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What Happened to September?

Wow.  Has it really been that long since I’ve posted?  I haven’t stopped tatting, but been so busy with a lot of travel that I haven’t had a set routine for more than a few days which is what I need to get myself posting.  We’re about to start a pledge drive here at the public radio station that I work at so things are about to get real busy, but expect them to also settle into a routine and hopefully I’ll get some more posting done to type up all the fun stuff I’ve been doing.

One very cool thing I did last month was to teach at Camp Wannatat.  Yes.  That’s right.  I TAUGHT at Camp Wannatat.  Considering what an honor I find it to be just to go, you can imagine what a thrill it was to get to teach my coin purse there.

The coin purse is not really a difficult idea or technique, but it is fiddley.  It’s hard to hold the clasp and the tatting while you’re doing joins to attach the rings to the clasp.  So the best part of the lesson was about half way through when everyone was frustrated with it and Bobbie says: “Why don’t you join it with chains?”  So I played around with it for a bit and we talked about a couple different ways to do that and after a few minutes I realized it was SOOO much easier.  Seems like such a simple idea, but it makes such a difference.  Expect a new (much easier) coin purse sometime next year…

Many other tatting things have been done over the last few weeks.  I need to take lots of pictures and do lots of posting!

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Oh. Ok. Now I get what all the fuss is about…

One of my first posts when I started this blog was about how pleased I was when I took my printed copies of the PDFs of the Priscilla books (available online at the Antique Pattern Library) in to have them bound.  Sure, it was just a cheap spiral comb binding, but it was so nice to have them all bound and looking like real books.  Something about the transition from a stack of papers to a bound collection made them seem like a more real collection of patterns.  Just printing them had also helped, but this furthered the feeling even more.

I love all the patterns available on the Antique Pattern Library but having them in PDF form isn’t the most easily browse-able.  It was nice to have the Priscilla books in a printed form I could curl up on a couch with or pull out of a bag to show someone what I was working on.  I downloaded to my computer and debated printing more from the Antique Pattern Library, but unless I knew it would be a book I would be working from a lot I didn’t really want more things printed.  Of course, having them sit on my computer as non-browsing-friendly PDFs means that it’ll be a long time before I get around to browsing and discovering the patterns that make printing and binding the books worthwhile.

Enter the iPad.  Oh glorious day!  I can’t tell you how excited I was to upload all the Antique Library PDFs I had on my computer to iBooks on the iPad.  It’s pretty ridiculous the joy it gives me to see the books lined up digitally in one place like this.  Don’t they just look so pretty in the picture above.  And so easy to browse.  With the old printing of the Priscilla books I’m especially enjoying being able to zoom in easily.  I like the bookmark feature, but my only complaint is that I can’t add notes to the bookmarks.  My paperbooks are covered in sticky notes that not only mark the patterns that I want to come back to, but also let me know what I was thinking of doing with the patterns.

The iPad I’m using is a friend’s old iPad 1 that I’m just borrowing to decide if I want to get one of my own.  I have to say that just for the excitement of having all my PDFs in one place it’s looking like it’s worth it.  The only problem with the iPad 1 is that it doesn’t have a camera.  I was thinking it would be awesome to be able to take pictures of the pages of other books I own so that I would always having the patterns I’m working on with me.  I could always take the pictures with my regular camera and upload them, but that’s more steps and more steps means less likely to actually happen.  :)  I suppose that’s technically against copyright laws, but it would be for personal use of books that I already own.

Didn’t mean for this to turn into a commercial for the iPad, but the whole concept of being able to browse my entire pattern library from one device is sort of blowing my mind.  Yes, that’s right.  I’m finally stepping into 2010.

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Teaching Beginning Tatting

Tomorrow will be my first day teaching tatting classes at Piecemakers in Costa Mesa.  I’ve taught classes and I’ve taught beginners before, but this will be my first time teaching a beginning class.  I’m looking forward to it.  I have 7 seven students.  Originally I had capped it at 6, but they had someone ask to be a part of it last week and I said sure.  Should be an interesting day.  I hope it goes well. 

I’ve been sick this last week and am finally feeling better today so I’m just getting around to finishing up all stuff for tomorrow.  I’ve got samples in size 10 (the size we’re going to work with in class), but I want to make a couple more in size 3 so they’ll be easier to see.  Also need to try to find some rope so I can make some super large samples.  I’m starting them off in size 3 with the very basics (I always teach chains first so the students can use two different colors and if they make a mistake it’s not such a big deal), and then we’ll move on to a basic ring and chain circular motif and a simple trefoil edging.

