Reading not blogging

I haven't been blogging. Could you tell? Last summer I fell and hurt my wrist so that I had a hard time using a shuttle or a computer mouse. Both things conspired to drive me crazy, since my usual pass times were severely curtailed. Needing an outlet, I renewed my library card and proceeded to drive hubby nuts driving me back and forth to the library because I don't drive. He wouldn't want me going by myself anyway, just in case something happened to me. He's such a gem.

My library bag will only hold about a dozen books, so it means making a return trip every couple of weeks. You should hear him groan every time he sees my bag parked by the front door. LOL Hubby's a do-er not a reader. His idea of reading is pouring over a technical manual and perusing schematics. For him, a trip to the library is an exercise in patience, but he does it whenever I want, I don't even have to ask him. I just leave my book bag by the door and as soon as he has the time, we go.

My book bag doubles as my craft bag and has tatting on one side. It's a basket of 3D flowers I did the basket and flowers for one of the newsletters and it's perfect for the bag. Surprisingly, no one has ever asked about it. I think most people must think the bag came that way.

All this extra reading means I've been using bookmarks more often. There's the book I read before bed and the one I read while cooking supper and then there's the book I'm not enthralled with that I might finish, or might just return unread.

So the other day while I watched a movie with hubby I decided I needed another bookmark. I wanted something kind of flowery that I could work up without thinking about it too much and I remembered a traditional edging one of the 25 Motif Challenge participants was doing. I've used a similar pattern for hanky edgings before so I had an idea of what it took. I used 6 small rings joined in the middle with short chains and 3 picots in between. Each flower shape is separating by a single ring.

I used some vintage size 80 thread in variegated red/green paired with a solid green. A crocheted chain with a modified flower shape on the end to hang outside the book. Here it is with the ends sewn in, even the ones from the break and the re-start when I ran out of thread. Not bad for a 2 hour movie and a bit of the news.

Of course, now that I have a bookmark, I don't have any books. It's time to go put my book bag by the front door.

I'm thrilled to bits

My tatting web page is an off shoot of our company web site which is maintained by my wonderful sweetheart. Consequently he prefers that he does all of the maintenance on the pages. That's OK, he's the programmer, I'm not. At this stage, he's probably forgotten more programming than I'll ever learn. Unfortunately Meniere's makes him periodically deaf in one ear and gives him sudden violent dizziness of the kind that drops him to the floor. I guess that's why they call them drop attacks. One minute he's whistling and working happily away and the next he's on the floor. Really not fun if you happen to be up a ladder! At the same time he gets violent eye rotation of the kind observed in REM sleep, except that his eyes are wide open.

Have you ever seen a lizard rotate it's eyes in opposite directions? Ever wondered what things would look like if people saw 2 different images simultaneously? Don't bother trying to imagine it. We have 2 eyes focuses forward because our brains are equipped to process a single panoramic view. It's very disorienting to have multiple images flashed on our brains. Sadly, that's what my hubby has to deal with when he gets a Meniere's attack. Sounds and images are suddenly distorted, there is internal pressure from the swelling in his inner ear, his eyes won't focus on anything with each one doing an independent jig, all attended with violent dizziness and nausea.

So for a long time now he has worked on modifications to my web page, but since it wasn't urgent progress has been very slow, just because it was't a priority. Of principle interest to me, was a simple way to add a new book onto the web site without having to re-design the home page. When there was only one or two items he had blended graphics into the home page image and that worked out quite well, but then as new books were done there was no space to add them in. So he started developing a secondary page that could be added to easily. He not only created the page to display current books, but he programmed in functions so that new books could be added with multiple mouse over images and the page automatically handles the input for PayPal transactions. The web site calculates the pricing including shipping and handling, by picking up the data from the location information input from the order form and then passes it through to PayPal when the form is submitted. He built in a printing function so that people can  print a copy of the order before submitting it, so they know what they ordered.

Everything was working perfectly in Internet Explorer, but then we tested it in Chrome and FireFox and some of the functions didn't work properly, so he re wrote it to cover those little oddities as well. Finally, after years of working on it, in fits and starts it's done. YAYYYYY!!!!!

Happy Valentine's Day

Tis the season for people to be silly and sloppy about love. Love isn't about giving or receiving chocolates or flowers and it isn't about sex. Real love is what binds two people together so that what ever happens they would rather face it together. Love is when your spouse wakes up with morning breath or farts and it's enough to knock you over, but it's OK because the love you have for them overlooks those little things.

