Tatting Tea Tuesday - butterfly beginnings

The Ides of March are almost upon us -- that ill-fated day when Julius Casear went to the big coliseum in the sky.

My paternal grandmother was born on the Ides of March. Theresa Schill Beary lived and raised 10 children on a small homestead with a chicken coop, a sprawling lawn and a lovely flower garden.  Butterflies often flitted among the spring tulips, summer cone flowers and various wildflowers throughout the growing season.

Today's tatting project is a pretty butterfly pattern chosen to compliment my memories of that lovely garden and its winged visitors. I found it on the Italian tatting web site:  CHIACCHIERINO  The butterfly diagram can be found on this page: Gioielli di chiacchierino

Here is my first round.  And a second photo of this pretty start next to its "schema."  <sup>*

 *</sup> NOTE: Round 1 starts with a knot at the tip of one antenna and chains toward the Self-Closing Mock Ring (SCMR) body. If you are not familiar with this technique, please review SCMR instructions offered by Jane Eborall or The Shuttle Brothers.  I used a lock-stitch chain for the antennae, but a regular chain works equally well.

Farfalla, round 1
Lizbeth^®20 #613 Golden Yellow Medium and a
blend of lavender/black/yellow threads for antennae

Farfalla, round 1
with diagram

Rains pelt the windows as I sit sipping an infusion of green tea sweetened with a lemon and ginger syrup.  It soothes my sore throat and eases the sinusitis brought on by Old Man Winter's (hopefully?) last gasp.  I am winding two shuttles (CTM) with Lizbeth^®20 #139 Fruit Fizz for round 2 as I dream of delicate daffodils and delphiniums, butterfly gardens and the freshness of spring.

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

Tatting Tea Tuesday - TIAS Day 10 & Penguin Head

February tends to fly, but holy smokes!  Has it really been a whole month since my last post?

IsDihara's TIAS 2013 Day 10 progress, red background

Freshly completed January TIAS projects usually energize my tatting creativity. This year I set aside Jane Eborall's adorable TIAS at Day 10 with the intent to finish Gingerbread Boy.  (...before the creative wave washed in.)

Gingerbread Boy still unfinished...

Poor, neglected cookie laddie still languishes in my tatting corner. What's the hold up?  Nothing really, just me being obsessive about not messing him up. Can I rationalize that it would be a whole lot easier if I had a diagram to follow? 

Yes! I even tried to draw a digital diagram to get going again. *grumbles.loudly* Computer wouldn't cooperate.  More on that later.

So I switched to designing with my shuttles instead. This is what I created.

Front-facing penguin head 
© 2013 Karen Beary Parent
All Rights Reserved

Imagine black beads in the center of the white rings for eyes.  Also imagine a triangle-shaped bead for the beak. Beads are intended to be sewn on later but could be tatted in as you go.

AUGH! If only my middle-aged computer could handle "the strain" of diagramming. It is not up to the task. (Hard drive errors linked to memory swap issues....AUGH!)  And I haven't yet been brave enough to try diagramming patterns on the iPad.

For Tatting Tea Tuesday, I sip Chocolate Strawberry herbal tea while I finish up TIAS Day 11.

I am also contemplating a graft of a front-facing penguin head onto a penguin body designed by Jane Eborall. If it works it will be disarmingly cute. If not, the unfortunate fellow could be a freak the likes of a Frankenstein monster. (That wasn't melodramatic at all...)

More photos to come after two prams/baby carriages are done and given a quick steam press. 

Wishing you all blissful me time to create something beautiful (and neck bolt free). See you next Tuesday for more communi-tea!

We Interrupt this blog to bring you

Geek Chic Cosmetic's new Farscape-themed eye shadow collection.  Called "Scapers," it is an eight (8) shadow, one (1) glitter set that has me wanting to play dress-up!

Check out this tutorial by Phyrra. Whether you're as composed as a Delvian Pa'u or as brassy as a Nebari rebel, these colors are sure to resonate on a personal level. Head on over to Geek Chic Cosmetics to see the whole Scapers collection.

Oh Sweet Mercy!  They have eye shadow collections inspired by Doctor Who called Timey Wimey and Firefly called Big Damn Heroes. There is even a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles-inspired collection.  Name your geek-chic guilty pleasure, I'm betting they've got you covered.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled tatting.

TIAS Day 7 -- What IS it?

Instead of waiting for the weekend, I thought I'd post a quick update of my TIAS Day 7.

IsDihara's TIAS 2013 Day 7 progress, white background

IsDihara's TIAS 2013 Day 7 progress, red background

Note:  These scans are flipped "wrong side" up. Being a left-handed tatter, my "whatsit" naturally progresses with the Days 5, 6 and 7 the other way round (on the right side).


Day 7 had me saying this phrase over and over in my head:  rubber baby buggy bumpers
Say that three times fast!

