In cleaning up my computer I found this picture of an attempt at dying thread with turmeric.  It worked out better than I expected and was pretty easy.  I used hot water and soaked it for a few minutes.  I put it in a fixer for a bit before rinsing.  I’m not super excited about the color since I prefer darker colors to the lighter colors, but it was nice to do a bit of dying with natural dyes.

After this batch I try doing a bit with beets, but it rinsed right out.  Unfortunately, I had tossed out the beet water out before I rinsed it and so couldn’t try another batch with fixer.

I wound a couple balls of DMC thread into skeins so that I’m ready to dye a few whenever the feeling hits me without it being a big production.

As I do every time I play around with dying thread I end up being more and more impressed with people like KrystleDawne and LadyShuttlemaker who make such gorgeous hand-dyed thread.  I’m always especially impressed with the consistency of their dyeing and how they’re able to do the same variation lot after lot.

I’ll keep playing around with dyeing threads occasionally, but for the most part I’m going to leave it to the expects!

Categories: Hand Dyed Thread
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I’m looking for a test tatter or two for the earrings I posted earlier this week.  I plan to send the pattern to the IOLI who are looking for lace patterns to include in their CD for this year’s convention.  Don’t know if they’ll choose it, but it would be awesome if they did.

Submitting them means that I would need feedback on the pattern in the next day or two.  Anyone interested?  I’m pretty sure the pattern is free from any mistakes, but would like to have someone else tat it to be sure and to check for any wording that is awkward or unclear.  They earrings should take under an hour to make, I think.  I’m not always a good judge of that, but they’re not very complicated.  The pattern does include split rings and shuttle joins.

I’m going to make this the free pattern pulled out of the book of other patterns inspired by this edging from the Priscilla Tatting Book, so if you can’t get to it in the next couple days, don’t worry, this will not be your last opportunity.

Leave a comment with your email, or send me an email at jessica@snapdragonlace.com.  Thanks!

Categories: Patterns, Priscilla Project
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Tax season is over and I’m excited to be getting in to the summer.  (For those that don’t know, when I’m not tatting I’m an accountant.)  It was a very busy tax season and I’m looking forward to having a bit of time to catch my breath and get some tatting projects done.

I had a wonderful time at the Shuttlebirds Tatting Workshop in Spokane this April.  It’s hard to believe it was just two and a half weeks ago.  I miss it already.  My classes went well and I think my students learned a lot.  I’ve already got a couple ideas for what I will teach next year and have even gotten the handout ready for one already.  How’s that for staying on top of things?

I have a number of patterns I want to get put together and published, so I think that will be my focus for the summer.  One booklet will be a series of variations on a pattern from Priscilla (two of which I taught at Shuttlebirds) and the other will be one of some easy bracelet patterns.  For the second, I’d like to come with about 12 or so designs and so far I’m at about 5.  It may be a bit of time before I get that one done, but it will be a nice summer project.

The earrings here are part of the series of patterns that are variations on a Priscilla edging.  I want to sell the booklet with all the patterns, but release one as a free pattern.  I’m currently thinking it will be for these earrings, but I have another one that I might do instead that I have to write up still.

I also have a couple of beginning tatting classes coming up so if you’re in the Seattle area and interested in learning how to tat, please let me know.

All my mentioning of summer should probably come with an asterisk since it’s currently a typically cloudy Seattle day, but we had a couple of nice days in the last week and hopefully that will pick up again.

Categories: Uncategorized
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Last year I picked up these little red ornaments and I’m finally getting around to playing with them.  I should have included something in the picture to show the size, but they’re about an inch at the widest.  There’s 27 in the set, but so far I’ve only covered 3 of them.  I think I’m just going to do this same basic pattern on all of them.  They’re way too small to put on a normal sized tree, but would look nice on a little tabletop-sized tree.

I also got two other sizes, but I expect I’ll end up leaving those for next year.

Hope everyone is having a good holiday season!

Categories: Christmas tatting
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The good news is that I got my score back on my latest CPA exam and I passed!  2 down and 2 to go.  I’ve started studying for the next one, but am, of course, a bit behind from where I wanted to be at this point.  That fact and the fact that I have a lot of things to finish up at work before heading off on our Christmas/New Years vacation leads to the not unexpected news.  I don’t expect to have a lot of time for tatting in the next week.  Still grabbing at whatever I can get, but not making any big plans for what I want to tackle and am just going to take whatever I can get.

