Gone, flitted away.

June has slipped through my fingers.

Remember when we were desperate for the first signs of Spring? It seemed like old man winter would never loosen his grip. Then Spring arrived and left again in a rush of adolescent heat.

Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote the words "Gone, flitted away" in a poem titled simply, "Gone." The poem is often used in memorials but the words also suit slippery days like today.

Tatting Tea Tuesday
What tea befits a Tuesday that is gone, flitted away in procrastination and minutiae?

Sun tea! A homemade infusion of green and Lady Grey with a fresh slice of lemon.

I have had a paisley design on my mind, but it turned out to be more leafy than paisley. Here is a sketch.

It can be tatted all in one pass, but to do it I had to start with a chain. And beads (or Josephine knots) may be added, especially around the edges.

If anyone thinks this looks too similar to a leaf design they have seen elsewhere, please let me know.

This is as far as I got on the test tat before Bali fever took over. More on that later.

County Fair
Have you noticed that county fair season is upon us? Batatter finished her county fair project this week, and her Bellaluna Bat is a work of art!

Instead of buckling down to work on my fair doily, I spent several days winding off exchange threads and receiving lovely notes with coveted samples tucked inside. These tantalizing new threads have been calling, begging to be tried.

Envelopes have arrived from near and far.

This striking stamp from Australia caught The Sprout's eye as soon as I pulled the letter from the post box.

"Is that one for ME, mommy?" he asked. "See? It has a TRAIN on it!" And so it did.

Bali Ha'i
Then I heard the siren song of Heather, The Tarnished Tatter's Bali HDT in size 50. It beckoned, luring me like a sailor, calling me away to start Mary Konior's spinning wheel glass mat.

So many others have made this spectacular glass mat. The pattern can be found in "Tatting with Visual Patterns" on page 72. While I'm not that far along, I completely understand why people are so fond of this pattern. (Why is it called a glass mat and not a coaster?)

Bali colorway has a lush quality that reminds me of exotic sunsets. The thread has a bit of a soft hand, but so long as you don't unpick (retrotat, tonk) too often, rings close smoothly and hold their shape.

Goodness, for a post about time racing by, I have blathered on, haven't I? Time to put this post to bed.

Wishing you all more me-time to create something beautiful.

See you in July for more communi-tea!

Slow Lace

Interweave Press newsletters are great for inspiring provocative thinking.

The latest Handwoven newsletter, for example, got me thinking about "slow cloth" and consequently "slow lace."

It explains the slow cloth concept as being "a lot like the slow food movement. The point is not to do it fast, the point is a deeper, better, richer, fuller experience. Plus a better product."

Machines can, and do, churn out laces at a cheap price point. Computerized sewing machines are even making headway at turning out lace that vaguely resembles tatting.

But handmade lace is by nature slow, and therein lies the joy.

I find making lace to be gratifying and pleasurable. Winding shuttles allows me time to dream about the end product I have pictured in my mind. Passing the shuttle back and forth to form stitches and watching the lace grow is a rhythmic, meditative, and aethetically pleasing process.

My fledgling knowledge of needle tatting suggests that it also fits the model for "slow lace."

So to all those who shrug off tatting as impractical and old-fashioned, I would ask, "what do you do for pleasure?"

Hobbies take many forms. Potters throw clay onto a wheel and mold it under their hands. Painters use color and brushes and canvas to interpret what they see. Dancers interpret music and emotions visually with their bodies.

Manipulating fiber (in this case, making lace) by hand gives me many hours of pleasure and a marvelous, zen-like calm. It also exercises my mind.

Tatting is my Calgon. When a long soak in a warm bath is impractical, the rhythm, the pace and the pleasure of tatting can still "take me away."

Piecework Heart Ornament 2010 Winners Announced!

WOW--I just received my July/August 2010 issue of Piecework magazine and was thrilled to see the gorgeous tatting entries that made the winners circle.

Congratulations to all the winners! It makes me so proud to see tatting holding its own in this competition.

Three tatted entries were judged ribbon winners, including a heart-stopping celtic design adapted from Rozella F. Linden's book, "Celtic Tatting - Knots & Patterns." The celtic heart was called "Open Heart" and was created by a lady in New Mexico. It received an honorable mention. It is a stunning, beautifully crafted heart!

