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?

As usual I have been flipping between projects so it should surprise no one that I haven’t done anything new on the big projects that my two previous posts were about.  Still been tatting, of course, and here’s what I have been doing:

So what is it?  Well, I’m not sure.  I started it with one purpose.  Hit a snag and decided that it would be something else.  Now I’m going back to the first.  Physically, it’s a very long piece of a very ruffled edging.  Here’s a close up:

I’m not actually sure how long a piece it is.  For the original plan I didn’t need an exact length because the whole thing was going to be bundled together for an ruffle-y effect.  So I just tatted up a long length of R3+3-3-3, CH4-2-2-2-2-4.  I ran a thread through all the rings so I could keep in all contained while tatting the second row which is the same as the first, except that the rings are R3-3+3-3, joined at the bottom of each ring to picots 1, 3, and 5 of each chain instead of to the previous ring.   (So the 3 rings on the second row for every ring on the first row.)

I’m doing a masters degree in accounting and I worked on this project a lot while in class.  It was just the perfect project for class in that it kept my hands busy and gave me something to do, but was simple enough that it didn’t actually take any concentration.  PLUS because the final piece was going to be so ruffled, it didn’t matter if I made a mistake because you wouldn’t be able to see it.  There’s a few 3+3-3 rings in that second row.

Because it worked so well as a project for class, I’ve been saving it for class and when I had a couple months off from class I forgot about it, even though I’m actually getting close to the end.  Like I said, my original plan for what to do with it had hit a snag so there’s been no push to finish it and I didn’t really notice that I had stopped working on it.

The original plan was to use it on this hat frame:

I picked up the frame at the awesome millinery store in downtown LA.  I have dreams of one day figuring out a way to cover it with a cool single layer/flat piece of tatting, but right now the various curves of the hat have me thinking that kind of a project would take a LOT more time to design than I want to put in right now.  So I thought a cool ruffled edging around the whole thing would be good enough for my “first” hat.

Until I was about half way through the tatting it never occurred to me that this is a hat FRAME and I’d have to figure out some way to cover it.  Um… Yeah…

For those who don’t know me, I am not a sewer.  I think it’d be cool to know how to sew things and cover hats, but I’m just not willing to put in the time it would take to learn to sew.  I just don’t think I would enjoy it as much as I enjoy other things that I’d rather spend my time on.  (Like tatting.)

So about half way through an extremely large piece of lace I realized that when I finished it I’d probably just put it next to the hat frame and forget about it for a few years.  Not a big loss, because it IS the perfect project to work on in class so if nothing else it’s helped me concentrate during lecture.  (My mind focuses much better if my hands have something to do.)  So I kept working on it, settling on the idea that maybe I’d end up using it as an edging for a dress or skirt or something.  I don’t have a skirt or dress that it would work with, but maybe by the time I finished it I would…

Anyway.  I’ve had a couple months off from classes so I set it aside and forgot about it until I stumbled on it a week or two ago.  I probably only had another shuttle-full left on it so I started it up again in the interest of actually finishing some of my big projects.  I figured I’d finish up the tatting so that I’d be ready to sew it on when I found the right dress/skirt.  Then just yesterday mom gave me this:

Not quite the wide brimmed sun hat I had originally envisioned, but the colors match and it’s already covered.

Looks pretty good, huh?  Only problem is that now I’ve grown sort of attached to the idea of a ruffled edging along the bottom of a dress or skirt.  Guess that as soon as I finish this one I’d better get started on another…

Two of the first patterns I tackled in this little project of working my way through the Priscilla tatting books were the leaf and rose motifs from this… doily(? Seems too big to just be a doily, but I suppose it all depends on the size thread you use.)

As you may recall, I renamed the rose motif, The Rose Motif From Hell because it was such a pain in the butt to do with the 1925 version of split chains (which are actually easier than the modern day version, but don’t look like the normal tatted stitches).

At the time I wasn’t sure if I’d ever go back and look at the pattern again, but time has past and as the memory frustration faded I decided to tackle it again on my train trip from San Diego to Seattle a few months ago.

The main thing that I wanted to figure out with this pattern is a way to make the leaves directly on to the roses.  The instructions (as usual) are unclear on how to actually put the pieces together.  The just say that there are 109 rose motifs (Yes, 109!) and 162 leaves.  Then later in the instructions they say to join the motifs together.  No explanation of how, though I suspect there’s supposed to be sewing involved.