It's when they are sick and won't ever get better and you don't think of trying to escape the situation, you just accept that it comes with the package and having that package means more to you than anything else.

It's knowing that if you were sick or life dealt you a blow turning your once beautiful bod into something ugly, that it wouldn't matter. Your other half, really is another part of yourself and no matter how you look, they'll always see you as beautiful.

Love isn't a mushy feeling. Love is in it for the long haul, no matter what. It's give and take, share and care.

Of course that kind of depenable caring, sharing and loving does make for great sex.

Happy Valentine's sweetie I love you more every day. You're the greatest blessing God has given me and I don't know how you've put up with me all these years. I just consider myself lucky that you have.

Dear Canadian Tire

For years we have waited with anticipation for Thursday when the Canadian Tire flyer comes in the Newspaper. My husband's ritual is to separate out all of the flyers, then he reads the paper, browses through the other flyers and then carefully peruses the Canadian Tire flyer last. How he sighed over the titanium tap and die set. He was in raptures over the speed grinder. He positively drooled over the air compressor and the planer was almost an orgasmic experience. There seems to be no end of drills, routers, bits, screwdrivers, clamps, pliers, saw horses, drill bits and other tools both electric and manual that a handy man needs in his arsenal of repair tools. So over the decades he has patiently waited and carefully saved so that when these essential items are on sale he can pounce on the opportunities provided. So you will understand that his workshop resembles a Canadian Tire warehouse with every tool carefully stored in it's own little niche.

One of his more recent purchases was a scrollsaw, bought primarily because there are some jobs that can be done with a jigsaw, but they are done with greater ease and accuracy with a scroll saw. It was surprising when it was first plugged in, to find that it rattled so much that it walked across the table, suggesting that it was in some way out of balance, so we returned it to the store for a different machine. It too, walked across the table. We returned to the store and your most helpful staff agreed to plug in the other machines in the store so that we didn't have to make more trips just to plug them in and see whether they would sit still. We selected the machine that was the most stable and returned home.

Once we had a working machine, my husband discovered many lovely free scrollsaw patterns available on the internet and began a love affair with fretwork.

Lions, dogs, eagles and butterflies were soon appearing everywhere. After very little usage we noticed some metal bits sitting under the saw and were found to be pieces of bearings and a quick call to your service department resulted in replacement parts being sent to us the next day.

Sadly after this we had an endless list of things the went wrong with the machine. The bellows, a little rubber ball that is compressed with each stroke of the blade, puffs out a little blast of air to remove the dust from around the work. Except that the rubber has become brittle and cracked so that it no longer blows air. We called to see about a replacement part in October, but were told it might take some time as the parts were on order. No one likes to stop in the middle of a project so an aquarium pump was purchased and run at the same time as the saw to facilitate usage.

Then the light went out. You can't see under the saw arm without a light to illuminate where you are cutting. Again the staff was very accommodating and the replacement part was received. However, the light, which is at the end of the articulated blower arm has wires running through it which connect inside the machine. The replacement part received is an empty tube; no light, no wires. Another call resulted in the warehouse staff checking all of the parts in stock to find that they are all missing the light and wires. A special order had to be sent to China for new parts to be manufactured. My ever resourceful husband, jury rigged his machine again so that he could see to work and waited for the call back with news about his parts.




About this time the weather got cooler and he decided it would be more comfortable to work inside and he moved the scroll saw into the basement and made fittings so that the saw was connected to the vacuum cleaner. Sawdust in the garage is one thing, but sawdust in the house is a completely different mess. Especially when he's making the scrollsaw work in quarter inch poplar, then making the background frame to set it off nicely, staining it a dark colour and finishing it off by cutting a box out of solid one inch wood and adding a masonite top and bottom which creates more dust.We called again in November to see what was happening with the replacement parts and discovered that since we had told the staff not to send another empty tube without a light, that they had assumed the part was not required and nothing had been ordered. We asked for the parts again and requested a follow up call to let us know one way or the other. We were assured that we would receive a return call the next day. A week later we followed up again because no one had called back.

It was suggested that we just return the saw to the store for a replacement. We had already tried all of the machines in stock and had the machine that did the least amount of table walking which might have been caused by broken bearings and the ones on our machine had just been replaced. We had added an aquarium pump that gave better air flow and added a fixture to hold the vacuum hose, so we didn't want to just replace the machine and have to start again. We again requested the parts and asked them to let us know what was happening with them.

