fabric into the frames. So easy!

Now if I can only find a frame for the large bird and flower picture they can all get hung!

Pretty, but...

 It's gorgeous, I love it, but I'm keeping the windows open to air the house out and cut down on the fumes.  We used gel stain on the cannonball bed and the day after we did it both of us were feeling really awful, which we chalked up to the fumes from the stain. Once we got the first layer of  gloss Spar on it the smell dropped way down and once we'd finished 4 coats of it, everything was fine.  Except that I can still smell the Spar finish. It's too hot to leave the windows open during the day, but we've been keeping them open at night with the ceiling fans going.

It is petty.

I need to get back to tatting, at least the only headaches I get from lacemaking is knots that don't belong!

Has it been a year already?

It's September again. I feel like I'm coming up for air after a year of non-stop activity. We wanted to replace the old broadloom that was coming apart, but to get to the floor in my sweetie's office, meant getting under 2 large cabinets 4 short filing cabinets and several desks full of computer equipment. The first job was building a wheeled platform to hold the filing cabinets, adding solid bases and wheels to the large cabinets, followed by adding heavy duty steel brackets to the walls to support a long countertop for the computer equipment.

We had all of our windows replaced, which necessitated moving everything away from the windows so the contractor could get in to work on them. Unfortunately most of the computer equipment was right under the window so that required rewiring the room to move the equipment to a different wall.

We intended to put down wood flooring to replace the carpeting and once everything was up on wheels, moving heavy pieces around was a lot easier. The short filing cabinets just roll under the counter top, and the tall storage cabinets can be rolled wherever we want. That left us free to start on the floors, or so we thought.

Once the carpet was ripped up in the office we discovered that the water leak from the bathroom years ago had literally rotted out the floor in the back of the closet adjacent to the bathroom. Good thing there was nothing heavy back there or it would have ended up in the kitchen downstairs! Hubby pulled out the rotting section, replaced the joists under the floor and fitted in new subflooring. Sounds easy, but he had to work inside the corner of the closet, under the dividing wall between the bathroom and bedroom, and under the side wall forming the end of the closet. There were a lot of expletives being used! 

All of this, just to get to the point of putting down new flooring. We started in his office since that was where the carpeting was the worst. Once we got started, putting down the flooring took us a couple of days and wasn't that big of an ordeal. There was a lot of running up and down stairs measuring and cutting planks to length and a lot of pounding things into place with a rubber mallet, but overall not too bad. Except... hubby ended up rubbing the skin off both knees and with a really sore shoulder and pains in his neck that put him out of commission for a while.(Before someone comments to tell me that he should have used knee pads, he did, they didn't work very well.)Actually he was in agony for a while, unable to sleep for the pain. After several weeks he recovered somewhat and we went back to pick up more supplies to do the next room.

We're old and getting older and knew that this wasn't going to be a quick job, so we specifically asked before we started if the product we bought was likely to be discontinued and were assured that it was one of their most popular items. Guess what? It was being discontinued only one month after we had been assured that it would be available for a long time to come. Since we'd already done one room we had to make sure we bought enough to do the whole upstairs. 

Knowing that we were going to be putting down flooring it seemed like a good time to paint the walls and move the shelves from the wall in the next bedroom where they were kind of an eyesore, into the closet to allow for more storage. Once hubby recovered enough from hauling around dozens of cases of planks, we proceeded with hardly any issues at all, except for more skinned knees, persistent pain in his shoulders and arms and the advent of heart palpitations. Two rooms down, one room and the connecting hallway to go.

After another extended rest we tackled the adjoining hallway again painting all of the walls  and up into the stairwell before we started the floors. We had to invisibly connect 2 doorways into the hallway, where it just happened that the same plank had to join the office, hallway and second bedroom. It took 2 tries, but we finally got it done and then on the other side of the hallway we had to connect the bathroom doorway and the master bedroom doorway. 

