New Year - new projects

About an hour after we got up.

Well the excitement is over for another year. All of the lights will come down after hubby's birthday  (We have to leave them up until the 5th of January for that reason alone.) Gotta love that man of mine. I have been undergoing physical therapy since just before Christmas. These last few visits have been really tough as she has been working on a muscle that needed a lot of loosening up. First few times she touched it I felt like there was a knife going deep into the muscle. This left my left leg aching for the rest of the day. With both of us working on it, the pain is slowly going away. This does explain why some of my yoga poses really did not turn out all that great.

So for the new projects this year, I plan on doing more of the tatted egg pieces that I do for the spring every year. (However, they have been known to end up on my Christmas tree from time to time as well.) I want to explore dyeing with more pastel like colors and maybe doing some kool-aide dyeing as I go along. At this point it is just an exploration of a thought since I have not yet done anything.

The house cleanup has really begun in earnest this year. I have no more distractions and unplanned intrusions as most of my family is settled elsewhere right now. I have not been able to do too much as I was told that I could no longer work "through" the pain as it was getting me into trouble with my back. So I have to work in short bursts and then sit for a while. Good thing there is the tatting to keep me occupied while I "have to sit down" and allow the pain to go away.

One hour later.

I do hope to do more with jewelry this year. I have quite a few pieces floating around in my head but that seems to be as far as they have gotten. I also plan on doing an Etsy shop this year for some of my pieces. It is time that my tatting habit start paying for itself and provide me with income to reinvest in new pieces of beading and threads. This will be a year of exploring the use of beads in tatting. I want to find the right balance between bead and thread so that the tatting does not get lost in what is done.

There is not much tatting in this entry but such is my life right now. I hope to have more as the weeks and days progress this year.

Hope your new year is filled with plenty of thread for tatting and family all around.

Happy Tatting!

Arial - The Tattered Faerie

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Believe it or not I wrote this post before Christmas and before my son and his family descended upon my house. So below is what I wrote before Christmas and the PS is something I picked up after. 

Well the tree is trimmed and most of the packages are wrapped (NOT). The tree is up and trimmed but I still have a package or two to purchase. The older g-kids are easy to buy for but the little ones are much more difficult. I am posting a picture of the tree trimmed with the new ornaments. I managed to finish up the new ornaments by tatting a ring that I had used in my own pattern for one of my egg shells. I managed to get the pieces threaded together to where they look pretty good. Not all of them went on very easily but I did manage to make a pattern that worked.

I took part in an exchange on one of the lists on Facebook that I belong to. It came by way of a plain brown box through the United States Postal Service. The box contained a pale green handkerchief and sort of seafoam green size 20 Lizbeth thread. There was also a smallish tin box that contained a beautiful shuttle from Georgia Seitz and some red thread. This is not the first shuttle that I have from Georgia but it is the first one bought by someone else for me. The two pictures below are of the contents of the box. I was seriously trying to keep it until Christmas, however, I obviously did not make it. :)

I guess that my next project will be to find the right edging to put around the handkerchief with the thread that I received. Then there comes the Easter egg projects that I do every year. I will begin soon to blow out eggs as I use them to have shells to put my tatting around. Maybe this year I will hand dye some of my own threads to use in the various projects. I will be getting back to the hand dyed threads this spring as my house will be much quieter.

I am making little progress on cleaning up my house and it will be going even slower in the next few weeks. I have been put back on physical therapy by my doctor with this last physical. I am healthy other wise but have to start counting calories rather than portion control. This is seriously when the monster comes out stating that she will not count calories and will attempt sabotage at every turn. I know mentally that it would be the best thing for me but that is not what my heart is saying. I really want to be able to do something where my focus is not on how many calories that I can consume but how I can eat healthier as a way of life and not really think about it. To tell me that I must count calories challenges the inner child to find every possible way to cheat and make it much harder to make the changes necessary to lose this weight. My biggest issue is that my metabolism has really stopped working after so many years of being told that it had to go into fat storage rather than fat burning. I have to find a balanced way to reverse that without issuing the challenge to the inner child to be naughty.

