Needle Minder

This is the needle minder project. My sample has beads the picots because the flowers were left over from wine charms I made for my sister to give her staff for Christmas. As you can see there's no worries about the needle falling off and the safety pin doesn't show.

Supplies

2- 6 ring flowers with 3-6 inches of thread left (see previous post if you don't have a pattern)

2- 6mm magnetic hematite beads (find these at a bead shop, the dollar store or a craft store) These beads do come in color but I am convinced that the magnet isn't as strong
1 safety pin (in green if you can find them)

1 yard green thread

crochet hook

Step 1 Add magnetic bead to flower by pulling excess thread through bead and joining to base of ring 4. Hide end but make sure to keep the bead hole open. Make 2 0r 3.

Step 2 Wrap/encapsulate the non open end of the safety pin. Jon at http://tatsaway.blogspot.com/ has both needle tatting and shuttle tatting tutorials on how to cover a cabone ring. Its the same idea on the safety pin.
Using the green thread make 4 double stitches.

Step 3 Add 1st flower onto the green thread. Sorry, this means that shuttle tatters will have to unwind their thread. Snug up the flower then make 2 more ds. Add 2nd flower the same way.

Step 4 Finish by adding ds until the closed side of the pin is covered. I also went about the coil with the green but you don't need to. If your safety pin is longer then add another flower, if its shorter then only add one flower. Likewise you can vary the ds to fit. Hide the thread.

Here's a picture of the finished project and pictures of me wearing the needle minder. The magnetic beads work really well and the needle stays on even when I clean.

A commitment to the 6 ring flower

Isn't it funny how you can always find time for the things you want to do? No time for cleaning but lots of time for tatting. Lots of time for tatting but no time for writing things down. I want to do a tutorial because I have a great idea for a magnetic needle minder. However, I can't seem to find the time to do the nitty-gritty details...like taking pictures. Originally the idea was that the needle minder would be part of a series about the 6 ring flower (classic pattern). Since you haven't seen any such series you can get my point about finding time. Witnesses tend to diminish my crimes of avoidance and procrastination so here is my statement of commitment:

The next few posts will involve projects that use the famous 6 (or 5 if you prefer) ring flower. If you have thread to use up these are great projects. Feel free to add beaded picots, graduated picots, and double picots. A basic pattern for the flower is:

R 4-4-4-4
R 4+ (3rd picot of previous ring) 4-4-4 repeat 4 times
R 4+ (3rd picot of previous ring) 4-4+ (1st picot of 1st ring) leave a 6 inch tail.

You get the idea! So watch out for the next post which will be a needle minder.

Balmy day

Spring feels like its here but I know its just a March trick! The temperature here is Ottawa is almost into the double digits and it feels quite balmy. I'm anxiously waiting for a shipment of silks from Sherry Pence. I've been saving my pennies for awhile.
I love working with silk. Keep in mind that I also love Coats Opera (damn them for having limited colors and then discontinuing the line) and Altin Basik thread. I'm good with soft threads.

Suggestions Please

I am frustrated by the lack of materials available to make brooches. I can only find the standard sew on or glue on pin that has the turn and pin mechanism. The problem with that style is that the brooch will almost always tip. This isn't a new problem for me and I've asked a lot of experts but have gotten nowhere. Does anyone have any ideas?
I want to make this dragonfly into a brooch. When I've attached the standard style pin backing then the dragonfly tips and looks sloppy. Right now it works well as a necklace but I think its meant to be a brooch.

Any suggestions?

The online tatting class...

This post may also have been called: everything I needed to know I learned from Georgia (and a few others)

If you are a tatter then a must see site on the web is the online tatting class run by Georgia Seitz. I found this site when I was still in school in Minneapolis and spent many hours reading the content. I also printed off many of the lessons. Since my graduation I have continued to follow the lessons. I graduated in 2003 and its now 2010, so 7 years of learning. I am positive that many techniques that seem everyday tatting knowledge to me I learned on that site. I have never participated in the class but it is a mainstay of my tatting reading (along with many blogs but we'll discuss that another day).

I am also guilty of lurking but only at the best places. So a big thanks today to Georgia Seitz (http://www.georgiaseitz.com/) and the other pioneers who placed tatting on the world wide web.