In the days before Christmas when hubby was scrolling some Christmas gifts the knob that holds the saw blade in broke. We again called for the replacement part and were informed that they would not be available until after Christmas. That's not good news when what you have half done is a Christmas gift that's needed in 2 days. The knob has a specific thread and just replacing it with a screw wasn't going to work. We called the store and when we told them our predicament they graciously loaned us the knob off the floor model until the replacement came in.

January rolled around and we didn't see the long delayed parts and made another call mentioning they previous tickets that had been opened for replacement parts. After the Christmas gifts were passed out several request came for additional pieces like the eagle my BIL fell in love with bat wanted a larger version of. That's when we discovered that the special order for the blower arm/light had not been placed. In fact, none of the replacement parts had been ordered, or they had been ordered and cancelled. I suppose the warehouse staff is terrific at sending out what they have in stock, but when their paperwork indicates a part that is essentially defective, they don't seem to have an efficient way of notifying the manufacturer and requesting a change.

After days of talking to various people, all of whom assured us that they would investigate and call us back without receiving a single return call, it was time to talk to a manager. We have a workshop full of Mastercraft products, we are very loyal (and lucrative) customers but 4 months is a long time to wait for things that you have been assured "are in the mail".

The parts are not currently, and may not ever, be available. Scroll saws are obviously not on everyone's Christmas list so while they sell the machines, they may not stock all the replacement parts. Not to be deterred by that, our resourceful manager scoured the stores and found one that had a floor model with all of the necessary parts and had them shipped to us post haste. The NEW replacement parts are still on order and will be sent if/when they are available. AND Both the manager and the representative who referred us to the manager followed up every day until the parts were in out hot little hands.

It took a while, but when it really came down to it you came through. Canadian Tire - you guys rock!

Quilts

My hiatus from tatting has included reading lots of books including some about quilts. I get quilts as something that uses up scraps and usable pieces of fabric from worn out garments. I get quilts that are one of a kind works of art to be displayed. I get appliqued quilts. I get making quilts as a relaxing sewing outlet. It's the other 90% that I don't get.

I understand that each one is unique. I get that. I really do. I'm just having a hard time wrapping my mind around buying fabric just to cut it up and sew it back together just for the sake of making a quilt.

Maybe it's because getting neat precise points while machine sewing has always been an issue for me. I can do anything with needle and thread and for several years I made all my dresses. Points where things had to meet were always hand sewn first because just throwing pinned together pieces on the sewing machine never gave the results I wanted.

How is it that a leisure art based on cutting up perfectly good sheets of fabric and sewing it together again to make a sheet can be an industry? How can tatting do the same thing?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Tatting on hold for fretwork

Last summer I fell while carrying groceries, tripping over uneven pavement assisted by some ill fitting sandals. I caught myself by landing with most of my weight on my wrist and some of it on my face. Afterward my wrist was sore. Too sore for tatting or using the computer mouse, so I spent a lot of time reading rather than tatting.

During this time my darling spouse took up fretwork also known as scroll saw work. After a few easy bits he searched the internet for something a little more interesting and found a lot of free patterns on line. This made it necessary for us to check out various hardware and building supply places for suitable wood. Meniere's makes him too dizzy for much travel and certainly not travel by himself, so I need to make myself available as a prop, just in case. I spent the fall mostly assisting in locating suitable wood and helping trim up larger pieces into usable stock. Here's one of his earlier bits.

Of course once the design is cut out it needs to be mounted or the silhouette effect is totally lost because you can see through it. That means more trips to find proper framing material. After several tries he settled on using thicker wood stock and adding a routed edge. Which, of course, added more work to making it.

Once he got started he found a lot of things he wanted to try. So, while it's usually me that goes crazy trying to tat more things as Christmas gifts than there are hours in a day to complete, this year the flurry of activity was left up to my other half. Which was nice for a change, but left me feeling somewhat like Christmas came and went without me.

He's also taken up fretwork of a different kind.

My sweetheart plays a 12 string guitar. He's never learned to read music so he just plays by ear. Recently he's been recording some traditional pieces that he can share on the internet. I thinks he sings and plays beautifully, but then I think he does everything well. So there you go, fretwork both carved and played.

