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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

… so I kept going. Last night after posting the pattern for the scalloped fingerless gloves I went ahead and posted the instructions for different non-double-stitch chains.  It’s a free pattern and it’s easily downloadable from my Craftsy store.  The handout also includes instructions on making quick and easy bookmarks with chains of these stitches.  They’re a great way to finish off the last couple feet of thread on your shuttle.

Hope it’s helpful!

Now live on Etsy and Craftsy!

I had an order today for my Variations on a Theme booklet about the magical transforming motif and all the different things you can do with it.  The customer also ordered the pattern for the large gloves variation, no realizing it was already included in the booklet.  I offered to either refund her money for the glove pattern or send her the pattern for these scalloped gloves (which is what she chose).

I’ve had the pattern for these scalloped gloves done for over a year now, but had never gotten around to listing on Etsy or Craftsy.  I finally got it listed tonight and it’s nice to have it up and available.  I think this counts for my UnFinished Object of the week.  (I have a project from last week that I finished too, but haven’t gotten around to posting about it yet.)

It’s also occurred to me that I should put my handout on non-double-stitch chains up on Craftsy as a free download.  I usually send it along with my other patterns on Etsy, but Craftsy is an automatic download for the user, which is VERY nice for me, but means they don’t get the handout.

At some point I will also list the pattern for the coin purse which I also basically have done, but want to run though again before listing.  The tricky bit with the coin purse is that it’s designed around a specific size and brand of purse clasps.  It’s the smaller sized of the Everything Mary brand.  I’ve found it at Joann’s and had no problem finding it in Southern CA, but so far have only found one Joann’s store in the Seattle area that carries it and of course now I can’t remember which one it was.

I’m thinking about doing 3 listings for the coin purse.  One with just the pattern, one with the pattern and a clasp for those who can’t find them locally, and one that’s just the clasp for people who want to make more than one.  What do you think?  Does that seem like a reasonable solution?

I have just finished my proposal for my five Shuttlebirds classes and sent it in for approval.  This is definitely the earliest I’ve ever gotten it in.  I like the new set-up with the application form.  Even though it was more to fill out than we’ve had in the past, having it broken down into smaller chucks got me to go through it a lot faster.  And  it helped that I’ve been collecting class ideas over the last year and still have about 13 on the list for next year.  So strange to think that two years ago I was struggling to come up with a 5th class idea.

Since I already mentioned 3 of the 5 in my last post I’ll tell you about the other two here.

The first is a class on working with size 3 thread.  Lizbeth is coming out with their size 3 thread mid-November and I am so excited about this it’s ridiculous.  I’m not sure if my boyfriend is amused by how excited I am or a little worried.  I’ve done a number of projects with size 3 thread and really like it, but there’s just been no high quality thread in that size.  The best I’ve been able to find on a regular basis was Royal (even that wasn’t very good) and when they stopped making it a year or so ago I decided to hold off on buying any replacement until I could find a good quality one.  Just a few months later Lizbeth made their announcement and I’ve been impatiently waiting for the fall.  Size 3 in the colors and quality of Lizbeth.  How can anyone not be excited?  Mid-November!  Just a month away!

Ok… Deep breaths…

The class will be focused around making a decorative tatted belt and attaching it to a ribbon that will tie in the back.  We won’t finish the belt in class, but we’ll get it started and get one of the two ribbons sewn on to the tatting.  In the process we’ll go over tips and techniques for working with really big thread.  I haven’t made any new belts for a while so I’ll have to take a look at what I’ve got.  Of course there were all made with Royal thread and so have been starting to pill and get fuzzy so I suppose I’ll have tat up a couple of new, nicer looking ones before April.  Guess I just don’t have any choice but to stock up on the new thread next month when it comes out.  Got to be ready for Shuttlebirds!

