Tatted Cherry Blossom Jewelry

Have you seen this amazing cherry blossom jewelry tatted by @mahiru? It is stunning, stunning stuff!

For the Fair

Tatting Tea Tuesday (on Wednesday)

Today's tea is an infusion of minty sweetness that hits the spot during Spring rains. It is Traditional Medicinal's Organic Spearmint. My backyard spearmint crop hasn't come up yet, so this will see me through until Mother Nature provides. Mmmmm, soothing spearmint. ツ

One of my tatting goals for 2010 is to submit an entry into the County Fair in August. This is a huge goal for me, since I have never successfully completed a doily.

The last doily I started (back in the late 1990s) never got finished because at the time I didn't know how to work in new threads. I dug out the "ole' girl" for show and tell:

Still have it and yes, I now know how to add new thread to continue if I wished. But the white cotton I was using was a "big ball" crochet cotton in size 30. It might give me nightmares to tat with that thread now. LOL!

Spoken like a true thread junkie, eh?

Row 1 of Purple and Teal Square Doily
Debbie Arnold © 2002
Row 1 is tatted using LadyShuttleMaker's Treebeard HDT in size 50 and Lizbeth Linen size 40.

With this project, I stressed over color decisions. For example, I didn't want to get halfway through to find the variegated thread overpowering the design. So I paired Treebeard with a solid.

Sounds simple, right? It would have been, if I had a stash of size 50 solids. I don't.

Using mismatched threads bothers me. I can't help but fixate on the size difference. But without a solid in size 50, the best option was the size 40.

It already is bugging me. My eye is drawn to the larger thread. But the Treebeard is so lovely and fine and dreamy that I press on.

It took two days to tat the second row because The Sprout hasn't been napping. So adjust, I must. Please bear with me (and my frazzled nerves) while I carve out "me time" that doesn't involve losing sleep.

Row 2 of Purple and Teal Square Doily
Debbie Arnold © 2002
Started, found errors, retro-tatted and started again three times. And then noticed that I had attached to the wrong picot at the very start! So instead of cutting it off and starting over, I tatted around to the beginning and carefully snipped off the first repeat and tatted from the end over the cut away section.

Good gracious! I hope the rest of this project goes more easily or else my sanity is doomed!

Shamrocks, Equinox and Spring. Oh my!

Yesterday I posted joyfully about successfully completing my shamrock cookie quest.

I credit the four-leaf clover I found on Friday.

Saturday was the vernal equinox aka the first day of Spring. A few days earlier the Spring equilux passed virtually unnoticed.

Equinox means equal night. Equilux means equal light. Cool, huh?

Something I didn't know (thank you, Internet) is that for Persians, the vernal equinox also marks the start of Nowruz, their new year.

Happy Spring and Joyful Nowruz! Tonight Silly Hat Central will feast on Persian fare to honor enlightenment and new beginnings.

Spring Flowers

Warm, pleasant rays have begun coaxing crocus from their sleepy beds.

The Sprout and I have ventured out for walks and playground adventures beneath balmy blue skies. The two hounds are frisking about in youthful abandon. This verve has spread to my tatting.

See this 3D flower?

The Jessica Rose by Sharren Sarver Morgan © 2006
It is an example of my ongoing color conundrum study.

The color changes in the flower are as short as in the edging below, but in pastel tints. My love turns to hate when the color volume is cranked up to bright.

Spring Flowers Bookmark by Julie Patterson © 2002
Why do I hate this edging? Can someone please tell me?

Are there too many colors overpowering the design? Or is it in the intensity of the colors that suck the life out a beautiful bookmark goes wrong?

My hate turns back into love after switching to two solids (again in muted tones).

Spring Flowers Bookmark by Julie Patterson © 2002
This lace just sings, doesn't it? It has a light, delicate appearance that mimics blossoms on a vine.

For anyone interested, here is a thread breakdown:

• The Jessica Rose – Signature quilting cotton, size 20, pastels, and Majestic/Handy Hands size 80, color 829, Christmas Green

• Spring Flowers 1 – Signature quilting cotton, size 20, brights

• Spring Flowers 2 – vintage Star tatting cotton, shade 125, and DMC Special dentelles, size 80, olive green

Julie Patterson's design is the shape of beauty. It would make a stunning handkerchief edging. I intend to use it as a trim for a future quilted ball ornament.

Whatever use you may have in mind, tatting it is a joy. And working through the color issues has breathed new life into my tatting.

Cookie Crisis Averted

This just in! I found Girl Scouts! I bought cookies!

*happy dance*



Wasn't that just an adorable Snoopy dance? With all the fluffy bunnies clapping and cheering him on? Dunno about the rest of you, but I'm really in the Easter spirit now.

A Giveaway — No Foolin'

For many, April 1st is a day for tomfoolery, pranks and hoaxes. But for tatters it is a day devoted to furthering a lace-making art.

Did you know that April Fools Day is also International Tatting Day?

Many tatters still don't know about our special day. So in the interest of getting the word out far and wide, I am having another giveaway!

Enter for a chance to win this pampering set from New Hands Soaps and Lotions.

Amber Romance Gift Set
NHSL is my twin sister's Etsy shop. In February Igoya prepared a Posh Petals custom set for me to use as a prize. In it was an indulgent combination of chocolate lip balm, champagne and strawberries linen spray and posh petals soap.