To complete the last room, the master bedroom, we again had to put the dresser, the large storage cabinet for my craft supplies and my bookshelf, all heavy pieces, up on wheels. Altogether hubby put 36 casters on various pieces of furniture before we were through, but we were done at the end of June. Fun and games. We ended up replacing all of the drapes and drapery hardware to finish off the facelift.

In July hubby started on a project he's wanted to make for decades, a cannonball bed. A cannonball bed is a 4 poster bed with decorative turned finials on the posts that are capped by a large round ball, like a cannonball. Not having made such a large project before, he was reluctant to spend a lot of money on wood only to find out part way through that what he had planned wouldn't work so he decided to use ordinary 2x4 studs that were cheap and easy to find.

Step 1 was to plane the broad side of the boards to make them flat and even. Step 2 planing the narrow side is trickier because when you put the narrow edge through you hope that the finish board will come out as a rectangle but it might go through an an angle and the end might look more like a diamond than a rectangle. To make sure that we had squared off corners my brilliant sweetie cut sections of threaded rod and bolted 3 boards together at either end. The bolted together planks could then be fed through the planer until all the rounded edges were cut off the narrow sides. 

Step 3 was to put the straight boards down side by side and glue the edges together clamping them down with a bunch of F clamps to make one large panel. We also wrapped several short temporary boards in clear tape so that we could clamp the boards top and bottom. Without the tape these temporary boards would have stuck to the panel we were making. After drying we took off the F clamps and pried off the temporary boards. Then we put the finished panel back through the planer. Any little holes were filled with wood filler and little splinters were glued back down. One long panel done, and we started on the second, going through the same process. It took a full day to make each panel which had to be clamped and left overnight to dry.

Hubby has previously used his lathe to turn spindles for making stools, but they were narrow and he could start with square wood stock. For the bed he needed something that was 3 to 4 inches square and the stores just don't carry anything like that. As with the 2 panels we had done, we started with 3 2x4sbut this time we glued them in a block rather than a sheet. The throat of the lathe only opens up to roughly 36 inches which wasn't going to be long enough, so he decided to make the decorative finials separate and connect them with threaded rod. It not only solved the problem of the posts needing to be less than 36 inches, but it also would make the finished post stronger.

He did a trial finial just to see how hard it would be to turn a perfectly round ball, especially using cheap studs. It turned out surprisingly well and one large post was cut into 4 roughly 8 inch sections that he turned on the lathe. Making one finial was easy. It was more challenging to make 4 that looked the same. He watched several videos on the internet and decided that a precut template would help with the process. Being able to hold something against the piece he was turning to see how much more he had to take off was a lot faster then checking repeatedly with a caliper. Each finial took a day to complete and like with the panels, wood filler was used for any holes and raise slivers were glued back down before everything was sanded smooth.

The posts were made in a similar manner to the finials but the planned shape had to be modified a little as the first post going through the lathe developed a nasty splinter. Once that happened all of the posts had to be made in the same way. They were left mostly square, with the edges rounded off, a taper to a rounded foot at the bottom and a rounded taper at the top where the finials were joined. Again, each post took a day to complete. 

The finials had a hole drilled up halfway through and the hole was tapped for the threaded rod. Likewise the posts had a drilled and tapped hole for the other side of the threaded rod. When complete the 2 pieces were screwed together.

That got 4 posts and 2 long side panels done. We still needed the headboard and the connecting panel below the headboard as well as the footboard. The panels were made in the same fashion as the earlier ones, except that for the headboard and footboard we wanted wider pieces that could be cut down to a decorative edge but they couldn't be any wider that 12 inches in order to fit through the planer.

Carboard was used to make a template for the decorative border which was then drawn right onto the wood. Running a 4.5 foot panel through the bandsaw is rather difficult and as usual I'm hubby's 3rd hand holding up the unwieldy end of whatever is being worked on. My brilliant other half does lots of projects that need someone holding the other end of long boards or holding extra pieces of whatever it is he's working on. So I often say we did this or that and mostly it's him doing it with me adding in a bit more to the effort where it's needed. I'm just the cheering section!