Well that is all for now and most likely for the rest of the year. Here is wishing that all you tatters have plenty of threads for your shuttles and needles to last through the upcoming year.

Happy tatting!

Arial - The Tattered Faerie

PS: The photo here is my latest purchase from our local Hobby Lobby. They finally had the Aerlit shuttles and mine is pink. They also finally had more than just the simple plastic shuttles with a bone and wood shuttle by Yarnology. There is also the thread winder by Yarnology. The two balls of thread are the Lizbeth size 40 waiting to be dyed for the spring tatting.

Boy am I exhausted trying to wrangle the pictures in this post. Most likely, I will not put this many in a post again. But it is what it is. Happy Tatting!

Unfinished ornaments.....

It is that time of year when you craft like mad to finish new stuff to either display or sell or give away. I have been working on stuff to display. My wonderful husband has let me get a new tree this year that actually looks like a tree. (Sorry, don't do real since I break out in hives when I touch the real stuff.) I really love the smell of a real tree but I just can't take the itch that will accompany it plus the drugged out feeling when I have to take a histamine blocker to stop it.

I have about 7 ornaments that are partially completed now. I am looking at different medallion patterns for finishing the design. I have  the first photos of the ornaments below for your viewing pleasure. These are single shuttle patterns from various pattern books that I have. I am going to make some "wreath" style medallions since I have not been happy with any of the single shuttle  patterns that I have found so far. I will finish out the dozen ornaments with either two shuttle patterns or a shuttle and ball pattern. That will make about 5 patterns left for me to complete. The ball with the "hen and chicks" pattern is a double pattern because the pattern could not be repeated evenly  around the ornament to fit in the middle. I am happy with the way it is turning out and I can interlace the tapes with a weave. It may be the only one that I will not use end cap pieces with.

I will be putting up my tree by this weekend. The really nice thing with this tree is that I have two matching trees that are short and can go on the outside of my window on the porch. This will really set off my bay style window nicely. Now that my daughter-in-law and her kids have left the area, I will have much more time to work on the inside of the house. We have spent the last two weeks working on her apartment, sorting and packing everything up. She is moving the final heavy stuff into storage to day and will travel to her parents home to spend a few weeks while waiting for my son to get out of tech school before they move to his first duty station.

Thanksgiving was pretty quiet as my family around the table was smaller than usual. With one son and his family overseas and the other son still in tech school training, there were fewer of us around the table. I am genuinely thankful for the blessing that I have received over the past couple of years. There has been a lot of drama but the grand kids are worth it. I have been enjoying the two that lived close and longing to hold the newest one who is too far away.

So it is back to cleaning house and working finishing up the ornaments for the new tree. The coming year will be a much quieter affair and maybe I will have more time to post new stuff and just enjoy.

Happy tatting.

Arial - the Tattered Faerie

Working on stuff......

The housework still continues a little at a time. The kitchen has seen the most improvement with counters now being more visible than they used to be. No food sitting around but glassware and other various items waiting to be recycled. Some have been up-cycled into containers for my bathroom. I need to find a place where I can put the glass jars out of the way until I get them re-purposed to something useful rather than letting them go to the landfill.

I have also been working on dealing with some old ornaments. I have managed to get most of them cleared out using bleach. There are some that refuse to give up their silver lining. I have managed to complete one tape to go around an ornament. I have also begun working on a second tape for the center of an ornament. I have several different tape patterns selected to go around all of the ornaments that I have ready to go.

This is not the only project that I have been working on. I finished a pair of hand warmers and a neck cowl to go with it. My wrists get sore with the colder temperatures in the winter and I end up having to put them under some sort of heating pad, or rice pad until they quit hurting.