It's not "Fair"

I am always intrigued by the yearly furor over tatting things to be judges in the annual fair. I have never visited our local fair. I might enjoy it, but my beloved other half wouldn't and to drive more than half an hour and pay to get into an event that he doesn't want to see just seems silly. However, I thought that this year I would check it out just so that I could enter some tatting and keep the subject in public view. I eagerly anticipated dozens of ways to enter tatting into the fair submissions. That was, until I saw the entire listing under "Homecraft". The whole list is 12 items long including 2 items specifically listed under woodworking, a picture of which is included here for your amusement. There are 2 PAGES of classes for quilted items. I guess that's what happens when there's a quilt guild in town.

I don't have time to design and tat a realistic 3D rose which is what I would have done if I had known that roses were going to be this year's theme. The tatting that I have done this year, a lot of which were snowflakes, don't fit into any of the categories. So I think I'm just going to give it a pass especially since there is a $10.00 registration fee and the "prize" in any of these categories is the fantastic sum of $4.00 for a first prize. (The prizes in the quilt category start at $8.00.)Kind of makes you feel like a poor cousin, doesn't it?

If these categories were posted earlier it might be possible to do something inventive for each category, but as I only have a couple of weeks, I think I'll forget it.

Pineapple Cake

This cake may not look wonderful, but it tasted yummy. The last time hubby asked for a lemon cake and I made a lemon cake with lemon icing. Then I discovered that he said lemon but meant orange. Orange? So the next cake I made was chocolate!

This time for a tangy cake, which is what I discovered my honey meant, when he said lemon, I went with pineapple, and it met with his approval. Since we have been experiencing a heat wave I wasn't interested in being in the kitchen with the oven going all day, so I opted for a basic white cake mix, instead of working from scratch.

The filling is pineapple and the basic buttercream icing is also pineapple. Both recipes are included here for your enjoyment.

Bake cake in two 8 or 9 inch pans and cool thoroughly.

Pineapple Filling
1/2 cup white sugar
4 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 egg
1 cup pineapple tid bits packed in pineapple juice
3/4 cup pineapple juice
1 tablespoon butter

Directions
In the top of a double boiler over simmering water, combine sugar and flour. Stir in egg, pineapple and pineapple juice. Cook, stirring frequently, until mixture has thickened. At this point it tasted a little too sweet so I added a few drops of lemon juice. Stir in butter. Remove from heat and allow to cool.

Pineapple Frosting
1/2 cup butter
4 cups sifted confectioners' sugar
6 tablespoons well drained crushed pineapple
1 to 2 teaspoons pineapple juice

Directions:
Cream butter and sugar together. I drained the crushed pineapple through a strainer and used a large spoon to squeeze out most of the juice. Stir in crushed pineapple and blend thoroughly. Add
just enough pineapple juice to make it spreadable. How much juice is needed depends on how thoroughly drained the pineapple was.

The cake, while it tasted wonderful, was a stinker to ice because of the bits of pineapple and it dripped excess pineapple juice over the cake plate and onto the table after it was done. For the day or two it sat on the table before we gobbled it up we had paper under the cake plate to keep catching the puddles. I'm not sure if the juice was dripping out of the filling or the frosting, just that it made a mess. The reason for baking a cake in this heat? Our anniversary of course. My honey is definitely a keeper.

If I make it again, and I probably will, I'll do a sheet cake, remove it from the pan, split it in half lengthwise and put the bottom back in the pan before adding the filling. Then I'll put the top on and ice it keeping all of the mess in the pan.

There's a new book coming

Some of you saw the choker that Fox test tatted for me. In putting together the patterns for the book it occurred to me that this design had a couple of  features that might have caused some concern and my description might have added to the confusion. Thankfully Fox was able to identify the areas where I needed to tweak my drawings and make them more understandable. The new book features designs for summer that can make bracelets, anklets or chokers. Here is the Triad design as an anklet:

And here it is as a choker:

This book will have 10 patterns that can be used several ways  and without beads or finidings several of them will work as bookmarks.

Thinking out loud and looking for answers

When I started the design class a few years ago I waffled between thinking that I had a lot to teach and thinking that it was presumptuous of me to think that I had anything to share. Then I started the first class and had to cut off the participants when the class grew to over 60 people almost over night. I ran a second class for the handful of stragglers that didn't make it into the first class but again had to cut it off at 60 more participants, when the group got larger than I thought I could reasonably handle. As I started writing out formal lessons I kept thinking, "I should mention this", or "How do I explain that situation?" and little by little it expanded so that now, to adequately cover everything it takes about 6 months and the "stragglers" just keep on coming.

I structured the classes so that each lesson builds on what went on before in a logical progression so that even if you haven't ever designed anything before, you can successfully create your own pattern. For some people designing comes as easily as falling off a log, but for others it's a little more challenging. But whatever your starting point you CAN make a successful design just by following the simple steps we take in class.