After cutting out the general shape the top edged of the head and foot were routed to give it a nice polished look. The top edges of the long boards were also rounded off since those are the bits that get leaned on getting in and out of the bed.

You'd think after that it was pretty much done, but it wasn't. Angle iron - actually it was aluminum angle stock was cut drilled and chamfered so that the pieces could be screwed together with the screws counter sunk to keep them out of the way. Five panels (2 at the head) were screwed on each side to the 4 posts so it was 10 brackets with 6 holes in each.

We assembled the whole thing and dropped in the box spring and mattress to see how it would fit, it wasn't quite right. The length was fine but it was a little too wide. It was hard to tell just how much of an adjustment fitting the posts in would add to the overall width. We had to take all of the shorter panels and cut off a bit from each side. It was fortunate that the design hubby chose could easily have that bit cut off each side or we would have had a real problem.

To hold up the box spring and mattress a board was attached at the bottom of the side panel with channels cut in this rail for the slats to lay in. After that all of the pieces were stained with gel stain which resulted in both of us feeling sick from the fumes. Bleck!! Stinky, stinky stuff. 

We had to wait 24 hours to Spar Varathane it all and seal in the stink. Four coats of Spar required, with an hour between coats and since there were so many pieces we had to do one side, wait an hour, turn the panels over and do the second side and then repeat for 4 coats on each side, Since the posts would stand up we could do all sides of the posts and finials at once so they only took 4 hours to complete instead of the 8 hours needed for the panels. The rails and slats only got 2 coats since they're totally hidden. 

We started this project July 25th and finished it last week. We use 32 - 8 foot long 2x4s and filled 4 large yard waste bags with sawdust in completing this project. It started out to be a fun idea, but after 30 days we just wanted to see the end of it. It's done now and I can truly say to hubby, you made your bed now lie in it! Whew! 

If you're interested in woodworking projects and you'd like to see a more comprehensive story of this saga, check out hubby's web page at http://www.rsbriggs.com/bed/

101 and counting

I mentioned that I've designed a whole bunch of snowflakes, many of which I've given away without diagraming them or even taking pictures of them. When I get on a snowflake tatting jag I often finish them off drape them over the lamp shade and hand then out to anyone who comes to visit over the Christmas season. So I don't really know how many snowflakes I've designed, just that it's been a lot. I do tend to keep the designs that I've published mostly for copyright purposes.

I hardly ever tat from other people's patterns because once I got into the habit of designing it was easier to create what I wanted than to take the time to follow a pattern. (There it is, my secret is out, I design because I'm too lazy to read.) The other day I pulled out all of the ones I've kept and took a mug shot of the lot of them include four 3D snowflakes. Arranged more or less from the smallest to the largest.

Just for those of you that are going to count them to verify that there are 101 flakes, here's a 10 by 10 grid of them.

That's a lot of tatting and a lot of designing.

I was thinking of designing something for spring and the first thing that comes to mind are flowers like tulips and daffodils, but I've already been there, done that.  I thought about tatting a 3D robin but I'm not sure how to tackle that one and I don't have any appropriately coloured threads. Maybe I'll let my sub conscious kick that idea around for a while and see what happens.

OOPS!

 I've fallen into a snow bank and I can't get out! Of course I'm not trying very hard. I was sitting around after the festivities and these 3 fell off the shuttles. No diagrams yet and there may not be any forthcoming. 

While doing the last one I thought I was repeating myself, but it was only similar to 17 and not exactly the same. When you see then side by side they don't look anything alike, but when you're tatting them, it's a large ring with 2 little ring joined into it and a little ring off the top of a chain which gave me a sense of deja vu. 

I'm glad I kept going because I like the last one better. I can't really give comparative size, because I ran out of the ball of Lizbeth size 20 and the last 3 were done in Aunt Lydia size 20? 30? Different anyway.