The picture is of the cowl and the stitch is the Tunisian crochet stitch which looks like knitting. The color may not be that visible with the shot I took but it is a red to black blend of a very soft yarn. It wraps around the neck three times loosely and four times to be cozy warm. I showed it to my sister-in-law and she just loved it. Guess who will be getting one for Christmas. Yeah she knows because  I asked her favorite color.

Well that is enough from me for the night. I need to get this up on the net and formatted to post.

Happy tatting.

Arial - The Tattered Faerie

House work continues....

We have just about got the house ready for the upcoming winter. We spent this last couple of months working on a "new roof", "new gutters", and finally a new top for the chimney. Much of the work was covered by insurance because of hail damage done two years ago to the roof. However, the chimney there is nothing but out of pocket cost for us. This is a matter of poor construction where they chose to just use the same material as the bricks were put together with for the cap. This allowed the cap to break down over the years and let the brick face get separated from the rest of the brick. This year we needed to get this done or it would start seriously falling down and we would be in much worse trouble than we are now. I am glad that once this is done we will not have to worry about this needing to be done again for quite a while.

I am in the process of trying to decide just what to do about this year's Christmas tree. I would like to get something just a bit bigger to fill the front window and give me more space to add new ornaments. I have many tatted snowflakes from years past that I really want to find space for as well as for some of my more antique items. I have begun searching for the snowflake patterns that I would want to work up. I will also look into designing more of my own flakes as well.

I had tatted some snowflakes previously that I added to my tree one year. For those of you who have visited my tatting albums on my main web page these will be repeats. The first tatted snowflake comes from the book "24 Julestjerner i Orkis" by Lene Bjorn. This book contains 24 tatted snowflakes which correspondes to every day from December 1st to just before Christmas.  This is sort of like an advent calendar for tatters. The other snowflakes come from other books which I will have to see if I can find the correct references for each one.

Well, the workers have left and all that the chimney needs to do is cure. I am so happy to have this part of the work done with.

Happy tatting

Arial - Tattered Faerie

It's that time of year...

When you start thinking about Christmas. Well, if you are a crafter, you do. I have had these ornaments for a few years and wanted to make tatted pieces to put inside of them. The package shown below comes with 4 instead of the usual half dozen or dozen. They are about 3 inches in diameter and 1 inch thick. This is more than enough  space to suspend a tatted snowflake or mini doily inside. So this is my current search to find patterns that I can work up to not exceed the 3 inch limitation and also not look too rediciously small inside. I would not want anything less than 2 inches as it would leave way too much space.

The second image shows just how flat the ornaments are. This would rule out anything too fluffy or 3D. I will most likely look through my library and find some of the pattern books that feature snowflakes. One comes to mind that I used in the making of the necklace from an earlier post. I am also going to make some flakes that I can just hang out by themselves.

I am thinking that I might just look for a shorter table so that I can put up a slightly bigger tree in front of my bay style window in the front of the house. It is not a true bay as there is a 4 to 5 inch gap between the windows. This will allow me to display more tatted ornaments on my tree each year.

The house cleaning continues on very painfully slow as I have about 20 years of kids' stuff to clean up as well as lots of dust bunnies to round up. We are fixing up the house as we go along. For the winter we already have a new roof and gutters. Now we are waiting to hear back from a contractor about replacing the top quarter of our chimney. The issue with replacing brick on an older home is that the new bricks will be about 2 inches smaller than the older ones. This is the result of the "downsizing" in the brick so that they can charge more.

That's enough of my life. Leave comments below about yours. What are your plans to decorate for this "holiday season". Seems like the holidays run into each other this time of year.

Happy tatting!

Arial - The Tattered Faerie

Been a long time...

Here I sit waiting for my back to quit complaining at me. The reason for this is I am working on cleaning up my house. For years I have let things get out of control just so that I could see to my family's needs. Now that there are only two in the house, I have much more time to actually work on cleaning up my living space. I am in a quandary though. I really don't know my decorating "style". You know, that thing that gives a theme to your home. Right now I am faced with leftovers and also a mixture of new stuff too. My living room for example is somewhere in the 70's as far as the paint and wall goes. My furniture is a warm chocolate brown with high wing backs. I want to paint my walls brown and figure out what sort of carpet I would like that is NOT just a shade lighter than the furniture.