I played around with it in size 20 thread and actually got to liking it though I didn’t get too far.  Just enough to figure out a way to make two of the leaves at the same time while attaching them to the center motif while tatting them.  That was two months ago and of course now I can’t find those pieces that I was playing around with, but I have decided to go ahead and try out the center part of the project.  I make no promises to doing the whole thing, but I just had to try some more of it.

Not wanting to end up with a doily, I’ve decided to make it in size 3 so that if I DO decide to go ahead and make the whole thing I’ll end up with a small tablecloth.

Finding a way to add ALL the leaves around the center motif in one go might be  a project that’s doomed to failure just because with a piece this large it IS probably easier to make sure it lays flat if you make all the motifs separate and then are able to make easy adjustments while sewing them together.  I could be setting myself up for more frustration, but my tatting sensibilities are such that I really prefer to put together the piece while tatting rather than later.  (Though I do like the idea seeing what of a stacks of 109 rose motifs and 162 leaves would look like…) Also, at this point, I’m not planning on doing the whole thing so hopefully that should make it easier to get flat.

Making and attaching the leaves in sets of two seems to work pretty well.  There’s enough give/overlap between the sets that it lays nice and flat so far.  Adding the next set of 6 roses around shouldn’t be a problem, and it should still lay nice and flat.  What will be interesting is when I add the round that’s all rose motifs, (18 of them!).  That could get more complicated.  I’m going to give it a try anyways.  The knot-stitch is actually pretty fun once you get the hang of it and in size 3 thread it’s MUCH easier to control.

No promise on how long it’s going to take me to do the next 24 rose motifs that the next two steps of this pattern require.  I’ve got too many projects started right now, I should probably try to finish up a couple of them at some point….

And we’re back!  Just finished up another pledge drive at work which has kept me super busy for the last two months.  (Taking classes for my masters at the same time hasn’t helped much.) Glad to be back on a more “normal” work schedule and (as a added bonus for my tatting deprived little fingers) I happen to have August and September off from classes so hopefully either lots more time more tatting and working on the Priscilla Project or lots more time for getting caught up with the rest of my life.  Hopefully both, but we’ll see.

For this first post back, I wanted to celebrate the fact that I just finished the 3^rd (and last) panel for my shawl.  Don’t they look pretty?  The colors are a little off because of the red tablecloth, but you get the idea.

The next steps are to tat edgings that will attach the pieces together and then to create a a border around the whole things. Both these parts will be done in white so I’m done with the color work for the piece.  I’m hoping that a white connecting piece and a white border around the whole thing will pull it all together and create an even stronger stain glass effect.  Both the connecting piece and the border will be done with one of the edging variations (or maybe two different ones) for the motif that the whole thing is based on, but I haven’t figured out yet how do the corners on the border or how to do the parts of the border at the point that it meets the ends of the connectors on the edge.  So for the moment I’m setting aside these three panels and will be playing around with a couple samples.

Actually, now that I write that it occurs to me that maybe I can figure it out on the computer.  See, I’ll be using all sorts of variations on the motif that I wrote up my Variations on a Theme booklet about so I have all the pieces of the motif saved in my graphics program and maybe I can figure out something that works there.  Would certainly be faster than thread and shuttles.  Because the edgings are made with the same stitch count as the motifs I know they will match together easily.  I’ve never tried to turn corners before with this pattern so that’s going to be the tricky part.

Been working on a couple other things from the Priscilla books too, so I’ll try to write about those soon as well.

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.

I’ve actually got this belt finish, (mostly, I’ll clarify at the bottom of this post) but don’t have good pictures and have it packed at the moment.  I took the train back from San Diego to Seattle this week and haven’t gotten myself organized again yet.  I did take pictures earlier on in the project so I’m going to post those and go through the pattern.  I’ll post the finished pictures when I get unpacked, but here’s what it looked like when I had finished one strip of it.

The whole thing was just under 18 inches.  When I made my first belt I made the tatting portion of it 27 inches long so that it would be the largest part of the belt, but I ended up liking the way the ribbon looked (especially once I added a little bit of tatting to it to cover up how I attached it to the main part of the belt) and decided that for the next one I’d make the main tatting portion of it smaller.  So sadly, the difference in the the sizes of the two is an astethics thing and not that I lost 9 inches around my waist.  :(  If I want to lose 9 inches off my waist I probably shouldn’t spend my time sitting on the couch tatting.  (Actually, I do tat while hiking, but I haven’t done that lately.)