Resistance is futile

I can't stop with thread left on the shuttles, I can't resist using it up. If I'm going to put away the white thread until next Christmas I can't just leave that thread dangling there. Can I? Can you? I have to do just one more before we say good bye to 2021. Just to finish it off with a nice round 20 snowflakes. Right? 

Here's number 20 measuring 3.75 inches from point to point. This one is back to a basic daisy with one more row of tatting. It has a nice lace to space ratio and an airy feel to it. I made the side rings on the cloverleaves slightly smaller because I wasn't sure how it would fit together and I didn't want the row to buckle. That's the same reason I didn't join the cloverleaves together and I'm happy that I didn't.

I think that's all the snowflakes for this season and of course the group picture which shows you their relative sizes. I did try to place them on the scanner in order, but had to shuffle them around a bit so that they'd all fit. Sixteen mini snowflakes and 4 not so mini snowflakes.

  

There was thread left on the shuttle

 That's my excuse and I'm sticking with it. Another not so mini flake. It's actually quite large measuring 4 inches from point to point. It's also one that I kind of like although I didn't think I was going to after the first row. I decided to use large rings like the central daisy but then I had this big gap point to point and I chose to fill it in with tiny split rings which resulted in an almost round motif. When I added points on the next round I had a hexagon motif and still not a snowflake shape. 

The last round finally resulted in some proper points. And a proper pattern... sort of. I've just noticed that I marked a split chain in the pattern. but neglected it in the legend. I'll fix it if I get a chance, which I probably won't.

19 is a strange number... and I had to add thread onto the shuttles to finish it up. That means I still have thread on the shuttles.....Whatever will I do?

Definitely not mini snowflake 18

I needed a snowflake for gifting and I wanted something a little bit bigger, so this one has the base daisy plus two rows of tatting. It is 3.25 inches point to point and I like the symmetry, but I'm not fond of  "spaghetti chains". That's what I call long unsupported stretches of chains. I want to add another row to give it more stability, but that would wreck the overall look of the design which kind of looks like an explosion going outward.

The larger size of this drawing might have resulted in  hard to see numbers, so let me know if you have a problem with it.

This might end the batch of "mini snowflakes" which is just as well because I don't think I can fit much more on the scanner for a group shot.

Not so Mini Snowflake 17

 I never thought when I started playing around with this idea that I'd be able to come up with so many small snowflake designs with a daisy base plus one row of tatting. Just when I think I'm done another idea pops up. 

This one made a nice finished flake with a good lace to space ratio and joining the arms side to side with the small ring made a really stable design that won't flop over after it's hung for a while. The finished size is 3 inches across which makes quite a respectable snowflake.

Have you ever had someone ask you "what is your favourite?" I have, and I never know how to answer. Is my favourite the one the one that is most aesthetically pleasing? Is it the one that is quickest to tat? Is it the easiest to tat?  Is it the one that is most mentally challenging? When I start out each Christmas season to make the snowflakes for our cards, my parameters are often set by, how much tatting time do I have and how much thread do I have on hand as well as what kind of a design am I going to make. Sometimes I go with a simpler design because I'm pressed for time and the intricate one I'd really like to make will just take more hours than I have in a day. So my favourite that year may be the one that I have time to make not the one that I find personally most attractive.

How about you? What kind of parameters make a favourite snowflake for you?

Mini Snowflake 16

 I haven't run out of thread yet, so here's the latest. 

There's still more thread on the ball, but I had to break out a new ball of thread to make something large enough to be gift-able. This one is only 2 inches across.

When I run out of thread on the original ball, I'm done, but that's still a couple of snowflakes away.

Mini Snowflake 15

Number 15 is one of those designs with long skinny arms that tend to flop over, but it's small enough not to sag too much. It's roughly 2.5 inches across. 

It also didn't take much thread, so I have another one on the shuttles.

