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.

The alternate title was “Tatting Till I Bled and then Tatting Some More.”

Just got back to Seattle from the Shuttlebirds tatting conference in Spokane followed by Camp Wannatat in Montana.  Both were awesome.  Five days of teaching, learning and talking tatting with some really fantastic tatters.  Once I get caught up on work-work and school-work I’ll do a series of posts about both the Shuttlebirds conference and Camp Wannatat.  So much to talk about for both! Plus, I still haven’t blogged about visiting the Lace Museum in Sunnyvale or Lacis in Berkeley on the way up!

I want to at least put up this picture that Gina Butler took for me in Montana.  If I’m going to tat all day the bandage (athletic tape) around my middle finger is a necessity to avoid having the thread create a groove in my finger and break the skin.  The one around the pinky is there for the same reason and if I do a lot of tatting for more than a day or so I need it too.  The one around the index finger of my right hand is a new one.  I’ve never needed it before, but one of our projects at Camp Wannatat had HUGE rings.  The largest was 84 stitches and while trying to pull one closed I manage to make the thread slice through the skin and draw blood.  It was like a really big papercut right on the side of the knuckle.

Did that stop me from tatting for the rest of the day?  Of course not.  I bandaged it up and soldiered on.  I wasn’t about to let it keep me from soaking up as much as I could of the opportunity I had to learn from the fantastic tatters teaching at Camp Wannatat.

I did take it easier once classes were over and spent most of my time flipping through Bobbie’s amazing pattern library, getting demonstrations of new techniques, buying more thread than I need from Debbie Arnold and winding shuttles so I can get started on some new projects in earnest as soon as my finger is healed up (and I finish getting caught up with all that pesky work-work and school-work…)

Whew.  Finished with 4 out of 5 of the handouts for all the classes I’ll be teaching at Shuttlebirds this year.  Actually I finished them on Sunday, but haven’t really had a chance to post here about it until now.  I got in to Seattle last night and I’m staying here with friends until Thursday when I head out to Spokane.  The next two days I’ll be sitting here in my friends’ apartment while they’re at work trying to get all caught up and a head on my work for the radio station and my class work so that once I head out to Spokane I can relax and think about nothing but tatting for a few days.

I still have one more class to prepare my handout for, the Blocking, Starching and Care of tatting so tomorrow night I’ll be meeting up with another friend here for a starching party while I write up everything.  If anyone has last minute tips, I’d love to hear them!

The coin purse shown here is the second of my two sample ones.  This is the one that is going to end up living in my purse from now on.  It’ll replace my not-very pretty proof-of-concept one that I made a long time ago.  In fact, I may even cut that one up so that I can use the clasp again and make a new one out of it.

In other news, yesterday I bought the fabric for the inside of the star doily.  When I got to the store I realized that a fat quarter of fabric was almost the perfect size so I picked out one of those and now just need to figure out how exactly I want to attach it.  Also realized (long after I left the store of course) that I don’t have any sewing needles with me and that using the same thread I made the doily with to do the sewing might not work because it’s size 10 thread.  So I guess another trip to a fabric store is in line for the next couple days.  I’d hoped to have it done and ready to show at the workshop on Friday, but that might not actually happen.

As much as I’m looking forward to the Shuttlebirds Workshop and Camp Wannatat in Montana after it I’m also really looking forward to getting back to working on the Priscilla project.  Spent a few minutes flipping through the books again last night and have quite the list of things I want to get started on.  Watch this space for some new patterns!

One of my main focuses lately has been in writing up the directions for the coin purse pattern that I’ll be teaching at Shuttlebirds.  I haven’t gotten to creating the diagrams or adding the pictures yet, but the written instructions have just made it to the 9th page!  I think I’m done with all the written portion though so I suspect the final project will be 10 pages or so.  Luckily for my students, it’s not actually that hard of a pattern, but I’ve included instructions for a couple different options.  Also, I’ve had to create directions for two different ways of attaching it to the clasp because some of the clasps have 14 holes and some have 15 and some have 14 on one side and 15 on the other.   So yeah.  That complicates the directions. Also, I’ve included option for those who want to use split chains and rings and those who don’t.

I still need to make up the diagrams, but then I’m done.  I realized about half-way through tatting the example above that it was probably a bad idea to use such a colorful variegate to show the pattern so I’m making another sample that’s solid purple on the top and black on the bottom.  I think when I’m all done that’s going to become the one I carry around in my purse.  It’ll replace the oddly misshapen, proof-of-concept version that I’ve been using the last couple months.