My office was once a bedroom with bunk beds in it for the boys. Both boys are now grown and married with families of their own. The top bunk is long gone but the frame remains. It is time for me to clear it out and all of the junk that is now in there sitting around in stacks. Now I am not saying that I am a hoarder but there are many things setting around that I just plain need to give up. As far as what I want in there to replace it, I have a beautiful secretarial desk that I want to build the room around. It is a dark wood piece but then I have decided that I really like dark woods. I have not yet decided on the colors and floor. I am happy that I found Pinterest because it allows me to dream and imagine what a room would be like with the right stuff. Right now I have decided that besides the desk will be a couch/bed but not the fold out kind. I have my eye on  one from Walmart that is black pleather (plastic that looks like leather). It will sit like a couch until needed and then can be folded down to a full bed if needed. This room is the place where I hope to not only design and work on my tatting but also work on my computer graphic arts. I want it to be warm and inviting so that I can be inspired to create new and beautiful lace and pictures.

The rest of the house is also in much of the same shape though I have managed to keep the food confined and put up in the kitchen. I do not believe in letting food sit around without being cleaned up. Yes, I will leave dishes in the sink but the food is taken care of first and for most because it would really smell if I didn't. That is one reason I will not watch a program about hoarders. I just can't understand why someone would let the food set around and build up and invite the bugs and creepy crawlies in to the house. If you are one, I am sorry if I offend you but I find it hard to see why someone would not at least take care of the food issue.

Enough of my journey back to a clean house. This will be a long time journey but I hope to also get back to creating tatting and doing some of my other favorite activities such as 3D graphics. I am going to try hard to have my next entry to be more about tatting. That is, after all, just why you have elected to follow this blog.

Happy tatting
Arial - The Tattered Faerie

Abstract Tatting......

This week I have decided to begin a study of sorts playing with abstract tatting. There are two books that no long time tatter should be without:

This book is the first of the two books that I am looking at. "Tatting Innovations" is translated from the original German book by Helma Siepmann by Etha Schuette. This is a good book to get one thinking "outside" of the box when it comes to tatting. This first book teaches some of the basic elements and how to think about combining elements in a very different way to create tatted pictures.

"Tatting Artistry in Thread" is the second in this group. This book further explains additional techniques for creating images. There are even more photos inside this book to provide inspiration on how to expand the use of tatting in images. 

My goal this week is to try to create a fall tree scene to hang on my wall. Eventually I hope to have all four seasons created to place on my wall. I have already begun by creating the first of the branches using fall colors. I may rethink using a variegated brown that I have for one that has truer browns in the color way.

Here are a couple of places where you can get the books but I am sure that there are more.

Tatting Innovations

Tatting Artistry In Thread

Happy tatting!
Arial - Tatting Faerie

Designing a necklace

Designing a necklace may not seem all that hard but it can be when your mind has too many thoughts to settle on just one! Last night things started to gel just in time for bed. I hate it when the good ideas flow right before I really need to settle down for the night. I lay in bed trying to turn my designs off and let them travel into my dreams. The mind tends to race where it will and after much difficulty I finally managed to convince myself that sleep would help make the design better in the long run. It also helps to have some practice with meditation so I could clear my mind enough to sleep.

Above is the final result of the all day process of designing the necklace. The thread is size 80 Lizbeth thread. The color way is Autumn Leaves. It is more the orange, yellow and read that is not really represented well in the picture above. I began with a "rose" design center similar to the one found in the book "24 Julestjerner i Orkis" by Lene Bjorn. The center is based on the 3 December snowflake. I added the last round of my own design to fill out the rest of the medallion. 