Meant to post something about it yesterday, but didn’t really manage to do anything other than nurse the cold/headache.  Anyone have any last minute advice for teaching a group of newbies?  We have a 6 hour class, so it should be plenty of time for everyone to get the hang of the basics.  This is the first of a couple beginning classes that I’m teaching, so leave a comment even if it’s long after I originally wrote this post.  What do you wish someone had told you when you were just starting to learn tatting?

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From size 3 to size 120

During the Shuttlebirds’ conference last month I broke down and picked up a couple spools of King Tut quilting thread from Debbie Arnold of DS9 Designs.  I say that I broke down because I was really resisting buying more thread during the conference (though I managed to spend all my money on shuttles instead) and with my tendency to want to work on really large projects I really don’t need to start thinking about quilting thread (Debbie says it’s the equivalent to size 120.), but the colors are just so pretty that I couldn’t resist a couple just to try it out.

I made the motif of the one on the left first just to try out using thread this small and see how the variegate would work out.  The pattern is the same motif from the star doily (at some point I’m going to actually finish that).  I finished the motif and had it sitting on my hand and realized it would make an awesome ring.  I worked up the green one on the right to mess around with trying out a band.  (It’s the center part of the motif in size 20 thread.)

Note: I wouldn’t do it again in size 20 thread because (as you can see) it doesn’t lay flat nicely (though this might be because of the very scalloped edging), but I just wanted something that would work up quickly so I could try it out.  I’ll have to try sizes 40 and 80 sometime to see how they work.  I think 80 would be good for most patterns.  40 might depend on the edges.

The bands are just lock-chains from one side to the other.  (Note that the picture is flipped from the one above.)  The first two I made just a single band and then played around with criss-crossing them.  I like the black one on my middle finger the best.  Each time it’s attached to the motif it’s done with a join so I think that it one band were to break the others would stay put ok.  It’d have to be fixed, but at least the ring wouldn’t be lost.  That being said, the chains are pretty strong so I think they will be ok.

If I don’t get distracted I’ll probably make a bunch more of these.  In all of these samples I made the motifs separate from bands, largely because I wanted the bands to start a places where it wasn’t convenient to end tatting the motif.  I think it’s a good way to do it for now.  At least until I’ve done a bit of product testing and seen how strong the chains are in this size thread.  If a band breaks, I can just make another.

One thing I haven’t figured out yet is how to hide the ends with this size thread.  I’ve recently gotten into the habit of sewing in my ends rather than using the magic thread technique and I tried doing that with the first motif, but it was really difficult to make it work and it turned in to a (literal) bloody mess.  It’s hard to get the needle in between the stitches and managed to instead to split the thread and fray it in the process.

For the last two rings I just tied off the thread and cut it so hopefully they don’t come apart.  I’ll try the magic thread trick next, but looking for other suggestions.  I think I was using a size 26 (might have been 22) tapestry needle.  Are sewing needles smaller?  I feel like with a smaller needle I just might be likely to fray the thread more.

Edit:  One thing I’ve noticed after wearing it for a couple days is that it does stretch some.  The lock chain is pretty stretchy (that’s why I picked it) but I wonder if a spiral chain might have been better.   Just be aware that if you make one you need to make it really tight.  The next one I make I might try making it for smaller finger and wearing it on that one for a while before switching it to the finger I actually want it for.

 

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Found Some Tatting!

As will come to no one’s surprise, I managed to find a few pieces of tatting to display at the Piecemaker’s Peddler’s Market where I demoed tatting and got people interested in my classes on Sunday.  As you can see, I sat in the doll room, sharing the table with Judy who does lovely needle weaving.  It was a fun day and was nice to have an excuse to do nothing but sit around and tat for a few hours.  I haven’t had much time for tatting lately and had a wedding garter to finish.  That’s what I’m working on in the picture.  I’ll do a post on that sometime soon too.  I met up with my friend, yesterday for the final fitting before adding the elastic.  Finished it up last night and it looks pretty awesome with the ribbon.  I’ll do a post on that at some point after the wedding when I can use the pictures the professional photographer will take.

Here’s another picture of the full table.  Only one person signed up at that point to get more information about the class, but I had six by the end of the day and they’ve had other people come into the store expressing interest.

To the left in the pictures is the shawl I’ve been working on for two years.  Actually that’s not quite true.  I did start it about two years ago, but I have a habit of doing a shuttle-full of work on it and then putting it aside for a few months before taking it back out and doing another shuttle-full on it.  I think it’s now about half done so I should probably do a little post updating the progress on it.

(To zoom in on the picture, click on it once and you’ll be taken to a blog page with the picture.  Click on it again and you’ll be taken to ANOTHER page with just the picture.  A third click should then zoom in on the picture.  Really annoying but I haven’t figure out how to change it so you don’t have to click so much to zoom.)