Once you have created a design, you then have to get it down in a formal manner, and the second section of the course deals with using drawing software to create a pattern. For this purpose I created a step by step tutorial that shows you how to find the necessary features in drawing software and use them to the best advantage. Learning how to effectively manipulate a drawing program can have a steep learning curve.

The third section of the course deals with more advanced things like, using drawing software not only to draw your pattern, but also to actually create new designs. Then to take ideas and push the boundaries to see what more you can accomplish.

More recently, some of the folks who have joined the class are already able to design their own patterns, and they are more interested in the latter sections of the course. That means that while the rank beginners are struggling with learning to walk, these folks are champing at the bit to get running.

That leaves me with folks who want to slow down and take it easy and folks who want me to hurry up and get on with it. As the class is structured now, it isn't possible to do both. I have noticed that for the first couple of lessons about 90% of the class posts their homework. By about half way through the course only 50% of the class posts their homework and by the last lessons only about 10 % of the class gets their homework done.

On the surface, that suggests that people aren't getting enough time to do everything, so the last time around I tried giving people more time, but that doesn't seem to be the answer. The numbers of people getting their lessons posted still stays the same.

So, for the last year I've been kicking around a different idea. I'm wondering if it might be a good idea to break the course up into 3 separate courses. One course, just for how to start designing, a second course for learning to use drawing software and an advanced course for people who want some design challenges and some direction on where to go from here.
Since these would be less encompassing courses they would be of shorter duration and since they would cover different subject matter people could just take the section they were interested in. All 3 courses could even run simultaneously.

This would let me expand what's covered in the individual courses to cover more details on a narrower scope of information which might allow for more people being able to get their homework done, without feeling like they are getting further and further behind. It would also allow those eager to push ahead to progress at a faster rate.

It would also allow me to go beyond the basics and give suggestions as to how to push the envelope and come up with new ideas. Designing in a vacuum isn't nearly as much fun as working on projects together and sometimes just kicking around ideas can stimulate all kinds of new possibilities that you wouldn't have even considered otherwise.

The down side of this proposal is that it would cost more. The current course is at a very modest $20.00. By splitting it into 3 separate courses, to cover the same material may end up costing 3 times as much, if I charged $20 for each section. I'm still thinking about that part of it.

At this point, it seems like the logical thing to do, but I'd appreciate hearing what other people think.

12 days and counting

These guys and I have been hanging out together for a while now. I don't really like them and they have certainly overstayed their welcome. At the end of May I had mostly finished up the tatting I needed to do. By the beginning of June I had most of the diagrams completed for a small book of tatting patterns. Then about 2 weeks ago I started with a sore throat which rapidly escalated into stomach heaving. Things have settled down into non stop coughing and wheezing. I am so fed up with this.

I have made several attempts to bring all the tatting and pictures into book form, but it just isn't working. My brain just doesn't want to get into gear and this book of summertime tatting projects may end up waiting until Christmas at this rate.

And that's about the end of my energy. I think I'll go back to bed.........Zzzzzzzzz

No more mayhem

I have been tatting, quite a bit actually, enough for a book. The tatting is done and I just need to get some good weather to do a proper photo shoot in and I can pull everything together. In the lulls between blog posts there have been a lot of posts started, left languishing unfinished, and finally deleted as what felt important enough to say one day fizzled the next.

Today you get to hear all of those things that I've been storing up, none of which are tatting related. Last summer Toronto was part of the G20 summit and some folks thought it would be a good idea to assemble and protest anything and everything. I have no objection to peaceful protest. It sometimes shines a spotlight on an otherwise unknown ill. I am a firm believer in the idea that you can't fix what you don't know is broken, so sometimes a protest is the only way to be heard.

That said, there was absolutely no excuse for the car burning, building trashing mayhem that ensued. I have absolutely NO sympathy for the people that were strong armed as the police endeavored to control the crowd. People were asked to avoid the area unless they absolutely had to be there. Some people were peaceful while some were thugs. In a massive crowd of people there was no way for the police to distinguish and no time for niceties. A lot of people got hurt. TOUGH. They chose to be where they were asked not to go. They did not restrain their compatriots. They got the consequences. I say, take your lumps and shut up.