This is the last piece that I needed to design for tomorrows gathering at the church. I had hoped to make one other item but I just ran out of time. So now my piece is drying and should be ready by the time I leave for tomorrow's activity. 

This post actually took two days to complete. I began the first part just before bed last night but from the picture down was written on the second day. The one thing I love about my tablet is that I can begin my blog post without having my computer up. Blogger will allow me to save the first part as a draft so that I can come back to it and complete it for publication later. 

With that I will bid you all "good night" and go to my nightly rest because tomorrow will be a very busy day (at least in the morning hours). Then it will be back to designing and working up new patterns for myself. I also hope to get back to dyeing threads and more posts than have been happening recently. Thank you for sticking with me while I was other wise occupied with this last big project.

Happy Tatting
Arial - Tatting Faerie

Finally finished!

I am finally finished with my major project for next weekend. I have finished a total of 112 tea roses using Ruth's pattern found Here. I ended up modifying the leaf portion of the pattern to just simple rings using one shuttle verses using the shuttle and ball with rings and chains. With that one change, the leaves worked up much quicker so that I could get the work done and ready for someone else to work with before Saturday.

The picture above is when I managed to get all of the roses strung on the pin stems that I made.

The above picture here is when I got all of the roses wrapped up and the thread left to bind it. 

This last picture is all of the roses with the green leaves attached and the florist tape wrapped around the stems. No matter how much I do this part, it is the worst part for me as my fingers end up very, very sticky from having to stretch the tape to activate the adhesive. 

I realized that after doing this I should have made my first picture of all of the rose bases without the stem pins. Would have made a better progression. It took several weeks for me to do the individual roses but it was less than 5 days for me to get everything together and assembled. 

My next project will be to design a necklace using fall colors including (gasp) beads. The gasp is because I have done very little work up until now using beads. For as long as I have been tatting, I have admired those who are able to tat with beads without thinking about it. I have done beads using the "over the picot join" to attach them. I may do so with this one again. However, I am also going to use some jump rings to attach both the dangle beads and chains. Will post more on this later when I get it done.

BTW; The pictures above were taken with my Samsung Galaxy tablet. I really love this thing.

Until next time.

Happy tatting!

Arial - Tatting Faerie

Little to post right now....

I am sorry that I have not had stuff for you to read lately. Since getting my Galaxy Tablet, I had hoped that I would be able to post a little more often but alas it is not to be right now. I am really busy with tatting nearly 200 tea roses for an upcoming event in late September. 

I am still getting used to the attached keyboard which lets me type faster than if I were hunting and pecking on the screen.

I am managing on getting about 8 to 10 base patterns tatted a day. I hope to have them done as soon as possible so that I can get back to creating the tatting pockets that I talked about in an earlier post. I have also come up with some ideas for pendants that I can list in a shop I want to create on Etsy. It really is too bad that I have so many ideas and not enough time to do everything that I really want to do.

On the bright side, I am now a grand mother for the 6th time.


This lovely little lady is Miss Rebecca Erin. It was really funny to announce her birth as my son and his wife are stationed in Okinawa Japan. She was technically born on Friday, August 31, but I got to announce her birth about 2 in the afternoon on Thursday to some friends. Had to explain how that was possible since they are on the other side of the date line from us.

Well I guess that I will post this and get back to my roses.

Happy tatting


Arial - Tatting Faerie.

Testing almost complete.....

Well, we bought a new Galaxy 2 tablet complete with keyboard. My hubby really put it through its paces. This morning, I am testing the keyboard and how well things work with blogger. So far there are a few issues but nothing that doesn't have a work around for. Now on with the blog entry.

It has been quite a while since I had anything to post for you all. Today I will journey the hour and a half to Sedalia to meet with some fellow tatters. I found out that they had been doing demonstrations at the state fair. Unfortunately most of the fair was over by the time I found out  because of coming back from my son's BMT graduation. I was invited to come and meet with them. 