The two necklaces in front of the sign with my name are from a pattern from one of the Priscilla books that I haven’t written up here yet.  I actually made them a few months ago, but they got put aside and I’d forgotten about them until I found again while looking for tatting for the display.  I really like that pattern and now that I’ve found the necklaces again I should get around to posting about it sometime soon.

Now that the garter is done I’ve started work on another belt.  I’ll post on it later once I’ve had a chance to take some pictures in daylight.  (If you’re keeping score, that’s now 4 posts I owe you.)  I’ve been trying to not start any more new big projects until I’ve finished up others.  That being said, this new belt pattern seems to work up so quickly I don’t know if it should count as a “big” project.  That means I can pick out something else “big” to start now to replace the garter, right?  Yes.  I know I have a problem.  No.  I’m probably not going to do anything about it.

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Scrounging for some tatting…

Tomorrow I’ll be spending the day demoing tatting at the Piecemaker’s Peddler’s Market in Costa Mesa.  I’m going to start teaching there in August and they use their Peddler’s Market also as a way to advertise all the different classes they have going on there.  They used to have a needle tatter teach there, but she lives a very long way away so was looking for someone to take over as the tatting teacher there.  We met back in March and she put me in touch with them so I’m now the official tatting teacher there.  (Assuming they like my classes this quarter and let me stick around!)

I’m looking forward to meeting some of the their teachers tomorrow and seeing what classes I might end up taking.  I generally to stick with tatting, because everytime I think about learning something new (at some point I’d like to learn knitting and weaving) I remember all the tatting projects I want to do.  I also remember how little space and time I have for anything new and that usually keeps me from starting new crafts.  Heh.  I have no space or time for anything new.  All 4 dimensions are filled.

That being said, Piecemakers has a lot of interesting classes.  Sure, they’ve got the usual knitting, quilting and crocheting but after those three tatting is actually one of the more well-known techniques that they have classes for.  They also seem to have a very strong marketing department and a strong following in the community so I’m hoping my classes fill up and I’m really looking forward to teaching there.  I’m going to teach two different beginning tatting classes (different, so that you can take both of them and still get a lot of new stuff from the second one) in August and then an intermediate class in September.  Class proposals are due early next week so I need to finally settle on what I’m going to teach for each.

The title for this post comes from the fact that most of my “good” pieces of tatting are kept in a train case that I left in my car up in Seattle.  (Last week I few back from Seattle to San Diego and in another week and a half I’m going to take the train up to Seattle, pick up my car again and then I have about 4 weeks to spend time there and Vancouver Island and then make my way back to LA.)  I forgot about tomorrow’s demo when I was quickly packing up stuff for this trip back south.  Mostly I took stuff that I wasn’t going to need for the rest of my time traveling the Northwest.  Wanted to bring it back to make a little more space in my car.  SO all my fingerless gloves, bookmarks and hair pieces are sitting in my car in Seattle and I won’t be able to have them out for tomorrow’s demo.  Luckily I did bring down all the pieces I have finished for my shawl so far (I really need to do an update on that project.  I think it’s about half done now).

After my first initial panic when I realized I hadn’t brought much down I remembered that I’ve been tatting for 10 years now so there’s tons of stuff here at my parent’s house, including a small coffee tablecloth.  Only a single fingerless glove though, from a pair that I haven’t finished making, so I’ll have to stick with pictures for those.  Other than the gloves and flower barrettes, the only thing I’m disappointed I don’t have is all my books, though I don’t have a very large library.  Everything fits in a single over-the-shoulder bag which I took up to Seattle with me.  I would have liked to have had books out for people to flip through.  I do have a snowflake book which I think will be popular and of course, I have the Priscilla books so between the two that should be enough to give people a start of an idea about what sorts of things they can make.

Anyway, I should go dig around in the back of drawers and see what sort of tatting I can find.  I’ll take pictures tomorrow of what I manage to come up with.  It’s going to be a pretty random collection of old projects that I haven’t looked at in years so it might end up inspiring some new ones.

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Secret tatting!

Well, not really secret, but I’ve been working on stuff that will be gifts for other people so I can’t share pictures.

One is a garter belt for a friend who’s getting married about 9 days from now.  I’m just about done with the tatting for it now and we’re going to do a final sizing to make it work early next week.  I’m using Gina Butler’s pattern available on her website here: http://www.ginabea.com/tatting.php  Very pretty with nice little dimpled rings.  Actually, it’s a slight variation on it.  I’m adding blue beads to take care of her blue and I’m not doing the lock chains in the back because I’m only going to do a small piece of elastic in the back.