Anyway, here’s the original pattern:

Nice and simple, right?  Well, if you have the picture in front of you.  It’s actually a little trickier than written because the joins aren’t intuitive.  I love how they just say “joining as in the cut”.  Though, admittedly, it’d be a pain in the butt to explain write it all out and it probably wouldn’t make sense.  You really do need to have the picture in front of you for the first couple repeats.  Here’s “the cut”:

Instead of the 6-6 chains I did 5-5.  Just seemed to work better for me, but that’s probably a function of how I tat.  I think my chains tend to be looser than my rings so if you’re going to try the pattern, see what works for you.  Other than that I didn’t change anything, but I did add a shoelace trick after the first ring for every repeat after the first to keep the chains from twisting.  (If you’re doing it all in one color you could just use two shuttles and switch which is the ring shuttle and which is the chain shuttle with each repeat)  There’s also some annoying stuff going on with the joins if you pay attention to frontside/backside tatting.  I don’t normally, and didn’t worry about it on this as far as doing my rings vs. chains, but  in this pattern you’re joining chains to rings so you do need to pay attention to it for the joins.  I’ll explain that after the pattern.

Here’s my modernized shorthand version of the instructions.  I’ll label the rings R1 and R2 and the chains Ch1 and Ch2 so that hopefully my explanation of where to do the joins will make more sense.

(R1) 5-5-5-5  (NEVER joined to anything when first tatted.  (This was hard for me to remember.  Lots of retro-tatting because of this.))

*(Ch1) 5-5 (after the first round, this is always joined at the picot to the last picot of R2 from the previous repeat.)

(R2) 5+(always joined to the last picot of the first ring) 5-5-5

(Ch2) 8-8 (always joined at the picot to the middle (2nd) picot of R2 from the PREVIOUS repeat.)

(R1) 5-5-5-5.  (Note that this ring is NOT joined to anything.)

Shoelace trick to switch the threads before the next chain.

Repeat from * joining as described.

Does all that make sense?  Let me know if this is clear.  (Part of the whole point of doing this blog is for practice in writing up patterns, so please, always feel free to let me know what’s helpful and what’s confusing).  Would it make more sense if the the “guidelines” for joining were written after the pattern when you’re working on the second repeat?

Finally, a note about the joins.  If you’re using two colors you have to pay attention to your joins because you’re doing joins of chains to rings.  When you do a join with threads of different colors you get a little blip of color with your joins.  Usually I don’t worry about that and just call the side where that happens the “back” side.  Problem is that with this pattern you do a shoelace trick to reverse the work with each repeat.  This means that the blips of color are not all on the same side of the tatting anymore.  They switch sides with each repeat.  Arg.

If you want to avoid the color you’ve got to switch your type of join with each repeat.  I usually do an up join, but for every other repeat I needed to do a down join for the chains to rings joins.  Pain. In. The. Butt. Very hard to remember and I did it wrong a few times so I’ve still got the blips of color on both sides.  I might not have worried much except that since I was using size 3 thread on this the colors are petty noticeable.  (To me anyway).  At Camp Wannatat, Sandy showed me the Larks Head join which is more work, but gets rid of the blip.  This would have been a good project to practice this on, but unfortunately, I totally forgot about it until after I finished the tatting.  Another time, perhaps.

When I started messing around with this pattern I picked it because I wanted a relatively thick edging that could be done in one pass.  I wasn’t sure if I would like the final version because I didn’t know if it worked in just one color.  Seemed too chaotic.  I think it’s much better in two colors and I like it this way, but decided I’d do the doubled over version anyway to make a really wide belt.  I’m just a sucker for symmetry, and even though the final version doesn’t have left-right symmetry, it does have top-bottom symmetry and that makes me feel better…

So I tatted up a second row and added it to the first as I went.  The whole frontside/backside tatting with regards to the joins was an even bigger pain in the butt to keep track of for the second row, so there’s a bunch of mistakes there too. I decided at the last minute to wear it to a wedding. (Picture on the right.  Don’t you love the matching necklace!  That’s the center part of the motif from the star doily in Priscilla Book #3 in the same size 3 blue thread as the rings on the belt.  The color is a little funky in the picture, but the dress is actually a dark blue, not black.)  I ended up sewing on the ribbons at my friend’s hotel room when I went to pick her up to head over to the church.  This means that I haven’t yet gotten around to tatting up something to cover the sewing.  I do have an idea for that though, so maybe sometime this week.  When I’m done with the “finishing” work I’ll take more pictures of the whole thing.