Then there was that mess in Vancouver after the Canucks lost the Stanley Cup. I'm a Canadian born and bred, I understand the pain, but I am totally embarrassed that it was Canadians behaving this way. Where is the sportsmanship that says we tried but we lost to a better team and next year we'll be back? Scratch that. It wasn't the team, it was the morons who assembled to watch the game, who drank to excess and then behaved like cavemen when they didn't get the result they wanted.

I was raised to understand that I wouldn't always get what I wanted. I understand respect for other people and other people's property. I understand logic. What mental connection does someone make that says "my team lost I ought to go turn over a car, smash store windows, loot and set things on fire"? There is no logic. It is simply totally unprincipled behavior. It is letting go of all self control (and self respect) and just being totally destructive.

Today I ran across several blogs talking about swearing and when and where it is appropriate. I read a variety of comments on the subject, but the bottom line is that it's all part of the same malady. A lack of self control and a lack of good moral upbringing.

When I was a teenager (back when dinosaurs roamed the earth) someone told me that people who use a lot of profanity only do so because they have nothing else to say. After that, I paid attention to the people around me and I found that it was true. If you removed all of the profanity from some people's dialogue you realize that their mouth is moving but they aren't really saying anything. On the other hand, people who rarely swore usually had a lot of interesting information to impart.

I had gotten into a bad habit of repeating the profanity I heard around me but after that, I made the effort to remove it. I replaced "shit" with "sugar" just because once the -sh- sound was out of my mouth it was the only short word I could think of that fit. It stuck. I still say sugar when I get mad. There are a lot worse garbage words out there, but they don't really add anything to your vocabulary or your conversation and it's easier not to start using them, than to try to get rid of them after they are ingrained.

Controlling your language means disciplining your mind and it's the first step to living an ordered and orderly life. Some people seem to believe that total chaos is a good thing. The Bible begins with the words; "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void;..." Literally, there was chaos and out of it God created order.

More and more these days it seems that people need order. As a Christian I know that what they really need is God to help them create the order they need. Only with the kind of order He provides can we have the kind of society that's worth living in.

Not in my garden

Yellow is not my colour of choice. You may remember when I tatted the cover for the chocolate box, that one of my problems was the lack of yellow thread. Yellow, orange and green aren't colours that I gravitate toward. If fact I have bought, in my entire life, exactly 2 balls of yellow thread and 2 balls of orange, one of which was purchased to crochet a pumpkin for somebody else. I have bought more green, only because flowers need leaves.

When we went out to the garden centre I was looking for some perennials to perk up the garden. So tell me, exactly how did this happen?

Then a couple of days later, this appeared on my lawn. Not only is there a plethora of yellow and orange, they're all stinky marigolds. I HATE the smell of marigolds. I tolerate them in my garden in small quantities just to keep the cats from using the flower garden as a little box. The cats like them about as much as I do.

Me beloved other half, on the other hand, absolutely adores large yellow and orange flowers. So after creating and filling one garden with lots of yellow and orange, immediately went out and blew the budget on buying twice as many of the stinking things for the second garden. The only perennials in the whole bunch where a couple of Asian lilies. I don't hold out much hope for the lilies making it through the winter as the squirrels love to dig them up and eat them. They can have the yellow and orange one, but they'd better leave the burgundy and white one alone.

The other day we came across a new garden centre and had to peek inside. I was looking for something blue or maybe a new rose in red or pink. Guess what we came home with? More stinking marigolds and a bunch of packets of marigold seed so that he can grow more of the wretched things.

But today, today we bought this, much more in my preferred palette of pink and purple and blue. Not a yellow or orange to be seen. The blue clematis has gone to the back yard, and if I get a chance I'm going to grab some more rose bushes, NOT in yellow.

Hurry quick

Need. to. work. quick. before. flea brain. gets. distracted. again. I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.

Blue this time

When my sister and brother in law were visiting on the weekend they thought I ought to make lots of bracelets like the one shown in the previous post. Sounds like a good idea in theory. Then I pointed out that it takes a lot of time to make and it wouldn't fetch the necessary price. When pressed to say how long it took I figured 4 or 5 hours. That particular bracelet had been done with beads from a tube of mixed beads that I had separated out to get the shades I wanted.

Just out of curiosity to see how long it would take, I thought I'd do another one although I wasn't about to spend another evening separating beads. So I went through my meager stash of beads and matched up 2 colours of beads with a solid and variegated thread, and set out to remake the bracelet.  Right after I tatted the first ring I twisted my hand in an awkward position that made the muscles in my thumb and wrist cramp up.  I thought about tatting left handed, but even holding the thread caused my thumb to hurt.