A brilliant charmer of a tatted Valentine heart won honorable mention for a lady in Colorado. It was a classy, elegant Valentine that would melt the heart of any recipient. If the pattern is available I would tat it in a heartbeat!

The 2010 Grand Prize was awarded to a lady in Pennsylvania who submitted a tapestry crochet heart that she called "Coeur de Couleur." It is a gorgeous, gorgeous heart!

First Prize in the Lacemaking/Tatting category was awarded to a lady in New Jersey who created a tatted wedding ornament, named "The Bride's Sixpence." It was tatted using leftover silk thread purchased in 1964 for a wedding gown. It is the prettiest "something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue" a bride could hope to receive.

I could go on gushing praises, but really, you should see these entries for yourself. It is worth the trip to the bookstore or where ever you find copies of Interweave Press magazines. Go, go now.

More Summer Fun

As the mercury hits MUGGY at Silly Hat Central, hay fever has gotten the best of me. Imagine me all hopped up on antihistamines. Don't think I will venture out to meet the stitching ladies. So I turned my usual sore throat remedy into a lemon-ginger tea-time soother and fired up the blog.

The Summer Fun bookmark progresses with motif #2 nearly complete. Tatted in two colors, size 20 Lizbeth #104 and #642, each motif measures 2 by 2 inches (5.1 by 5.1 centimeters). Three of these joined in a row would make a lovely bookmark. I also think this motif begs for bling.

Two doodles tatted in Lizbeth size 40, color #100 Autumn Leaves, are added for perspective.

This week I joined Fox's thread exchange and sent off (so far) three envelopes with thread samples. It is fun to browse the thread offerings of other tatters and swap for something you like!

Snowflake #9, tatted by Kendra Goodnow,
from Festive Snowflakes & Ornaments
edited by Barbara Foster
Barbara Foster sent me this photo of a square motif tatted in her soon-to-be-released Lizbeth size 80. This color is #122 Caribbean. What a coincidence! It is the same motif I have started but not yet finished. So now I can show you something a bit larger than the snippets from last week's post.

Finished up the treble clefs I was tatting for a friend's wedding and have the mailing envelope ready to drop off with postie. These clefs have spoiled me rotten! No hiding ends at the beginning. No CTM. Just measure off roughly 32-34 cm. from shuttle 1 and tat the first ring. Then I would tie on shuttle two to the dangling thread and voila! I was ready to tat through to the final ring.  A quick, instant gratification project with minimal thread ends to hide....*sigh*

No progress on the county fair doily. The tatting fugue seems to have passed (Hope I haven't just jinx myself.) so it may be safe to start row 5.

Motif #10 & Bring on the Summer Fun

Adding this darling, little square to my 25 Motif Challenge will bring my total up to 10. I had wanted my 9-sided motif to be the next addition, but que sera sera.

Tatted Motif #2 from
Free-Tatting Patterns.com
Tatted in two colors, size 20 Lizbeth #104 (Summer Fun) and #642 (Lilac Medium), this motif measures an even 2 by 2 inches (5.1 by 5.1 centimeters).

This cute quatrefoil motif is a continuation of my ongoing exploration of color. It is a bit of a departure, since I normally don't use variegated threads in pastel or ice cream colors.

That said, it turned out pretty well. Three of these joined in a row would make a lovely bookmark. Also, this motif is begging for bling.

The variegated colors worked up pretty evenly, and the entire center could be tatted in the solid color by using the shoelace trick before tatting chains 8 and 10.

This motif could be tatted using a medium turquoise, a medium pink or even white. Lots of color possibilities, and I haven't even tried switching the threads. Solid color chains and variegated rings . . . might have to try that. Just to see.  ツ

Tatting Tea Tuesday
As for today's tea, I am enjoying a tall, cool glass of iced green apple tea. Made with a combo of decaf green and Morrocan Pomegranate Red teabags and brewed in the sun, following the Green Apple Tea recipe.

More tatting is in store later today when I meet up with the local stitchin' group.

In addition to working on Treble Clefs this past week, I started the Mary Konior pattern for a 3D Rose.

The Chesapeake Lacers Guild is making 300 rose boutonnières to give to members at the I.O.L.I convention in 2011. The roses will be created using tatting AND bobbin lace. Both methods are stunning.