I DID get in some tatting at yesterday’s meeting of the Lacemakers of Puget Sound.  The group has a brand new website and I highly recommend that you check it out.  If you’re in the Seattle/Puget Sound area you should come to our meetings.  We have monthly meetings in Kent, Everrett and Bellevue.  It’s a great way to learn new things or just get a chance to hang out and enjoy the company of others who are just as fascinated by making things with thread.

As we’re getting near the end of the year I’ve been thinking a bit about the goal I set a few months ago of finishing an unfinished project every month.  I’m proud to say that I’ve actually kept up with it!   I haven’t reported here on the last two because they”re gifts and while I don’t think the recipients are following my website, I figured it was better to stay on the safe side.  I did, however finish two other garlands that end up on “our” Christmas tree.  The “our” is in quotes because we’ll be out of town for Christmas so we decided to set a tree up at my partner’s office instead.  We went over with his brother and set it up over the weekend as a surprise for his employees to find on Monday morning so we still got the fun of setting up and decorating, but without any rearranging needed at our house.  Since last Christmas we’ve acquired a piano and a new couch and are not sure where to put a tree.

The two garlands didn’t take long to finish.  I had the tatting done for them, and really just needed to go back to hide and clip the ends.  Didn’t take long to do, but they were unfinished objects and now they’re finished so they still cover two weeks of my goal.

Included on the tree are a couple dozen snowflakes I made years ago when I worked in radio and spent a lot of time in the studio sitting around, waiting to press buttons between songs/speaking breaks.  It was the sort of job that was perfect for a crafter and I got a lot of snowflakes made.  My only wish now is that I had used better thread.  I used the Royal brand thread that was easily available to me at Michaels and JoAnns and there’s nothing wrong with it, but since those days I’ve switched over to better thread and it makes me a little sad to see all my hard work and worry that it won’t hold up over the long (40 years) run.  One day maybe I’ll have the time to replace them with better thread.  If I did this they would also be made with much better tatting since making dozens and dozens of snowflakes is one of the things I did to really practice my tatting and get better.  I look fondly of them for that aspect and love the way we literarily fling them on to the tree and let them lay there rather than hanging each one individually.

Categories: Christmas tatting
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As I mentioned yesterday, I’ve been focused the last couple days on an easier pattern from Priscilla Tatting Book #3.  In yesterday’s project I doubled it over to make a bracelet.  In today’s project I just added a second row of all chains to finish it off.  I think I might actually like this one better than the doubled over version.  I’ve been playing around with two colors as well and think that this version does quite well with two colors.  (Sorry for the poor lighting in the pictures lately.  It gets dark around 4:30 here now and I haven’t been getting anything photographed during the day.  Perhaps it’s time for me to invest in a lightbox.

I’ve probably latched on to the quick and easy because I’ve been giving some more thought to what I want the final product of this whole Priscilla project to be.  I still have the pie-in-the-sky idea of rewriting ALL the patterns in all 4 books (Priscilla Tatting 1-3 and the Tatting and Crochet Yoke book), but am starting to settle down and try to figure out what is practical.  If I can get it all together I’d like to publish it in book form (either printed or PDF), but have been giving some thought to what is actually a viable (sellable) useful product for tatters.  I have no doubt that with a lot of the patterns what I am doing by modernizing them is completely useful, but some of the little projects like this edging don’t really need any changes on their own.  (That being said, the adaptations for projects like this bracelet and my own and I think they’re fun, even if not particularly complicated or hard to come up with.)

So what should I do?  Focus in only on the complicated, incorrect or difficult projects?  Or do everything including the easier patterns like this edging?  I wouldn’t really feel comfortable charging money for the patterns for these easier ones that don’t require much (if any) modernizing, but also think that if I can do all the patterns in the books that tatters would appreciate having a complete set of all the modernized Priscilla pieces.

What I think I’ve come up with is this: I’m going to go ahead and write-up the easier patterns the same way that I’m doing the more complicated ones.  They are interesting to do, good practice for pattern writing of the bigger pieces, and most of all, a good motivation for me because they are easier to finish and will help keep me on track.  These ones I’ll release for free on my website and on Craftsy.com.  I figure they’ll be good advertising for the Priscilla project.

When I put together the finished Priscilla project these will be included with the others in the PDF, but not calculated into the price of the PDF.  If I get printed versions (my ultimate goal) then they will have to go into the calculation of the price because of the cost of printing, but it will all depend on the pricing/print run, etc.  Of course, that’s way too far in the future with way too many unknowns to even think about.