Here is a photo of my latest guess:  a surrey-like baby buggy.  It puts me to mind of the song from the musical Oklahoma!  -- "Surrey with the Fringe on Top"

Image source: Hap Moore Antiques Auctions, March 21, 2009
www.hapmoore.com

Isn't it fun how each new release jump-starts the creative brain cell(s)?

It really is great to see so many TIAS 2013 bits pop up on the blogs. What a wonderful reminder that we aren't "tatting in the wilds" (all alone) but in a lively global community.

TIAS Day 6

Not a lot of tatting has taken place this week. What with "da boyz" (hubby and kidlet) having a snow day on Friday, kidlet's busy social calendar on Saturday, I-don't-remember-what on Sunday and a two-hour ice delay Monday morning; oh, and hubby's second attack of gout Monday evening, the long weekend was seemingly over before it began.

I did complete TIAS Day 6 yesterday afternoon.  I have been enjoying the TIAS tatting immensely! The early stages of this game are the most fun, since I can let my imagination run wild with crazy guesses.  I always try to work in a camel guess (or a Loch Ness monster) early on. 

Is'Dihara's TIAS 2013, Day 6, progress

By the time we get to the halfway point, I am usually influenced by ingenious guesses posted on Jane's TIAS blog. For example, Valerie Ho's hunch that it might be a Viking ship!  Hmmm, don't think it will turn out to be a Viking ship at this stage, but who knows?

Now I am swayed by another excellent bit of deductive guesswork: the pram/baby buggy probability. It could be a flowerpot or even a hot air balloon. But all I see is the carriage of a pram.

Anita M Adamson's shopping cart prediction was featured on Jane Eborall's Facebook page promoting TIAS. Hurray for Anita!  Don't cha just love all the shuttles loaded up in the cart?

Day 7 will reveal another clue to the puzzle and our tatting imaginations will race ahead once more. How did I ever make it through the long, cold, January stretch before TIAS came along?

Merci mille fois, Jane, for giving us this delightful game to play.

Tatting Tea Tuesday - New Books
Today's tea is decaf green flavored with Powell & Mahoney Cosmopolitan cocktail mixer.  Tatting while sipping a warmed concoction of cranberry, lime and orange is a very tasty prospect. The cocktail mixer was left over from New year's Eve and I couldn't let it go to waste, now could I? 

Instead of tatting during cosmopoli-tea time, I opted to leaf through my two new tatting books!  First is a reprint of Judith Connor's 2006 book, "Contemporary Tatting - New Designs from an Old Art."  It contains lovely color photos and hand-drawn diagrams of "a galaxy of patterns."

The second addition to my tatting library is Jan Stawasz' second publication, "Tatted Treasures."  Owning his first book made buying this one an absolute must. Mr. Stawasz' method is very "front-side/back-side" centric.  His patterns have a stately elegance that I find very appealing.

Both books are wonderful and I can recommend them to any tatter.

Who Won?

Lace Mat Poll Winner Is....(I'm not telling)

If you haven't yet gone to see whose Norma Benporath Lace Mat received top honors in Jon Yusof's poll, what are you waiting for?

Thirty-five tatters submitted their lace mats for peer review and the poll results are posted. All in all, a great experience from start to finish!

Thank you, Jon, for giving us this opportunity to tat a fantastic Australian doily pattern from 1938.

More thank yous to all who participated in the Lace Mat Tat-Along and the Poll.

Finally (and most humbly), thank you to all who so kindly considered my lace mat for their top five votes. It was an exceedingly difficult choice.  All 35 entries were fabulous!

What?  You still haven't gone over to Tat-a-Renda to see who the winner is? OK, okay... the winner is none other than Martha Ess! *applause.applause.applause*

The mats that received the top 5 votes are listed on Tat-a-Renda blog as well. Go see!

A Star Shining in the East

Who out there is tatting Jon's latest offering, a lovely Johar Star?

It has been added to my Must Tat list, but I cannot start it right now.  Gingerbread Boy sits languishing unloved in my tatting corner. He has been thrown over for TIAS. I am certain he will require hours of therapy to recover from the emotional trauma.

Ruffled Heart Tat Along

Last week needle tatter Sw4nkyL4c3r and I hosted a monthly Tat-Along at our LYS.  Tatter Vicki Clarke gave us her kind permission to tat this Ruffled Heart. Everyone finished their heart in the meeting time and they seemed to really enjoy this project. Here is my heart.

Ruffled Heart © 2009 Vicki Clarke
Tatted by IsDihara in Lizbeth^® 20 #671 Christmas Red

Some tatters finished their heart and a second shamrock pattern.  This is the photo that the yarn shop posted. Seven hearts and five shamrocks.  Not a bad haul for two hours, eh?

Thank you to Dr. Vicki Clarke for kindly sharing her design.  We enjoyed tatting it so much!