Joining the crowd

I've joined the group of tatters making the 2014 spring napkin by Renulek.  (Renulek .blogspot.ca). I'm on round 4 but I keep trying to skip ahead of myself and join to the wrong places.  I've also been inspired by others tatting the doily to go bright.  I'm using rounds 4,5,6 to ground it with black after doing the first 3 rounds in orange and purple.

Doily Delights

I'm still working on the doily (Swirly from Doily Delights by Karey Solomon) I showed you in the November post.  I finished that round but can't figure out what color to make the last round.  I am thinking either a gold or green.   In the meantime I've made a few other things.  One is the doily below using Karey Solomon's hand dyed thread and her doily from Doily Delights.  The doily is called sweet summer.  Unfortunately I couldn't get a picture that shows off the colors of the thread.

I asked my nephew (Jack, 5 years old) if he wanted the doily (you never know with kids) and he took it right away to put it under his sailboat night light.   He was really quick about it.   I think he knew what to do with it because his sister (Julia)  got a doily for Christmas.  I gave Julia the Beatrice doily (picture below) from Iris Neibach's book Tatted Doilies.

Thanks to Monica!

I got a slip from the post office today to pick up a package.  It was my secret shuttle exchange from Monica in Argentina!  

I waited until I got home to open the package although it was tempting to rip it open as soon as it was in my hands.  There was lots of goodies and Minica was very generous!  Monica sent a LaCossette shuttle and 2 celtic wire shuttles her brother makes.  The care that LaCossette takes to cover her shuttles is amazing.  Anytime I decoupage a shuttle it stays sticky but LaCossette's is perfect.

Monica also sent some thread she dyed herself.  The colors are quite lovely.  Finally there was a Jane Eborall motif tatted by Monica.  The yellow boxes in the first picture is Dulce de leche bars.  Of course I ate the right away!

Working away at things

I find that there is always a round in any doily pattern that seems to take forever.  That's this round on Karey Solomon's Swirly Doily.  I've been working away at it for about 2 weeks.  Its a very dense round and the sections almost overlap.  Since it was this aspect that attracted me I guess I can't whine too much.  I can't wait to be in the next round.

Between bouts of the swirly I've been making earrings.  My sister gets me to make something for her co-workers every year.  This year I thought earrings would be fun.  The metal doodads I purchased from Ginny Weathers during the Fringe Seminar.  I've used size 40 thread and seeds beads for this style.  It gets boring after awhile so I've changed the pattern a little for each pair.  I've already lost a pair but I have 7 pairs with 8 more to make.

Cinnamon Cruller

I had some people ask about the motif in the last post.  It's called Small Motif 2007 by Jane Eborall.  If you click on the name it will directly open to Jane's pattern.  I did it with 2 colors but otherwise followed Jane's pattern exactly.  

Today I spent the afternoon cooking and tatting while things cooked.  I finished a doily by Karey Solomon called Cinnamon Cruller.  Its from her book Sweet Knottings.  Karey made her sample using size 40 thread but I used size 20.  The variegated thread is Karey's, I think it was called playground?  I loved making the center although I wasn't sure it was going to work.  I kept double checking the pattern to make sure I was doing it

correctly.  The center doesn't look right until the very end of the first round.  All the half stitches in the third round were tedious.  I enjoyed tatting the pattern and will tat it again in the future.  There's a doily called Swirly in Karey's most recent book of doilies I want to do first.

Updates

I've had problems posting from my iPhone lately.  I finally realized that blogger needed to be updated.  This is sad because I lost a few posts.  I have this picture on the phone but not the others.  I guess when you takes pictures through blogger they don't save on the phone.  This pattern is from Jane Eborall. It was fun and quick!

Regular tatting

For the next little while I'm taking time to tat normally.  By that I mean following a pattern.  I recently taught a class on pattern reading and realised that I haven't sat down and read a pattern for a while (other than proofing my own patterns).  I also haven't tatted just for fun in the last few months.  This is a real shame since I picked up some really cool books at the Palmetto and Fringe Element Tat days.  So I decided to just follow directions for a change.

I've started with one of the patterns that came in the seminar package from Palmetto Tat Days.  It's a teapot by Martha Ess, the finished teapot can be molded into different shapes.  The pattern is meant to decorate some of the blocks Georgia Seitz gave out over the Tat days.   I decided to use some hand dyed yellow and yellow/brown variegated threads I ordered from Tats Kool a few years ago.   For the chains I used the yellow and the rings are the yellow and brown variegated thread.   It took me longer than I thought it would to tat the teapot. In my head I thought I just whip it off in an hour.  Not so much.  I haven't sewn it down yet instead I've been playing placing it on the block.  The pink variegated edging is supposed to look like a tray.  I tatted a heart while back in the same thread as the rings on the teapot so I'm going to use in the middle.  I couldn't find it so I threw in another motif for the picture.