I should be working on my county fair doily, but until I am sure the tatting fugue has passed, I won't be touching that project. And I could be working on the 9-sided motif. And I am itching to load up another one of Tatskool's Transitions HDT thread samples to add to the Heart bookmark. AND visions of butterflies for the Houston Holocaust Museum are flittering naggingly over my head. Goodness! So many UFOs.

It is a good thing that the Tuesday night stitching group lets me sit in. More tatting time! (Hope I didn't just jinx myself.)

Wishing you all more me-time to create something beautiful.

See you next Tuesday for more communi-tea!

Tatting Tea Tuesday Recap for June 8, 2010

Just got back from my third visit to the Tuesday night stitchin' group's meetup. It was a full house, with 20 ladies assembled, and the convos were light and cheery. Just what I needed! (That and a Tazo® tea drink.)

I took three projects along with me: the Spring bookmark, treble clefs, and a tantalizing sample of size 80 Lizbeth thread in Caribbean.

That's right, size 80 Lizbeth. My latest Handy Hands order included a thread card wound from an approval sample.

Barbara Foster sent me a small sample to try after I confessed skepticism over shorter color spacing. She gave me permission to blog about my impressions.

Sample of Lizbeth size 80, Caribbean

While I haven't done all the test tatting I want to do, my first impression is that this thread is smooth, strong and beautiful. It is less shiny than Majestic and more shiny than Manuela or Flora.

Your mileage may vary, of course, but this thread makes me want to tat more with size 80.

Handy Hands won't receive their first batch of size 80 Lizbeth until the end of July. But this new line exceeds Barbara Foster's expectations and if this sample is representative of all 111 colors, mine too.

At last some tatting!

The tatting blogs will no doubt be getting quieter as spring warms into summer. Schools are letting out, pools are opening up, casual dress Fridays are becoming de riguer and thoughts are turning to R and R.

No matter how you spend it, I hope you find ways to work in a little time for tatting.

For the past few weeks my tatting has been really crappy, which has probably been a side-effect of the unexpected stressers [dog attack, A/C going out in the car and finding out it will cost more than the blue book value of the car to fix it, unexplained broken window on main floor of the house, rotten family arguments, yada yada yada].

Geogie Seitz passed along some wise advice her grandmother (I think) gave her. Basically it was "let patience work out the details." And of course her grandmother was right.

Today was the first day that my tatting wasn't a complete ka-fuffle and I managed to finish the spider for the crazy quilt block project. Albeit, it's an arachnid with one side wider than the other on the body.

But hey, it still looks pretty good. And it was the first time I have ever tatted around a button.

The finger tatting brought back fond memories of tatting from my younger days, including a wonderful dinner with an old friend in Harrisburg, PA, many years ago.

My twin sister and her husband, and I and my (then) boyfriend traveled to meet our high-school pal and his wife for a dinner party.

During the pre-dinner conversation I learned that my old pal had been trying to learn tatting. So we rounded up some kitchen twine and I showed him finger tatting.  He picked it up immediately and said that those few moments with twine clarified hours upon hours of frustrated confusion.

I should call him up to ask if he still does any tatting these days!

These are a few familiar snippets I am sending off to Georgia Seitz:

Lene Bjorn pattern from Danish Tatting Guild

(Dansk Orkisforening) newsletter Orkis Bladet

Lady Shuttlemaker's "Hope" Butterfly

Rose Doodle by Mary Konior

Single Shuttle Split Ring Dragonfly


Tatting Tea Tuesday
Last week I missed the local stitcher's group night. I was tending to a wounded pet. Tonight, as Julie Beagle is faring much better, I will go and try to get some tatting done. The tea will most likely be a bottled Snapple instead of a home-brewed cuppa, but the craft-bonding will be uplifting.

I still haven't finished the Spring bookmark made from Tatskools lovely Just Daffodils HDT, but it is coming along slowly. I plan to take it with me as well as some thread to tat treble clefs and this new motif I saw on the 25 Motif Challenge page:  Carolyn's Motif #11.  Love the bracketed shape!

Not sure what I will work on, but it is always nice to have choices, eh?

Wishing you all blissful me time to create something beautiful. See you next Tuesday for more communi-tea!