Between the pain in my hand and the excitement of the hockey game, I only got about half of one side done before I put it aside and went to bed. I picked it up the next evening and finished it. So I guess the real answer to how long it took is probably a leisurely 8 hours.

Of course there were some little interruptions along the way like having to ice my hand, pulling the hook out of my shuttle while doing a bead join and nearly shredding the thread a couple of times doing a really tight join. When there aren't a lot of bead joins to do, I position the bead and hold it in place with a safety pin until I need to make the join. When there are a lot of bead joins like in this pattern I just guess at the needed picot size and sometimes it's really tight. Then, when I use a very fine hook, it's easy to split the thread and only grab half of it. At that point it's as likely as not that the hook will tear the thread. I didn't want to deal with broken thread, so I just worked very carefully when that happened. Then there was the search for the second half of the barrel clasp that somehow became detached and got lodged down the side of the couch.

Now that it's done, I don't think I like this one as well as the purple bracelet, although it's the same pattern and I'm not sure why.

A bracelet finds a new home, and the world goes on

The purple bracelet I did in April has found a new home with my sister.

She came for a visit today and admired it enough to want to wear it when we went out for dinner. I didn't think they were colours she would like or I would have mailed it out in her birthday card instead of the bookmark I sent. Her birthday's not until next week and she hasn't received it yet so I couldn't really say anything except take the bracelet with my blessings, I can always do another one. She and my BIL thought that bracelets like that would sell really well. Maybe so, but not likely for how much time they take to make. I ought to sit down and time the next one to see how long it does take.

On another note, was anyone surprised that the world didn't end? Anyone who knows their Bible could have told you that foretelling the exact time of the end is an exercise in futility. When Jesus was on earth his disciples asked
"what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?" Jesus gave them a lot of information, pointers to when that day would come most of which were, - things will be bad, they will get worse both in natural disasters like floods, earthquakes and famines and in increased wars and conflicts and all of these things will increase in frequency and magnitude like birth pains before the end comes. You can read it all in Matthew chapter 24. BUT, one of the things he also said in the same chapter in verse 36 "But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only."

Because of that, I always think that when someone makes a exact prediction of the time of Jesus' return and the end of the world, I can count on it that they are wrong. Of course that same chapter of the Bible says that an increase in false prophets is another forerunner of His return. The Biblical standard for a false prophet is anyone who predicts an event that doesn't happen. Camping has already blown it by his 1994 prediction which didn't come to pass and of course having it happen twice just tells you he has really missed the mark. I feel sorry for the people who follow his teachings, but God doesn't ask you to park your brains at the door when you believe in Him. He does ask you to look into things for yourself. You are supposed to use that organ between your ears, not just blindly follow any and every teaching that is out there.

I get really annoyed, when people who have rarely, if ever, cracked open the Bible, talk about what they think the Bible says. What some people know about Christian beliefs they have learned from Hollywood movies. Guess what? Movies lie. You want to know the truth? Read the Book for yourself.

The attention span of a flea

I think that must be the problem. Waaaayyyy back here I was working on a bunch of 3D flowers for a new book. It got stalled when this mess here just wouldn't co-operate. I can make it work, but one of the things I was aiming for was something realistic, life size, hold it's own shape without a lot of tatting. It's that making it fit into the predetermined mold that has me momentarily stumped.

So I wandered off into making a tatted cross, and meandered through a beaded bracelet. Then I got waylaid by sequins. I drew a design that I haven't tatted yet but I did want to see what the flower would look like as a pendant. So here it is.

But before I could get to the one I drew, I got sidetracked again......
Like I said, the attention span of a flea.

Still playing with sequins

I just had to try it again, this time without having the sequins lining up in a row. I'm not sure if I like using sequins or not. I might be falling out of love with the idea.

The hole in the sequin offered enough resistance that it pulled the hook right out of one of my shuttle. It was an older shuttle that has been broken and repaired several times, but it's an English Aero, so I just keep using it. I love my Aeros.

Here's what's happened so far. I might have one more idea to try.....

More Sequins

After I did the sequin bookmark, Fox and I had a couple of emails about using sequins in tatting and I thought one possibility might be a an amulet bag. Fox dared me. So I did.

The start of it was the sequined flower, which I suppose might just be used as a simple pendant, but I was aiming for a bag, so I wanted rectangular. I started with the flower shown in the previous post.