I have no idea how much of this is just me dreaming about ridiculous goals, but I really hope I can pull this off.  Is this Priscilla project just my own obsession or will other tatters get enough use out of this modernization of the patterns to make it worthwhile?  I’d hate to put all this work into it just to find out no one else is interested.  I guess that is something else that releasing these free patterns will help me gauge as well.

Categories: Priscilla Project
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It’s been a busy couple weeks!   A week ago from Friday I took my 2nd CPA exam.  I think it went ok, but haven’t gotten my scores yet.  Hope that I passed, but if I didn’t I certainly did learn a lot in the process and should have an easier time at retaking it so not too worried yet.  This last week I’ve started studying for the next one, but since I have about a month have also set aside some time for tatting.  I’ve been working on a couple new patterns or variations on old patterns, but what I’ve been a bit obsessed with over the last couple days is a couple of variations on a very simple pattern from Priscilla #3.  Figure 21 is a simple edging that I’ve done two bracelet patterns from.

Not sure why I’ve hooked on to this pattern so much over the last couple days, but it’s quick and easy and makes a nice piece.  I think that I’ve just been in the mood to appreciate something that’s quick and easy with everything going on with the tests, work, recovering from hosting the family Thanksgiving dinner and getting ready for our Christmas vacation.

Categories: Priscilla Project
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It has been a very busy week with work and getting our house ready for hosting Thanksgiving. (We will be sleeping 8 in what is technically a 0 bedroom house!) Not a whole lot of time for tatting, though I’ve been working on a few small projects. I’m excited to report though that I received this original copy of Priscilla Tatting #3 in yesterday’s mail. Sometime between 1924 and today it lost its cover and to be honest, I haven’t unwrapped it from its sarn wrap packaging to check if all the other pages are there, but for some reason Priscilla Tatting #3 has been the hardest of the four to find.

So now I have a complete set of book 1-3 and the crochet and tatting yoke and collar book. If anyone knows of any other Priscilla tatting books, please let me know. I have one of the Modern Priscilla magazines, and may eventually decide to collect more. They’re pretty interesting to flip through. I also have a couple of the Coats and Clark Priscilla booklets, but don’t plan on collecting those.

I actually have been picking up multiple copies of book #2. There’s a couple different publishers who printed the Priscilla books and at least two significantly different versions of book #2. Haven’t determined yet if there’s multiple versions of the others. Which actually leads me to my next reader question.

I’m also looking for more information on the Priscilla Publishing Company. If anyone has any ideas on where to find more info that would be wonderful. There’s not a lot on the web, but I’ve found they were based out of Boston and thought there might be some more local historical sites out there. When I finally get the big Modernizing of the Priscilla patterns out there I’d like to be able to include information about the publishing company, the women writing the patterns and he women who read the magazine. Any ideas welcome.

As a side note, this is the first post I’ve made on my iPad using the WordPress app. Hopefully the picture and formatting will come out alright. I’m pretty excited about the possibility of being able to post from the iPad while on the go!

Categories: Priscilla Project
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This week I finished up one of my samples for the Shuttlebirds Tatting conference.  The project is one that has 4 shuttles going at once so it’s not very portable.  I’m glad to have it finished now and have only more portable projects to travel with.

This week I also did another quick bracelet with a bit of thread left on a shuttle.  This is an edging pattern from one of the Priscilla books.  I think it makes a nice bracelet and I like using the black as the shuttle thread rather than the chain thread which was the first way I envisioned it.

I still need to get the directions for the flower edging pattern written up.  Maybe that will be this weekend’s project.

Categories: Uncategorized
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Been quite busy and doing some traveling which has cut down on the tatting some, but since I’ve been quiet for a while I’ve got a few projects to talk about here.  This one is the first piece of bobbin lace I’ve made in years.  I’ve been inspired by some of the bobbin lace I’ve been seeing at the Lacemakers of Puget Sound meetings.  I don’t expect to get super into it, but I bought a new lace billow with a wheel so that I can make a longer piece.  I’d like to set up one piece of lace that can just keep going and going so I can work on it whenever I feel like it.

I’ve picked out the pattern I want to work on, but there’s a few things I need to learn before I get started on it, so I’ll do a few more practice pieces before I set up the big one.  However, I’ll be doing it slowly so don’t expect any new updates on bobbin lace anytime soon.  Tatting is still what’s going to be keeping me the most busy.

Categories: Uncategorized
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