I’ve really enjoyed making belts.  They work up pretty quickly in size 3 thread and it’ll be fun to have a bunch of them to easily add some lace to dresses.  Plus, they’ll be a great way to try out a lot of the edgings in the Priscilla books.  Since I think I’m going to make more I’ve even gone and given them their own category to the right.  This way all the belts will be easily browse-able.

I started this shawl approximately 2 years ago and I think now I’m about half done.  It’s been two years since I started, but I have a tendency to just do a shuttle-full worth of work on it at a time before I put it away for a month or so and then do a bit more work on it.  I’m estimating that there’s probably only about 50 hours of actual work in it so far.

The plan is for it to be triangle shaped.  These three pieces and then a white border around it.  I’ve just started the second light purple and white triangle and this one will match the first one on the other side.  Originally I had planned to have these three pieces right up next to each other, but when I tried to do that I found that the edgings where they joined the colors were just too busy.

I stared at it for a while and decided finally that I just needed some sort of buffer in white between the two pieces.  So now the plan is to have a white insertion between the two pieces to keep the colors separate.  With the matching white border around the entire piece I’m hoping this will come out looking really nice. The pattern always reminds me of stain glass and I think having these sections of white will increase that effect.

I’m a little concerned about how I’m going to make the parts where the edging meets up with the insertion and concerned about how I’m going to make the edging turn the corners around the triangles, but I’ve decided to wait and just figure that out when I get to it.  I figure I’m actually over half done with the tatting of the finished piece now, but once you take into account all the retro-tatting and experimenting I’m going to end up doing to turn those corners I think I’m less than half done with the project.

Doing the three main sections separately and joining them with an insertion has the added advantage of meaning that I can work on them separately and don’t need to carry around the whole thing while I’m working on it (or at least not until the end.)  As much as I love the idea of really big pieces being done all in one go (no ends to cut and tie except when adding new thread) it is nice to be able to just focus on one smaller piece (where smaller is still about 20 hours worth of tatting…)

Michael’s had ribbon on sale last week and I couldn’t resist picking up a few new colors to try out with some new tatted belts.  There’s a particular pattern in Priscilla Book #2 that’s been bothering me lately.  I can’t decide if I like it or not, but I think it might make a nice belt.  And if it turns out I still don’t like it?  Well, at least I’ll be tatting it in size 3 thread so it should go quickly.

For the last belt I made I used a ring and chain pattern that had to be doubled over to give it vertical symmetry and make it the right width for the belt. This meant tatting one side of the belt and then flipping it over and tatting the other side. It’s been my normal way of turning edgings into bracelets or necklaces or anything I want to be thicker, but I’ve been wanting to find a pattern I like that can be done in one pass and still result in a fairly wide piece of fabric.  Haven’t found one I really like yet.

This pattern has been catching my eye because it’s done in one pass and it looks like it ends up being fairly wide.  I’m just not sure I like it.  It’s hard to follow and feels a bit chaotic.  I tatted up a small piece of it just to get a feel for the pattern and still wasn’t totally sure about it.  (Wish I could have tatted a longer piece, but I ran out of shuttle thread.  Size 3 goes pretty quickly.)  I think tatting it in two different colors will help to give it a little more definition.  The rings in the pattern come in pairs and the chains should form something of a wave of color bending around the pairs of rings.  I’m going to try it out in two colors, and I’ll write up the pattern for it when I do.

Though my main attraction to this pattern is that it’s done with only one pass, it’s not totally symmetric and I’m starting to wonder what it would look like doubled over.  Though a single pass should be wide enough for a belt doubled over might looking interesting as a super-wide belt (or normal sized with size 10 thread).  I may end up trying that as well.  I will say that I really like using the size 3 thread for belts because I think then they’re actually big enough that you can see the design from farther away.  Belts are not really meant to be looked at up close.  At least, I’d rather not have people bend down and take a look at my waist from 6 inches away, but hey, maybe that’s YOUR thing…

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.

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.