In other news, I’m definitely coming down with a cold which is unfortunate.  Hopefully it doesn’t get any worse, but if it does it’s going to make it hard to concentrate on anything for the next couple days.

The finished doily sans center fabric.

I’ve been busy tatting though not posting.  Internet time continues to be short on the road.  Lots of tatting related stuff to talk about, though.  x

I’ve finished the tatting portion of the star doily from the 3rd Priscilla Tatting Book.  Unfortunately, it took longer than it should have because not once, but twice I managed to connect the pieces wrong. You think I would have learned after the first time, but no.  I misunderstood the mistake I made so I made it again.  The standard rule in tatting is to “check twice, close once” with regards to making rings.  Another should be “check twice, join once” with regards to putting together medallions and motifs.

As I mentioned in an earlier post about the doily I was piecing it together by creating the “points” of the star first and then tatting the medallions between them to connect them all at once.  It’s a nice way to do it for this doily because it means that you avoid having to deal with a really large piece of tatting until you’re near the end.  Problem is that I managed to “flip” one of the points of the star while joining so it pointed inward.  Didn’t figure out what I’d done until I did it again and so I had to cut the last row of both the joining medallions.  Luckily I could get away with only cutting out the last (chains-only) row and one of the rings from the previous row.  So the actual fixing wasn’t too difficult or take too long.  Though I still put it aside until just this last week because I wanted to be focused while doing it to make sure I didn’t make the same mistake again.  Lately all my “focused” tatting time (meaning tatting that I actually have to pay attention to while I’m doing) has been spent on working on stuff for the classes I’m teaching at the Shuttlebirds Workshop in Spokane.

That’s it for now.  I’ve been sitting here at Starbucks for the last few hours reading my “Governmental and Nonprofit Accounting” textbook and getting started on my homework for my new class.  First class is tomorrow night and I want to start off ahead because I’ve got so much going on in the next couple weeks.  Classes are only 4 weeks long so there NO way to get caught-up if you get behind.  Tired of the smell of coffee (which I don’t drink) and it’s time to get out of here.

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!

Last night I finally finished my write-up for my earring and necklace class for Shuttlebirds and NEARLY finished my write-up for my split-ring bracelet class.  Looking for a couple of test tatters for both.  The split-ring bracelet obviously requires knowledge of split-rings but the necklace and earring one is ring and chains only, though one necklace variation can use a lock-chain if you would like.

Anyone interested in checking out my handouts for accuracy and ease of use?  Let me know in the comments with your email address or send me an email to jessica (at) snapdragonlace.com

Thanks!

I suppose I shouldn’t get too excited about it because even once I’ve finished the tatting I’ll still need to figure out how to attach the piece to the center fabric.  Still, it’s nice to see the doily taking shape.  If I keep up at the rate I’ve been going I should have the tatting portion finished.

I’ve also been working on writing up the handouts for the classes I’m teaching at the Shuttlebirds workshop this year.  I’ve got 5 classes and want to finish up the handouts for the 3 easier ones this week.  The other two are going to take a lot more experimenting to get right so will take longer, but if I can get the first three done I’ll feel like I’ve got a handle on everything for the workshop.

One of the classes that’s going to take more time to prepare for is the one called “Blocking, Starching and Care of Tatting”.  I proposed it as a class largely because it’s something I want to learn a lot more about myself.  I have a final for class on Saturday and I plan using some of my new extra free time the rest of the weekend for some starching and blocking of snowflakes.  Anyone have some blocking, starching or care of tatting tips for me to try out?  I also want to mess around with figuring out a portable blocking system that I can take with me to the workshop.

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.

It’s so nice to finish large project and it’s amazing how having a deadline will actually force you to do it.  I wanted to wear my new belt for Valentine’s day so I finally sat down over the weekend and finished it off.  Doesn’t it look lovely in my co-worker’s office?  (Had to take it there because she actually has a window and real sunlight.)  Finishing off the belt didn’t actually take too long because I’ve had the main part of the belt tatted for over a month now.  The next step was to attach the ribbons that would tie in the back and add tatting to them to make them look  little fancier.

Adding this little bit of tatting to the bows also gave me a chance to check off 4(!) more patterns in the Priscilla books.  Technically, it’s two, but their both very simple patterns repeated in both the 1st and the 3rd book.  Maybe that’s sort of cheating, but hey, my project, my math.