Today I thought I would post a couple of pictures for you to see. They are of some of my shuttle collection. These are ones that I find either difficult to use or have some defect that prevents me from using them effectively. I found a couple of display cases and with some tatting and cotton backing, you have a hanging wall display:

They are varied and beautiful. I recently discovered the "detach-a-spool". I want more of these! Unlike the modern Bates metal, it has no edges that will catch the threads.

That is all for now. Hope to post again soon.

Happy tatting.

Arial - Tatting Faerie

Tatting Pocket design......

I am finally awake and healthy again. The house is very quiet without anyone else running around interrupting my thinking. Even though I am still trying to clean up from the last two weeks, my brain is running a mile-a-minute with some new ideas. Right now it is not tatting related directly but a place to carry our very portable project. I was sent a "pocket" many years ago that I would really like to try and recreate with my own spin. This pocket was made up of several squares of material but I would like to recreate it with as few extra cuts as possible. When finished the "pocket" would end up as a 3 inch square. My question for you (my wonderful readers) is what sort of lining should I use that would keep the points of the shuttles or mini crochet hooks from poking through? It would need to be something thin enough to sew through yet sturdy enough to keep the points in place. My immediate goal is to have something which travels well and can be put into a pencil case (currently available at Walmart cheap because of school sales). The case size is approximately 8" x 3 1/2"  which is perfect for travelling. I would like more of these pockets to store extra materials in to keep things from getting all jumbled up and tied in knots. The advantage of the pockets would be that I could just grab the pocket with the most current project in for quick trips or set up several projects to take on the longer trips to occupy those very long times of waiting in lines.

Here is the promised image of the finds from the Florida trip! The shuttles are from an antique shop we ran across not far from where we were staying. The silver shuttle is a "detach a spool" which I like much better than the more modern shuttles of similar type as there are no metal pieces to snag the threads. The black shuttles I have found more commonly but these are unusual in the fact that they are nearly perfect as in "gapless" at the tips from years of use. These items were included with an accompanying article about a local tatter who tried to keep tatting alive in her area. I will dedicate a later post to this lovely lady when I get things more settled here. The wooden shuttle is more of a netting shuttle as the size of the gaps were for holding larger threads in mending things like fishing nets. I also ran across a shop that teaches both beading and tatting, though their tatting teacher just moved from the area. So the beads and cone of thread was purchased from that shop. The cone contains 2000 yards of size 30 thread. (I do see plenty of thread dyeing in my future with this one.)

Guess I had better go so that I can plan what I want to do for the rest of the day. I look forward to hearing from you with regard to the lining.

Happy tatting!

Arial - Tatting Faerie

Finally home for a while!

I am happy to say that my very busy summer is finally over! The last two weeks were the worst. The first of those two weeks was family vacation. While it was pleasant and enjoyable, the weather made it unbearable because of the heat and humidity. I did find some goodies that I will share with you when I get photos. The second week involved my son's graduation from basic training at Lackland AFB. Given that this was deep in the heart of Texas, the temps were even hotter. This has left me severely sick. I have been unable to eat much for the last few days. I hope to be over this soon and will post some pictures.

So with a few days of rest and I will post new pictures soon.

Happy Tatting
Arial - Tatting Faerie

Been one of those days ...

Started out just trying to upgrade my computer to the latest operating system. That was yesterday! So this evening my computer teaching husband is trying to find a work-around so that it works. Bless him as he is trying to resurrect my poor computer. Nothing ever goes as planned when it comes to things like this. I am reduced to updating my blog with my iPod and a tiny keyboard. No photos or tatting today.

Hope your tatting is happier than mine.
Arial - Tatting Faerie

A bit disappointed.....

As you may remember a few posts ago, I gave away 4 books for an exchange of tatting supplies or what not. Here is the post where I mentioned the winners. I received wonderful gifts from two of the recipients but have yet to receive anything from the other two. I am hoping that it is just a matter of being delayed in either mailing the package or just a delay along its journey to my home. I will not name the ones responsible as that would be too much of an embarrassment for them and I am NOT into embarrassing anyone. The ones who sent items in response and have already privately received grateful reply from me know just how happy I am with what they sent. I am already planning a couple of projects with what was sent but will be posting it much later when the process is done.