As good as that was, this gift set is even better! Amber romance is a warm and mildly aphrodisiac scent with black cherry, creme Anglaise, sandalwood, sensual amber and Egyptian musk.

Included in the prize package is a 6-ounce lotion and two 7.5 ounce bars of long-lasting, handmade soap.

And since we're "partyin' like its our birthday," I'm throwing in a skein of Tatskool's Vanilla Sky hand-dyed thread. Just in time for Easter or Spring tatting projects.

HERE'S HOW TO ENTER:

1. Leave a comment on this post. You must leave a valid e-mail address to be eligible for the prize. Comments without valid contact information will not be entered in the drawing.

2. Cut-off date for entries is Wednesday, March 31.

3. Winner will be announced on Thursday, April 1st.

For more chances to win you can

1. post about this giveaway on your blog to qualify for an additional entry.

2. post about this giveaway on Twitter to qualify for an additional entry.

Be sure to add a (2) or (3) to your comment, just like in LadyShuttleMaker's Mondo Monday Giveaways. Kindly include a clickable link or the name of your blog so I may verify your entry. Once verified, you will be added to my giveaway spreadsheet a second or even a third time.

Winner will be chosen via random number generator.

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Wanna see my past posts for International Tatting Day?

2009 - International Tatting Day – No Foolin'

2008 - No Foolin' – International Tatting Day

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Each year in honor of International Tatting Day I sit down to tat with my fish-shaped shuttle. Over the past two years I have searched in vain for a Celtic fish pattern. If anyone finds one please do forward details or a link.

That said, it would be remiss of me not to point out that Jane Eborall offers many wonderful animal patterns for free, including an impressive goldfish in three sizes, small fishy earrings and even a starfish.

Special thanks to Georgia Seitz for making my beloved fish shuttle and Lady Jane for sharing her limitless creative artistry.

If you're still reading, click on this link to read a lovely poem called The Name of a Fish by Faith Shearin.

Now, let's all spread the word about International Tatting Day!

Green Rant - I Need a Cookie!

Here it is St. Patrick's Day. My first "wearin' o' the green" with Ciarrán. Woot!

While I look forward to sharing the day with a bonafide tatting leprechaun, I do have one mean, green rant to vent.

I have not eaten a single Girl Scout cookie yet this year. No thin mints. No Do-Si-Dos. No Tagalongs. Not even one of those smelly Lemon Chalet Creams. This is a crisis.

Show me the cookies

At the risk of sounding like the Clara Peller of cookie-dom, where have all the Girl Scouts gone?

Not a single green sash or vested gal has graced my doorstep these past three years. Usually I see a table set up outside of the grocery store with girls hawking cookie boxes. This year, nary a representative of the Girl Scout movement is anywhere to be seen.

Luckily for you, I did find this cookie locator online. If not for that, y'all would have suffered through a fractured Bonnie Tyler lyric. (Think "Holding Out for a Hero," only crying out for a cookie!)



Good luck trying to get that song out of your head. Hope you have a cookie handy.

Today the sun is shining and I have high hopes of getting out of the house.

With a bit of the "luck o' the Irish," I will go ISO cookies to add to the rapture of warm rays and you all will be spared more fiendishly fractured songs or pallid poetry!

Tomorrow - Watch for a giveaway announcement.

"Hope" is the Word

Ready for more Knot-Tea Fun?

Dedicated to All Tatters Everywhere
Lyrics adapted from:
Grease, "You're the One That I Want"

Hope © 2010 Sherry Pence
HOPE

I got Hope, it's multiplyin', and I'm losin' control.
Cause the power it's supplyin', is butterflyin'!

You better shape up, cause I need to tat, and my goal is set on you.
You better shape up, get your tools in hand, to my lace I must be true.

CHORUS

You're the one that I want, ooh ooh ooh, flutter
The one that I want , ooh ooh ooh, flutter
The one that I want (you are the one I want), ooh ooh ooh,
The one I need (the one I need), oh yes indeed (yes indeed)



25 Motif Challenge
Hope was tatted using size 40 Lizbeth threads, in black #604 and Falling Leaves #100. It will be counted as motif 10 in my 25 Motif Challenge.

Thank you, LadyShuttleMaker, for sharing this inspirational pattern. And more thanks to Tatskool, for all the beautiful butterflies she has been posting on her blog. And how could I forget Wanda (Wanda's Knotty Thoughts), Jeff Hamilton (Bridge City Tatting) and Cindy (A Happy Bluebird). Their Hope butterflies rock!!

Don't be surprised if a few more of these flutters fly off my shuttles in the days to come. They are quick, fun and keep me thinking of Spring.

Tatting Tea Tuesday

Now that you all have Knot-Tea song lyrics stuck in your heads, it's time to settle in for a nice Afternoon Tat.

And by that I mean a sneak peek from Heather, the Tarnished Tatter's forthcoming book!

Large Swan © 2010 Heather Johnston
I tatted this large swan in Lizbeth size 40 Black #604 with hematite seed beads. Sadly, at the time I wasn't aware that black swans have red beaks.

Must make another one and give her a proper red beak.

Also, I have a white swan to show but haven't gotten her scanned yet. Watch for the white swan to be added later today.

Thank you, Heather, for granting me permission to post photos in advance of the book's publication date.

Wishing you all blissful me time to create something beautiful.

See you next Tuesday for more communi-tea!