The last class is on the Catherine Wheel Join.  Tess Moffatt taught this class at Wannatat in Spring and that’s how I finally got the hang of them.  She had two snowflake motif patterns to choose from and passed out printouts of Jane Eborall’s instructions on the join.  I always love Jane’s instructions and the diagrams she makes.  Everything is always so clear.  Tess and Jane have graciously given me permission to use their patterns and instruction sheets in the Shuttlebirds class so I have sneakily gotten my prep for one class finished already while simultaneously giving my students much better materials than I would ever come up with myself.  Actually, that’s not quite true about the prep since I still need to make a couple of samples for the class.  With all my other classes it’s usually the other way around.  The samples are already made and I just have to figure out how to write up the instructions.

Still lots to do, but I’m excited to be moving along with the classes!  Hope to see many of you there!

The last couple weeks have been very busy!  I took the first of my CPA exams last week and so was very focused on nothing but that until then.  As soon as it was done I took the next couple days off from studying (next one is coming up!) and did a bit of catching up with life.  And of course, life includes lots of tatting.

I’m teaching beginning tatting at the Pacific Fabrics store in Northgate this month, Tuesday  evenings October 16th and 23rd (one class two sessions) and I needed to put together some samples for the classes so I heading over there after the test and sat in the store to demo while I made them.  Got some interest in the class and hopefully it will be a full one.  Here’s the link if anyone is interested.  This will be a very basics class.  Next month will get a little deeper into working a pattern and then in January I’ll be teaching 3-D flower hairclips as a more advanced beginner class.  I’m considering the samples that I worked up last week to be my weekly finishing of an UFO for the week, so I’m staying pretty well on the path of finishing one project every week for the rest of the year.

This week I’ve been playing around with a new veil pattern and I think I’ll do another one with the same edging as I used for the first one.  It worked well because there were no joins in the pattern and so it formed nicely around the veil, letting the veil give shape to the tatting rather than the other way around.  The new pattern I’m working on has a natural curve, but it doesn’t match the circle of tulle.  I don’t think it will matter once it’s pulled together into a veil.  In fact, the extra ruffle will probably be nice.  I have another one that has a much thicker and straight edging and I’m not sure how that’s going to turn out.  Hopefully well since I really like the colors and the pattern.

The big thing I’ve been working on this week is getting together my application for Shuttlebirds.  I’ve got all 5 class proposals written up and just need to put together my teacher bio and some of the pictures.  I may get that done today, but if not, then by the end of the weekend for sure.  I am proposing the veils as a class so I’ll be working on a lot more of those over the next couple months.  The pictures on this post are for two of the other classes I’m proposing.  Both are adaptations of a pattern from Priscilla Tatting Book #3.  In one class we’ll look at using modern techniques to make it an easier pattern to make (split rings!) and in another we’ll take it a few steps further and add two more shuttles and encapsulation to have the flowers alternate colors.  I can’t wait for April!

I finished the red and black veil yesterday.  This is the one in which I was attaching the lace to the tulle while tatting and it worked really well.  I’m very pleased with the way it came out.  On Friday night though I had finished all the tatting and just had to put the piece together and I didn’t think it was going to come out very nice, but when I put it together on Saturday morning it did!

One thing I’m going to have to play around with is what hair clip to use and how to attach it.  For this one I used my standard clip and pointed it sideways (it’s not adjustable) because I typically wear them on my right side.  (I like the way it looks in the back over a ponytail too.)

Next on the veil list is to make the flower to with the purple one.  I also like this one so much that I started on another one.  The same black tulle with a larger edging of variegated blue with black.  I’m modifying the pattern a little to make it curve around in a circle so I hope it turns out.  It’s a much wider edging so is taking quite a while to go around.  It’d be a shame to get halfway around the tulle and determine it doesn’t work.

I am debating about offering it as a class at Shuttlebirds.  Wondering if I’ll have enough time between now and then to practice and learn enough to teach it or wait until 2014.  2014!  Planning classes for 2014.  Can you believe it’s almost 2013!?!