I drew the pattern SmartDraw. I use Serif's program because it's free for the design class, but I've been using SmartDraw for years and I just stick with my old version 4 program. I prefer it's preformatted curved line that I can drop and drag, to the straight line you have to add nodes to, in a lot of other programs like Serif. Once I had the basic shape I tried several methods of adding chains in order to give me the rectangular shape I needed. Then before going to sleep I printed it off and tatted the first row.

As I was nodding off to sleep I started thinking about tatting a back for the bag and how I might attach it to the front. I thought that the back could be quite plain and rows of ring and chain would do the job. Then I thought a row of split rings in the shape of a rectangle around the flower, would frame the flower and give me a base for attaching the back to it.

So when I woke up, I cut off the chains I had added around the front and just tatted a long string of split rings. I laid them around the flower, tying them where the frame and flower touched and when I knew what I needed, I cut off my trial bit of ring and chain and did it again, joining in the appropriate places.

When it came to doing the back I thought about adding more sequins and what I was hoping for was loose floppy sequins that shimmered together in rows. I went looking for sequins with a single hole along the edge, instead of the ones I have with a hole in the middle, but I couldn't find any. So I had to use what I have. Pinned in the middle, these sequins don't shimmer and shake. Since my foundation frame row was in split rings, it just seemed practical to continue that way and I very carefully tatted my first row, starting at the top.

About 2 rings in it occurred to me that if the sequins needed to be hung from the top, then I'd be doing joins and adding sequins at the same point which might be awkward and difficult. So I retro tatted everything and started again at the bottom. Of course the bottom of the bag has to be attached as well, so that just made the first row that much harder to do. I was being very careful not to repeat the same mistake I made on the bookmark so I was quite particular as to which side I was spearing the sequin on so that they all laid in the same direction.

When I hit the end of the row, I needed to join to the bottom, join to the flower frame on the side, add a sequin and, of course. climb out right where the sequin was, to the next row. I was adding the sequins in the same way you'd do a bead join and it needed a stitch after it to hold everything in place. There ISN'T a stitch after when you are climbing out. So I removed a stitch before the sequin join, made the join and added the last stitch. Which means that the sequins where I climbed out aren't exactly in the middle of the side of the ring.

As I was doing the next row, I realized that I could either do a lock join on the split side of the split ring, or I could do it the normal way. The lock join on top of the sequin looked ugly, so I went for my normal join. Several times the split rings snagged and didn't want to close. It might have been the sequins or it might have been the thread. The Mocha Brown Lizbeth is the first Lizbeth thread that I have had that has slubs. Most of them have been tiny loose excess bits of fluff along the thread, but a couple of them were bigger and made for less than smooth ring closing.

After I'd done a few rows, I noticed something. Not all of my sequins were facing the same way. I think it was when I had to climb out through a split ring while adding a sequin that threw me off, or maybe it was tatting in the dark while watching TV, or the fact that my little container of sequins got spilled all over the couch. After the first backward sequin, 2 rows back, I stopped caring. I just wanted this thing finished. When I got to the end I decided I wanted a little something along the top of the bag to cover over the picots that were folded down to make the sequins lay over the rings. So I added a row of chains along the top and a long row of split rings for a hanging chain.

I could have re-worked the front so that there were brown rings connecting the flower to the frame, but I'm done with this so I cut a length of ribbon and tucked it in the bag. If I were going to use it to hold something I'd sew the sides of the ribbon closed, but as it is, I'm done. Nothing left but to sew in ends and scan it.

Here it is, front and back.

That's when I noticed THIS.

Give me a break. What is a pink sequin doing in a container of yellow ones? And why didn't I notice it until I was scanning it?

Credentials? 210 plus

In the last couple of weeks I've had emails from people that seem to suggest that they are trying to find out what kind of tatting credentials I have. The simple answer of course is NONE. I don't pretend to have any kind of qualifications except that I like tatting and I tat a whole bunch, all the time. At the table, watching TV, walking down the street, in line at the bank and the grocery store, in waiting rooms, in the bathroom, in the kitchen, lying down, standing up, sitting still, in my sleep. A lot of tatting.

Have I taught tatting? Yep. One on one, in groups, on line, on the phone, over the internet. If someone will sit still long enough I'll try to teach them to tat.

What makes me qualified to teach people to design tatting? Nothing much. Just over 210 published patterns  in 4 books and 24 newsletters and a whole bunch more like this one that may or may or become what it's intended to be.

This is just for Fox, a beginning possibility for that sequin project we were talking about. It might work. I'll just have to tweak it a bit to see.