Why does one job lead to ten more?

I wanted a little something to put on a hair clip and I started with a flower. I didn't like the way it was working up.
 

Then I was going through some old designs and found this butterfly so I thought I'd give it a try. Lizbeth size 20 in Summer Fun and Light Turquoise were used for the first one. I was looking for mostly solid coloured rings and variegated chains, but I found the Summer Fun has long stretched of turquoise with much smaller sections of the other colours. and when you use 2 matched shuttles and the only part of the thread you can see is turquoise, it's hard to keep things straight.

I needed 2 for 2 little girls, so I did the second one in Summer Fun and Light Dusty Rose thinking that I'd end up with pink where the other one had blue, but I started with the pink and should have started with the variegated, so I got pink chains instead of pink rings.
 

 
The butterfly fits on the hair clips, but, I don't really like the way that they sit. Too much of the clip shows.

Then I thought maybe if I glued a bead over the body onto the hair clip it would help to cover up the metal, but I don't have a large enough attractive looking bead.
 

A 3D flower would cover more of the hair clip and you don't have to think about which side is up. I like my butterflies flying up instead of down. A downward facing butterfly just seems wrong. When I laid the first butterfly down so that I could pick up my scissors to cut the thread ends, it happened to land on a new ball cap in basic black and I noticed how cute it looked. When the second one was done, I realized the 4 of them would fit neatly around the cap. So if I did 2 more, I could attach them to the hat and dress it up. I'm not sure if I like the design so I might try to tweak it a bit, but if I tweak it, it won't match up with the other 2, so I'll have to do 4 more and then they might not fit the hat. I finally opted to remove the partial row on the flower and fill the inner section with some large beads. It gave some sparkle and filled out the flower without doing more tatting.
 

 Once I had the hair clips sorted out I went back and finished the butterflies and like snowflakes, no 2 are alike, partly because of the variegated thread and partly because I started with different colours and partly because a switched shuttles at different places. I probably ought to do another in 2 solid colours so that I can see which colour goes in which place, but I think I'm done with this flutter.
 

Now that I have them done I could put them on my cap, but I was hoping they wouldn't sit so high on the crown. Maybe I'll just stick them on and have done with it. I don't mind sewing, it's just the fussing with it to make sure that it's dead centre, because it'll drive me nuts if it isn't. I have some light and dark turquoise edging that I goofed up on which can also be added to the cap, except that it's only long enough to go around about a quarter of the cap. That means I only make enough to go part way around and taper it at both ends, or I tat a lot more edging.
 
This started as a, wouldn't that look cute project which is rapidly taking on a life of it's own and hubby is already in the middle of one of those. He started out to make a stool. So he needed to cut 2 x4's to the right size for a seat. One of the wheels on the bandsaw has broken bearings so it doesn't roll easily. All of the equipment is on wheels so that it can be pushed against the wall when not in use and make room for the car to fit in the garage. So the bandsaw needed new casters. The set he put on the first time were welded on so he had to cut them off, make a new base and tap holes in the angle iron base to screw in the new casters. Once the boards were cut to size he drilled holes for dowels in each board glued and clamped the boards and made a solid piece for the seat that he could turn on the lathe.

The lathe is mounted on the wall to keep the floor space clear for the car, but when the square seat block is mounted on the lathe for turning, it hits the motor housing. In order to be able to turn the seat, he needs to move the motor below the lathe instead of beside it and if he wants to have full use of the lathe it really needs a table, on wheels of course, so that he can move it aside when it's not in use. So he had to build a lathe table and he had to build supports for the motor under the table that would allow the motor to move when the pulley is shifted to change speeds.

Why is it that doing one job often leads to ten other jobs that you really didn't plan on doing? Is it any wonder that nothing ever seems to get done?

Unappreciated

I received an email several days ago from a freelance write doing an article on tatting for a Canadian magazine. The email asked about young people tatting and I don't really know a lot of young tatters and I emailed back with that information and thought no more about it. Today I got a call from the journalist asking for more information. As much as I can tell them all about tatting, tatters on the internet, videos to show you how and the fact that many of us tat in isolation rather than in groups, what they (the magazine) really want to know is how relevant tatting is to young people. I recognize that magazines need to address the interests of their readers and more importantly to them, the needs of their advertisers. Consequently, the articles that get published are the ones that relate to the largest segment of buying public, which happens to be those under 30. High school students living at home and just starting to work, university students starting their careers and families with young children all spend money on both necessities like cell phones, cars, and clothing as well as recreational things like ATVs, sporting equipment and hobby materials. So while grandma might buy an occasional ball of yarn, what the money making machines like the magazines and their advertisers, want to know is what is junior spending his money on.

 
 I may be useful for providing historical and practical information about tatting, but they don't really want to talk to me, they want to talk to kids. Suddenly, I'm irrelevant and I resent that. Or is it, I represent that?