I don’t have the books in front of me so I’m not going to do the normal pictures of the figures in the books and the pattern as written.  Maybe I’ll write it up in a future post, but I don’t think that’s really necessary.  They’re pretty standard.  Here’s the basic process I used to make them.

NOTE:  I consider this whole piece just a proof-of-concept piece to get a rough idea of what would be involved in making some belts like this so I just used fabric glue on the ribbon.  Normally I’d sew the tatting to it, but I was just looking for quick and dirty.  I got both.  🙂

I think this was the second pattern in both the first and the third Priscilla books.  The rings are all 3+3-3-3 with the first picot joining to alternating rows (so the 3rd ring joins to the 1st, the 4th ring joins to the 2nd, the 5th ring joins to the 3rd and so on).  The only change I made was to leave out the first picot on the first ring of each row and the last picot on the last ring of each row.  Then I folded the piece of tatting over the end of the ribbon and glued it down.

I wanted something that would cover both sides of the ribbon because it will flip around while your wearing it and this seems to work, though I don’t actually care much for the pattern.  I’m just not generally a fan of uncovered threads and it was especially hard to get them to lay flat in this situation.  But as I’ll say many times in this post, this was just a proof-of-concept version of the piece and in the future I’ll pick a more interesting pattern to use to cover the ribbons.

Attaching the ribbon to the tatting was also pretty easy thanks again to fabric glue and a really simple tatting pattern. Like the ends above I first folded over the ends and glued them down to get rid of the rough edges.  Then I passed the ribbon through the loop on the end of the tatting and glued it down onto itself.  Added a another piece of very simple tatting just to cover the edge.  This pattern is the very first pattern in both the 1909 and 1925 books. Rings of 3+3-3-3 with about 3/4-1 inch of thread between them.  Hate the way the uncovered thread looks (and the glue), but once again, this was just the proof-of-concept so it works for this.  Attached both ribbons the same way.

The original piece of tatting that makes up the main part of the belt is about 27 inches because I didn’t want the ends where it attaches to the ribbon to show from the front.  Now that I’ve got a finished version though I’m re-thinking this.  I actually think it work out pretty well and the ribbon attachments could be on the side or even a little bit on the front.  A fancy motif over the end of the ribbon would be a nice accent to the sides of the best.  AND that would have the added advantage of meaning less tatting would be needed for the main part of the belt.  Instead of 27 inches next time I’m going to try something more like 18 inches.

I forgot to take a close-up of the necklace I’m wearing in the first picture, but it’s actually the center part of the motif from the star doily I’m working on.  I made it out of the same size 3 thread that the belt is made of so it’s pretty big and loved the way it came out.  It’s nice to have such a bold piece of tatting.  I wore it again on Tuesday with a red dress and got lots of comments on it.   I think I may have to start doing a lot more tatting in size 3.  Originally, I picked size 3 for the belt just because I wanted it to work up really fast.  As a proof-of-concept piece I didn’t want to spend a lot of time on this first “draft” and figured that when/if I made more I’d make them out of a smaller thread and more complicated pattern.  I actually think now that size 3 totally works for the belt.  I do plan on trying out some other patterns for belts but I think I’ll stick with the size 3.

Amazing!  Once I learned how to tat nearly 10 years ago I used size 80 almost exclusively for many years.  I switched to size 30 when I discovered and fell in love with Altin Basak thread and now I use mostly size 10 and 20 and am thinking of moving up to size 3 for a lot of stuff!

Actually, I may even try working with Koigu’s merino yarn for some. Wildfiber, the yarn store in Santa Monica where I love to hang out and tat doesn’t carry any thread other than a small amount of embroidery thread.  But they do have a really comfortable area for hanging out and knitting/crocheting/tatting so I wanted to find something I could buy from them.  That way I wouldn’t feel too guilty about just coming in to hang out and use the couch space for tatting.  :)  I bought a remnant of the Koigu yarn to try tatting. I made a bracelet out of it a while back and really liked the way it came out.

It has to be either a relatively simple pattern or one that I know really well because it’s a pain in the butt to retro-tat with, but other than that it’s surprisingly easy to work with.  It’s kinda expensive though (at least compared to tatting thread which is hours and hours of tatting time for under $5), so I’ll be test tatting a couple other belts before I make that plunge.  I think it should work out to approximately the same size as size 3.

So stay tuned for that!  I think with the right pattern, some beads and the Koigu yarn I’ll end up with some really elegant belts.

P.S.  I promise in the future to come up with better names for big projects like this.  “Sash Belt” is still bugging me, I think because it sounds like “Slash Belt”.