...yes in case you're wondering I have donated to the site- about time eh? (see Canadians do use EH)

update: Tattingchic asked about the photos. To tell you the truth I posted them because I like to have pictures and they were the ones on hand. They also work as an example of what I am able to do now vs then.

Found it! Finally

A couple of months ago I warned about the dangers of cleaning/organizing. In that post I mentioned losing black beads and crystals needed to finish a necklace. Good news everybody! In a frenzy of cleaning (in honor of a weekend visit from my mother) I finally found the beads and crystals.


Now I don't want you to think that I never clean or that I haven't cleaned my house since November. Its just that I try never to look at anything tax related until March/April. As part of my cleaning I looked through my receipts box and found my beads! I can now finish the necklace. Also found was the cheque book for my Sparks unit (girl guides). I can now pay for our cookies.

Despite the way it sounds I am an organized person and my Sparks unit is quite financially sound. I just have a different filing system...and tend to panic when my sister (clean freak) comes to visit.

In defense of my disorganization my house regularly gets turned upside down when family comes to fix up my poor house. Thank God for Family but not so thankful for the mess each construction adventure brings. For example I'm not sure if I'll be able to get dressed tomorrow because we built a closet this weekend. (by WE I actually mean my Mom and Dad) Some of my clothes are in the front bedroom and some are in the back bedroom. No laundry was done this weekend because of the construction efforts. Don't worry, I have lots of clothes and I'll find something. I also have a lovely new closet to fill once I get all the sawdust cleaned up.

My adventures with my house makes me really appreciate handy people/men. As they say on the Red Green Show- "If the women don't find you handsome they should at least find you handy".

Pretty ribbon frames

I'm addicted to a blog called dollar store crafts. I love it because everything is around my price point and amazing things are made cheap. One woman made a mirror for under $20 based on an inspiration mirror sold at Anthropologie (not sure if I've got the name right) for over $100. Many ideas involve taking apart stuff to make something new. Ever since I've visited this blog I've looked at the dollar store differently and that's the inspiration for the rest of this post.

A couple weekends ago I made a Valentine's wreath based loosely on instructions I found on the Valentine's linky party. Not bad for a cloths hanger, ribbon and glue eh? This put me in the mode of using up ribbon I have at home. The next part is a little back story but keep in mind that I've been visiting the dollar store craft blog a lot. The Dollarama (Canadian dollar store) sells a framed tile that looks just like the hand painted tiles that you can buy at gift shops. The frame is crappy looking but the tiles are great. I bought a few to hang in my front porch last year. At Christmas the Dollarama gets in a crap load of decorations and for the last 5 years they've had pretty much the same stuff. This year they had new stuff and it rocked! Despite my resistance and weekly viewings of Hoarders (inspires me not to buy junk), Dollarama managed to get a lot of my money this Christmas $1 and $2 at a time . One of the great things they had were holiday versions of the tiles. Once again the frame were blah but the tiles rocked. I had nowhere to hang these tiles but I bought some anyways (partly because I hadn't seen them at any other Dollarama). Once I got home I realised I could remove the frame, stick some felt pads on the bottom and have a lovely Christmas trivet. Everyone in my family got a Christmas trivet and I ended up with a bunch of square frames which I kept (despite watching hoarders) thinking I could use them for something else. The other thing I kept was last year's Calendar featuring paintings of birds. That's the end of the back story.

So the ribbon heart wreath turns out rocking, looks great on my front door and I'm in a ribbon mood. The glue gun is out and hot so I start fiddling with pink ribbon and getting the usual glue gun burns. Using one of the previously mentioned frames I fold the ribbon loosely then glue it to the frame. I fluff the ribbon to take out any creases. After gluing and fluffing for 10 minutes I end up with a pretty frame that I need to fill. This is where last year's bird calendar comes in handy. I pick a picture that coordinated and trace around my tile/trivet (mentioned earlier) to get the right size for the frame, cut out the picture and stuck it in the frame. That day I made three of these ribbon frames with birdie pictures. As many of you know when you make something it can be either a hit or a miss but I am definitely happy with my frames. They look great in my kitchen!

Right now you may be wondering what's the point of the story? None really, I just wanted to post something and these were the pictures I had. Plus I'm feeling pretty smart about my crafting skills.