Now for tatting items, I don't have it finished yet. But in going through my books recently getting ready for the annual vacation next week I came across an inspirational pattern that I felt I could use to decorate my candles that I was talking about in another post HERE. I am happy with the way it is turning out so far but I have already come up with a couple of ideas for improvements to further stabilize the pattern when I put it around the candle. When I finally get around to finishing the project and posting a picture, I wonder if you would be so kind as to tell me if you think that someone might actually purchase the lace for the article intended or would I need to sell the complete candle and project. There would be the additional cost of the candle itself and I am not sure someone would pay additionally for something they should be able to get locally themselves.


So this Friday begins our annual fall vacation. We will be journeying to central Florida for the whole week. I have a lot of my tatting books now in electronic format so that I can take my library with me and read on my tablet. Nice thing about having this tablet is that I can also take regular books with me as well. Over the last year I have been very slowly scanning my books so that I can put them into PDF format for easy reading. Having things in this format will also allow me to print off the specific diagram for a pattern so that I can use it over and over again. These printouts I put into a regular 3x5 photo album which can be purchased at Walmart. This allows me to keep at hand projects that I find quick and easy as well as adaptable to other purposes such as hatbands, book marks or simple doilies. 


Well, guess you have heard enough from me for now. I do appreciate everyone of you who take the time to come and visit my blog. Let us see what the rest of the day will send my way. I do hope to post some while I am away. I am told that our vacation condo has access to wifi.


Happy Tatting
Arial - Tatting Faerie

On a pattern search.....

I have begun a pattern search for something unique to wrap around my very plain pillar candles. They are not the kind you light that have flame but the LED flameless pillars pictured below. These candles range from $10 to $20 depending upon the size that is purchased. I have bought several and received several more as gifts.

I don't need a specific pattern, just an example of the pattern. I am looking for something ruffled. The main band I will design to fit around the candle but the ruffle will come off of that. I have ideas for the flat design to use around the candle. There are rounds and squares and diamonds enough to use for dressing up the candle but I though that a ruffle would be good for those who really like to use lace. 


I am currently in between patterns for the test tatting that I have been doing and also continuing to work on the tea rose project that will be done by the end of September. I have several ideas for necklaces floating around in my head as well. I  will work on how to tat with beads and such. I admit that is one thing that I have avoided in the 20 plus years that I have been tatting. But that will end soon because of this items that I want to design. I just don't want to lose the tatting to all the beading.


Enough rambling for now. Today is ahead, and I want to try to stay cool today since we will be working on our 33rd day of temperatures over 100 this summer.


Happy tatting
Arial - Tatting Faerie

Tatting going on....

But nothing I can really talk about "yet". Once I am free to post again about the tatting I am doing right now I will. This will also include the pictures that go along with each piece. All I can say is that I am having fun putting these patterns together. You will enjoy the book once it comes out. 


Vacation time is just around the corner and I hope to get something of my own done while I am gone. I will be doing most of the driving just because I enjoy it. But when I take a break from driving and let someone else drive, I will be pulling out the shuttles to do some work. 


Oh, as a result of working on test tatting, I came up with a use for a cheap photo album. I can't post yet (again) but I have printed out the diagram in a size that fits perfectly into one sleeve of the album. I may yet do this with several other favorite patterns so I have a portable pattern book. I am always on the lookout for some nifty idea that will let me take my "portable" craft with me without taking up so much room. I have begun scanning some of my favorite patterns to get ready for the upcoming vacation so I have a good selection with me. I have also been looking at the electronic books that I have with diagrams and selecting from them as well for this new book. :D


I am jealous of those of you who are going to the various tatter days around the country. Maybe someday I can get enough income together that I can attend at least one. Being stuck in the middle of the country, there is nothing close enough for me to attend on a regular basis. Have fun, and I am anxious to hear from everyone how it all goes.


