Hector Tatting Seminar (not in Hector anymore!)

The information for the Finger Lakes Tatting group's International Tatting Seminar is out! You can find information about the seminar at www.georgiaseitz.com/ioli/hector2010.html. If you live in the area or want an excuse to travel take a look at the information and a few of the pictures provided. The theme this year is Angels Among Us. The classes all look so great and its always a tough decision which class to take.
Since I'm teaching a class I thought I'd better give those attending some idea of what we're going to do. Please, more pictures are coming but this is the one I have right now. It promises to be lots of fun!

Just some pics...

I spent the weekend cleaning and reorganizing...really I'm not lying. Even though I ended up with a bigger mess I did most of my laundry and a lot of reorganizing. I also managed to start and finish a few items along the way. The picture on the left is what I made from some hearts, plastic beads, and yarn. I started making a garland, quickly got irritated and made a bunch of these instead. I think that the white yarn looks like wings so it's kinda a winged heart. Not really sure but I like the way they look.

I saw a pretty picture of wreath made from cupcake papers and a foam ring on tatertotsandjello@blogspot.com. My dollar store didn't have foam rings but they did have mirrors with a wide wreath-like edge for $2. So $2 more on cupcake papers and $1 on glue sticks got me this. The pink ribbon I had around the house and the gold wreath in the middle was from Christmas but also from the dollar store and I paid $2 for it at the time. The grand total of the mirror wreath was $7. Sweet!

Finally, I did some tatting. I made one of Tatbit's turtles from a patterns she generously shared on her blog: http://teritatbitdusenbury.blogspot.com/. I don't have any pictures of the turtle but I was very pleased. I really enjoyed the pattern.

My friend Pat is great lady and her birthday was on Tuesday. Pat celebrates her birthday all month long but I was lucky enough to have her booked for lunch on her actual birthday! She is a member of the Red Hat Society so I thought I should make her a bookmark in that theme. Unfortunately, I couldn't find the pattern I know is somewhere on the Internet so I made one up! This is more or less the finished bookmark, the only thing missing is the tassel. As you can see I was is a bead mood after Teri's turtle. I made another version as well but didn't like how I attached it to the metal hook.

I had so much fun with the flower on Pat's bookmark that I started fiddling with some flowers on hand. I stuck some on this hairband and on a few other things as well.

This Tuesday I heard sad news that Mary Konior has passed away. The legacy that she leaves behind is immense.

Pointsetta Earings

Pointsetta Earings or some other flower since I didn't have the sense to post this before Christmas???

This pattern is based on the same concept as dimple hearts, only instead of moving forwards and then backwards in the line of tatting you move back first. So the sequence is 3-2nd 1/2 stitch (set b) first then 3-1st 1/2 stitch (set a). This moves the stitch behind the line of tatting to create the point.

seta- 3 1st 1/2 stitch
setb- 3 2nd 1/2 stitch

Red Flowers
wind 1 yard of red thread on shuttle (I used size 20)

R 4 setb vsp seta 4 cl ring 5X
tie last ring to 1st ring and cut leaving 12 inches of thread to work with during assembly

Green Leaves
green thread about 1 yard

R 4 setb vsp seta 4 cl ring 5X
tie last ring to 1st ring and cut leaving 12 inches of thread to work with during assembly

Stamen: 20 inches yellow thread all picots are very large picots

R 1-1-1-1-1+ (gathered picot) 1 cl ring. If you are not good at doing a gathered picot then I recommend cutting and fraying the picots.

You end up with a green motif, a red motif and a yellow ring. To assemble stack the green, red and yellow sections pulling the thread down through the center of the green motif. At this point you have 2 choices:
1. use glue to hold everything together and attach the flower to earings through one of the vsp on the leaves.
2. use the green thread the make a creative knot (1st half flipped 2nd half unflipped) around the other threads, cut and tie. The earings can still be attached to one of the vsp on the green leaves.

Enjoy!

I've got nothing

I've got no pictures or tatting related stuff to share, So I've decided to share a tale of toilet paper terror with you. In my house there is no toilet paper roll in the holder-Ever! The reason for this will soon come apparent....

My parents came to my house on New Year's Even to redo my kitchen floor. I have what can only be described as a major incline in the back of my house. I'm talking 4-6 inches across 12 feet. So they came to my house to create small step, a sub floor and to lay new vinyl flooring. Given that there were extra people in my house and they don't know where I keep extra toilet paper I thought it would be wise to put a basket of extra TP beside the toilet. This way no one is stuck in the bathroom without tp.
I left the house on Friday evening to visit some friends. When I came back at 2 am there was scattered toilet paper on the landing upstairs and a mangled roll of toilet paper that someone had placed on the back of the toilet. Mmmm, it was late and I was tired so I left the shreds of toilet paper on the floor and went to bed. BUT, there was still TP in the basket on the floor. Next morning I wake up and there's one more roll of mangled toilet paper on the back of the toilet. In addition, there are little piles of shredded toilet paper distributed throughout my small house. It's like it was snowing inside!

I know that my mom or my dad put the mangled toilet paper on the back of the toilet. I'm pretty sure that neither of my parents decided to toilet paper my house in the middle of the night. They just aren't the sort and they don't have claws. There's no CSI to examine the shreds of tp but I know who did it. I've had this experience before and without any video evidence I'm sure the culprit is grey, whiskered and not a mouse.

No confession was forthcoming and no guilty conscience on behalf of the accused. She was crying and weeping for treats the next morning like a spoiled rotten brat. I don't know why I keep feeding her.

This little piggy

I have a tendency to buy yarn with the erroneous belief that I'm going to make something. I never buy a pattern (no that would make sense) so I have stray yarn. Its not exactly a stash because quite frankly I try to stay away from the wool shops and I'm cheap. Yarn can add up and I can't justify spending money on a project that I may or may not complete in a satisfactory manner. Plus I get real bored real fast with knitting. I have a beautiful scarf in progress that my friend would have loved to receive a few years ago. So I'm not the person to ask for anything knitted. Yet I can't leave the wool shop without a ball of thread in hand.

So last year when Leanne (a friend) mentioned to me that she was knitting stuff for her son's school bizarre I asked her if she needed any yarn. I had some pink stuff left over from a poncho and guess what? Leanne was knitting pigs. Yep, pigs! I gave her the yarn and they sold out right away. Since then I have been whining for my share of the piggies. Guess what? Leanne dropped them off today and they are the cutest little piggy-wigglies that I've seen. Scanners just can't capture the 3-d glory of my pigs.

On another note, I received my Secret Santa package on New Years eve and was thrilled with my stash of goodies! I don't have a picture because I had to put everything tatting away to protect it from dust and dirt while we leveled the floor of my kitchen. Thanks. I really love doing the exchanges but haven't signed up for many this year because I'm always late.

note- spell check wanted to replace erroneous with erogenous. Go back up and read the first paragraph again with erogenous. Struck me as funny.