I like using size 20 thread for tatting most things like snowflakes, doilies and Christmas ball covers. but I use size 80 for hanky edgings and bookmarks. Size 20 thread has disappeared from the stores long before Covid started impacting the supply chain, so I went online to order some, but talk about sticker shock! Handy Hands has the best supply of great threads and who can beat $4.25 US a ball for thread...except that converted to Canadian it's $5.50 which is still a great price, until you add in $35 for shipping which is $45 Canadian and the $4 ball of thread suddenly costs $50.00! Would you pay $50 for a ball of thread? I tried playing around with increasing the order hoping to exponentially reduce the cost per ball, but there wasn't any variation that worked.

I went back to looking for Canadian suppliers and many of them were out of stock on white thread but I finally found some at Stitch-It Central (https://www.stitchitcentral.ca/) Lovely folks, great to deal with. I ordered 2 balls of white thread in October so that I could tat my Christmas snowflakes and it only cost me $28.00 Canadian including shipping. That was only $14 a ball as compared to $50  which is a real steal!!! (Yes I'm being a little bit sarcastic.) I understand, Covid is changing a lot of things but my Scottish roots really want to pinch the pennies.

That being said, I'm finding myself being very stingy with the thread I have. Hence using scrap threads for the designs with multiple thread joins in teeny tiny bits of lace. There's still more thread on the first ball. You know what that means... More snowflake designs!

Mini Snowflake 14

This is the largest mini flake at 2.5 inches across done in size 20 Lizbeth thread. This one is pretty and fairly dense and make a nice all around snowflake that isn't puny and has enough structure to hold it's shape.

It took me a while to draw this one because I copied a previous design and accidentally renamed it so that I lost the original and had to re draw it before starting on 14. Good thing these are small designs!

I was asked on Facebook "Do your little snowflakes come out stiff enough to hang as is or do they still need to be stiffened with something?" That's a hard question to answer because a number of variables come into play. I know some people are firm believers in stiffening their lace but personally, I rarely stiffen my tatting since I see no purpose to it.  

First of all, whether the lace is stiff enough depends on the design and so far all of the mini designs will probably hold up. Designs the have skinny little arms without much support will need a little help. This design called "Flowerpoints" from my Tatted Flurries book is 5.5 inches across and it's a perfect example of what I mean. It has really long, really skinny arms without a lot of structure to hold them up.

Secondly it depends on whether you shuttle tat or needle tat. Needle tatting isn't as firm. Before you needle tatters get upset, let me explain what I mean. Needle tatting forms the tatting on the needle, so that your tatting will always conform to the size of the needle. When you remove the needle, you leave behind the void left by the needle. If you use a big needle, it will leave behind a big hole, it has to. A big hole won't make for firm lace. If you are a skilled needle tatter working very tightly with a tiny needle, then your lace will be firm enough to hold it's shape. Shuttle tatting forms the stitches directly on the thread and is typically a firmer lace. Thirdly, then, whether you shuttle tat or needle tat, it depends on how tightly you tat.

I shuttle tat and I tat tightly. I have a display stand my husband made for me that is currently holding about 30 snowflakes that you can see here. Do they look like they need stiffening? None of these snowflakes have been stiffened, except for the 3D design on the top right. Do they look like they need stiffening? They have been hanging like this since they were made in 2010 and they haven't wilted yet. 

The 3D snowflake shown on the top right on the stand was stiffened. I wanted to be able to use it as a tree topper and I didn't want a limp looking piece of tatting. I wet the snowflake and then applied white glue diluted with water. It's stiff enough to stand on it's own or to be used as a tree topper. Like the other designs it has been hanging on the stand for the last 11 years. and is still holding it's shape.

Beaded designs  may not hold their shape as the beads will weigh down the lace and make the arms flop. The lace without beads may stay in shape, but once you add beads everything changes.

For more information you may want to look at this post on Blocking, Stiffening and Storing Tatting.

http://sharonstattedlace.blogspot.com/2007/04/blocking-stiffening-and-storing-tatting.html

BTW I mentioned that I must have designed about 100 snowflakes and out of curiosity, I pulled the snowflakes off the stand and out of my drawer and I currently still have 89 snowflake designs that I haven't given away. I'll post a picture of them all when I get a chance. I have another mini on the shuttles and more thread on the ball, so I guess I'm not done yet.