I also recommend checking out her pattern “Heart Strings”, Single Shuttle Split Ring Hearts.  Very cute.  I think I want to teach that pattern at Shuttlebirds next year.

I have a few other gifts I’m working on and should finish up over the weekend.  I’ve been flipping through the Priscilla books trying to pick out a pattern.  I just bought some more size 3 thread and matching ribbon.  I’m planning on making another belt so I’ve been focused on the edging patterns, but my eye keeps being drawn to the butterfly patterns in book #2.  We’ll see what I get around to first.

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And I’m back!

At first I couldn’t believe that it’d been more than a month since I posted, but thinking back on it, it makes sense.  Our pledge drive is over so my time is starting to be my own again.  However, I’ve been working on the road and my internet time has been limited mostly to Starbucks with the occasional Peets, IHOP and Denny’s.  After I finish my day-job work I’ve been switching to working on my handouts for the Shuttlebirds tatting conference.  By the time I’ve made some progress on those I’m sick of looking at the computer screen and anxious to get back on the road. Hence no posts here for the last week or so.

Which is not to say that I haven’t had a ton of tatting-related things to say!  In addition to work on stuff for the Shuttlebirds workshop and making some progress on a few patterns from the Priscilla books, in the last week I’ve stopped by both the Lace Museum in Sunnyvale, CA and Lacis in Berkeley.  Love, love, LOVE those places.  They alone are almost enough of a reason to bump up the Bay Area in my list of “Places I Might Want to Move to When I Leave LA”.

I’m in Marin County now, about to head off to Point Reyes, one of my two favorite spots in the US (the other being Yellowstone.)  Plans for the rest of the day are to stop by the Cowgirl Creamery, pick up some of their awesome cheese, and head to the beach for a tatting-picnic for the rest of the day.  It’s simply gorgeous out.  I may even take a break for an hour or two from all things Shuttlebirds related and finish up the tatting for the doily from Priscilla.  (I actually thought I had it nearly finished before the pledge drive until I realized I joined some of the motifs wrong and had to do a bit of cutting.  Decided it was best to put it aside until after the drive.)

So depending on the availability of wifi in West Marin expect some new pictures of the doily in progress (as well as some sunrise/sunset pictures of Point Reyes).  Once I finish the tatting I’ll have to find a fabric store and figure out what sort of fabric is good for the center of the doily.  Any suggestions?  I’m thinking that just a nice cotton would be good, but other than sewing tatting to clothing I’ve never actually combined it with fabric.

For those of you here interested in checking out my adventures in living in a car (about 3.5 years now!), check out my other website, AYearInACar.com.  I let it go un-updated for the last year and a half, but now that I’m back on the road once more I’ve started it up again.

Happy tatting and happy travels!

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A Little More Progress on the Star Doily

This week seems to be a week for working on bigger projects.  I’ve been fairly busy with work and school so haven’t had the mental focus needed to pull out the Priscilla books and work through some new patterns.  I have a feeling I’ll be l be lacking that ability until at least mid-March when our pledge drive is over and I hit the road heading up to Spokane for the Shuttlebirds tatting workshop.  Luckily I’ve still had a bit of time for tatting and have been taking advantage of it to work on some of my projects.  Finished the sash belt on Sunday, but I spent few hours last Saturday hanging out at Wildfiber, a yarn store in Santa Monica and working more on the Star Doily.  The tatting portion of it is about half done now!

The picture above only shows the main part of it that I’ve got finished.  I’m trying to do it in pieces as much as possible so I don’t need to hold the whole thing in my hands while tatting.  So for each of the 5 points the process has been to tat two wheels, unattached to anything else.  Tat the third wheel, joining to both of the first two wheels and then make the little negative-space filler in the center, attaching that to all three.  When that’s done I end up with the picture on the right.  I add a 4th wheel to make what becomes the main part of each point (the neck picture) and after that I’ve got to sit down which the rest of the doily and make the next wheel while attaching it two pieces together.  The nice thing about this pattern is that because the last round is made completely of chains it goes pretty fast.  You can tat most of the wheel without worrying about how and where you’re going to attach it to the others.

That’s about all that’s been going on here tatting-wise. I’d hoped to work on the bonnet a bit more this week, but that hasn’t happened so far.  Maybe this weekend.

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I really, really want to make one of these.

I found the most fantastic piece of tatting ever and now I really want to make one for myself.  I’ve got quite a lot of other projects to finish first, but this is definitely going on my “One Day I’ll Get Around to This” list.  I’ll be thinking about the basic design as I flip through the Priscilla books.  Hopefully, I’ll find a pattern in there that I can modify for it.  Maybe one of those yoke patterns.   In the meantime, I’ll just have to sit at my computer and drool over Orsi’s.

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