County Fair Doily

Round five is complete and round six is in progress. The square doily is past the half-way point & now measures 11 cm. (4.3 inches) from corner to corner.

Rows 5 and 6 of Purple and Teal Square Doily
Debbie Arnold © 2002
It is tatted in size 40 Lizbeth Linen (color #693) and size 50 Treebeard HDT from LadyShuttleMaker.

I stopped halfway through round six to show you how the scallop from round four turns into a square.

Sw4nkyL4c3r is right, though. I obsess over trivial things when it comes to lace. I am still distracted by the difference in thread sizes. Nobody else seems to notice!

As I tat, the refrain from this Queen song is buzzing in the back of my brain.



Under pressure! It must be from all the obsessing.  ツ

Bali Fever
In spite of the need to focus on the square doily for the fair, Bali fever continues. It's all Heather's fault for dying such an alluring colorway. (That's my story and I'm sticking to it!)

But some of the blame must also go to Mary Konior (may she rest in peace among a choir of tatting angels). The two-row repeat of her spinning wheel glass mat is positively addicting. "Just one more ring," or "just until the next color change" eat up the tatting time.

And I am equally, if not more, to blame for allowing myself to get distracted by thread and things such as this:

WPlus9 Mehndi Medallions
Lookie what came in the mail – clear stamps that look like tatting. I saw these on one of my obscure, late-night blog crawls. Another crafter had made a gorgeous card featuring one of the stamps and it just leaped off the screen and said, "Don't I look like tatting?"

I was powerless to resist the impulse (Wouldn't you have been? Okay, maybe not.) and bought a set the next day. Late night blog crawling makes you weak.

But what fun I will have creating labels and cards with tatting-like stamps. Already a small, but creative corner of my brain is buzzing with images of tatted teapots affixed to pretty papers with tatting designs stamped, maybe even embossed, on them.

More Beguiling Stamps

Last week I shared a striking stamp from Australia that arrived with samples from The Thread Exchange site Fox launched several weeks ago.  Here are some from the bonny shores of Ireland.

The sender had me at "Eire". Aren't the flowers pretty and inviting? Something about them just says come see our bonny shores for yourself. The sight of them made Ciarrán homesick.

More Love from Postie

As if the stamps, threads and songs weren't enough of a distraction, a book search that I set up several years ago turned up a hardback copy of Cathy Bryant's "Tatting" for a reasonable price. Usually when I find it online it is being sold for some astronomical sum! So I purchased it used from a library in Iowa for $15.00. It is in excellent condition.  Une bonne affaire!

Lizbeth's New Fall Colors

Sneak Peek
Imagine my surprise when a sneak peek of the Lizbeth's Eight New Fall Colors dropped into my inbox:

Solids

Color 696 – Autumn Orange Med

Color 615 – Yellow Lt

Color 619 – Baby Pink

Color 649 – Baby Blue

Variegated Colors
Color 136 – Autumn Spice

Mocha brown dk and med, terra cotta dk, harvest orange dk and lt, olive dk and med.

Color 137 – Berry Burst

Violet dk, boysenberry dk, cornflower blue med, country turquoise dk.

Color 138 – Leafy Greens

Leaf green med, pine green, olive med, leaf green lt.

Color 139 – Fruit Fizz

Raspberry pink med, autumn orange med, melon lt, purple med.

Plus, two more colors that do not yet have scans:

Color 153 – Rainbow Taffy
– Pink lt, autumn orange med, yellow lt, avocado green very lt, electric blue lt, purple med.

Color 154 – Wildflower Garden
– Lilac med, Purple lt, autumn orange med, pink coral med, blossom pink med, olive dk

Wow, that makes 121 colors available in three sizes. To borrow phrasing from Charlotte the barn spider (Charlotte's Web by E. B. White), that's "Some Selection." Terrific!

Have Your Say
Barbara Foster is also asking for your feedback to help her choose which new solid colors and variegated combos to release in December.

This is your chance to choose the colors to get you through those dreary winter days. Or to spice up your sizzlin' hot winter days, depending on which side of the equator you happen to live.

So, what colors would you like to see that are missing from the Lizbeth line?

Leave a comment with your color suggestion(s) on THIS POST or email Barbara Foster directly at staff@hhtatting.com. 


Lizbeth 80
If you're waiting for the latest release information, the following notice went out on Monday, July 5th:

The Lizbeth size 80 thread will not be in stock until the end of August.

If you haven't already heard, the color spacing for the size 80 is shorter, as short as 2.5-3 inches long for some colorways. Others are a little longer. No more tatting (and tatting and tatting) to get to the next color change.

No More Lizbeth at JoAnn's?

On Monday, the Lizbeth 20 display at my local JoAnn Fabric & Crafts store was completely EMPTY. What stock they once had had been put on sale for $1.97 per ball.

When asked if they had discontinued carrying Lizbeth cotton threads, a manager said, "If we have, you might still be able to find some online."

So instead of searching online, I went to the source. Barbara Foster at Handy Hands responded with this information:

No worry, they still have it in some stores, also Hobby Lobby carries 40 colors in all their stores.

Barbara (and a JoAnn customer service representative) explained further.

JoAnn F&C first conducts a 300-store test market sampling to see how a new product sells. Lizbeth sold well in the test markets, so JoAnn has added Lizbeth size 20 thread to its warehouse.

So why the empty display? JoAnn F&C will only stock Lizbeth size 20 thread in 225 of its stores.

JoAnn's has 750 locations in 48 states. That means only 30% of the company's retail locations will stock Lizbeth thread on a regular basis.

The raw data I received from JoAnn's lists 291 locations, not 225. I must presume this is the list of test stores. The CS rep said that some stores may be closing or changing locations, and to expect this data to be "fluid," meaning that the statistics could change frequently.

If you want to see the store data listing which locations (as of today) will continue to carry Lizbeth thread in your state, I am happy to drop the data into a spreadsheet, save it as a PDF file and post the link. Heck, I don't mind tracking the data through September, if it is valuable to tatters.

Do you want to see it?

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.