Mini Snowflake 13

I really like number 13 for a lot of reasons. It's an easy tat, it's got a nice lace to space ratio and it looks very snowflake-y. I generally like my snowflakes to be around 3 to 3.5 inches across so keeping to the smaller dimensions has been challenging and restricting myself to a starting daisy plus one row has added a bit more to it. I've done 14 so far and I'm thinking I can manage one more for the season.

This one measures just a little under 2 inches across.

I was just looking at my snowflake stand and thinking about all of the snowflakes I've designed over the years. I did over 30 for the Tatted Flurries book and another 30 for the 2018 batch as well as designing at least one every Christmas for our family cards. So far there are another 14 mini snowflakes and counting. That's over 75 snowflakes with just those. A lot of things I design and give away so I don't have all of the designs, but I think I might pull out all of the ones I do have just to take a picture of them all together. I guess there must be nearly 100 of them. That's a lot of snow! It's the kind I like, you don't have to shovel it :)

Mini Snowflakes 11 and 12

Two more tiny snowflakes. BTW the smallest of these (6, 7 & 8) are about 1.5 inches and the largest (which isn't here yet) is about 2.5 inches. The largest so far is number 10 at about 2 inches, unblocked, because I'm just doing these for fun and not hiding ends or blocking them.

Number 11 is roughly 1.75 inches across.

I suppose I should have been letting you know how small these mini snowflakes are, but I didn't think of it at the time.

Number 12 is about 2 inches across.

I have 2 more to draw, but they'll have to wait 'cause I got cookies to bake!

Mini Snowflake 10

 This is the 10th mini flake, but I'm noticing that the "mini" size, if it isn't getting bigger, is at least getting denser. That means they'll take a little longer to tat. I'll have to curb my enthusiasm a bit to keep them truly mini.

This one has a 5 ring cluster at the tip of each point. There's a larger ring, a short chain and then a cloverleaf of smaller rings, followed by another short chain and a larger ring and a join to the base of the first larger ring. The diagram shows the joins with a thin dashed line which may not show up clearly in the drawing. That's why I mentioned it.

I have 4 more snowflakes done, but not drawn and hopefully I'll get to them soon. I started with a new ball of Lizbeth size 20, did my 7 large family snowflakes and then began the mini flakes. I may have just enough thread for another snowflake if it stays truly mini, otherwise I'll have to quit just because I've run out of thread.

Mini Snowflake 9

 Another variation on a theme. Back to the basic daisy with rings of 5-5-5-5 and a simple, ring in, cloverleaf out, for the second row. The cloverleaf gives the outer row a little more substance and it might look even better if the middle ring was larger.

As usual, here's the pattern.

 

Mini Snowflake 8

Another snowflake but with a slightly different count on the basic daisy. Instead of 5-5-5-5 the daisy rings are 5-3-4-3-5 which gives twice as many picots to join the second round into.

That gives the snowflake a rounder appearance. It might be interesting to do it again alternating larger rings on the outer round to make the 6 points of a snowflake more pronounced.

There are more to come.

Mini Snowflake 7

I know I drew this one out a couple of days ago and just had to add the numbers, but when I went to look for it today it was missing. I guess I must have saved one of the other designs over top of it. 

It's real simple with a chain of 3 and a tiny ring of 3-3 repeated for 5 tiny rings but it give a pretty effect.

Mini Snowflake #6

 Another slightly wonky picture. This one is similar to the first snowflake except that the outer pair of rings are joined between the rings of the daisy instead of at the tip.

I'm being lazy with the drawings, just using the same daisy and superimposing the second row. You'll see the number 5 being partially hidden by the second row. If these were stand alone drawings I'd re-draw everything and adjust it so that you can see everything, but by now you know that the base daisy is 5-5-5-5 so I'm not going to worry about it.