I want to thank all who jumped to my rescue in my last post with regard to my mother. Her care is stepped up to level three, which means she is confined to the facility but is still able to care for herself with encouragement. She is able to simple needle work without much guidance. That was the reason for looking for simple patterns that she can do. I hit on the idea of building pictures from simple elements being added as she completes the previous one. I have not yet started this but I have plenty of  line art now to get the job done. Thank you so much for helping out.


That is all for now. I need to finish this current project today and wait for the next. 


Happy tatting!


Arial - Tatting Faerie

Looking for something simple....

I am appealing to my fellow crafters for a few ideas. I am trying to find very simple projects that will help make my mother feel useful without being overwhelmed. She enjoys candlewicking but only as long as there are few "French knots" in the pattern. So I am looking for some simple and inexpensive patterns that I can keep her busy with. Please limit it to nothing too complex. I may just have to figure out a way to get the patterns without the knots. Anyone who can help please leave a comment.


I know that this is not tatting related but I am hoping that there is someone out there that can help.


Happy Tatting
Arial - Tatting Faerie

My Brain is on Overdrive....

Have you ever had ideas that you just can't get down on paper fast enough? I don't have all of the supplies for them either. This is one reason why I just have to get my Etsy shop up and going soon. I really need the funding for putting my ideas into practice. I often get these strokes of something sometimes called "genius" and other times called "crazy". What I have in mind I really don't want to give away yet because I have not seen anyone else do much of this. The hat bands were a good idea and I will continue to work on them and expand the ideas by incorporating beads and things into them for future sales. 


I am still playing around with dyeing threads and have done just that when doing some test tatting for someone else. The piece turned out really well but I really can't show it off until the book is out. Not sure just how long it will be before the book gets published but I hope it is soon. I actually was amazed that I managed to get just enough thread wound on the thread winder to complete the project as planned. (Too bad I will have to leave you hanging on this, but you will understand once I get to post the pictures.)


I have begun chatting with some of the ladies from the Needle_tat list on Yahoo messenger. If you would like to chat sometime you may contact me using the id of "cyberspirit-2". Or if you are a Goggle talk fan use my email arialgr at gmail dot com. I am always happy to have another tatter to talk with and exchange ideas with. 


As far as the funding goes, I am trying to fund my own play because we only have one income in the house and I really don't want to dip into the household income for just my things. Well, that is all from me for now. I will try to have some other pictures for you soon. 


Oh, I have already received items from two of the ladies who received the books but am waiting on the others before I post the pictures for you.


So much for the scheduling of posts. I wrote this last night expecting it to post this morning at 7:00 AM and guess what? It didn't. So it is posting by hand for a while.


Happy Tatting
Arial - Tatting Faerie

Book Winners Announced......

I apologize for not posting this sooner. I have been busy over the past several days dealing with family issues that have come up over the last several days. More on that later.

The winner is Wally Sosa. She has graciously sent me her published pattern books in exchange for this item. You can find her items for sale in her Etsy shop here.

The winner for this book is Annie Rutherford. She will be putting together some items from New Zealand along with some tatting stuff in exchange for this book.

The winner for this book is Jeanne Lugert. She has shown me an interesting photo of some tatting supplies that she is putting together as her exchange for this book. 

The final winner for this book is Linda Reiff. I have not heard what she is putting together but I am looking forward to seeing it.


My excuses for not sending things out sooner are very family related. The weekend began with us moving Mother into her new living arrangement. We have very interesting conversations everytime that we take her back to her new apartment. My Monday morning started out very early as we needed to travel to Scott AFB to pickup my son and his family to take them to the St. Louis airport for the beginning of their 4 year adventure in Okinawa Japan for the Air Force. This is my son's second trip there but this time he has a family along to make him get off base more. In the process of taking him, we drove home with their two cars which now belong to his siblings. (or at least will once they are paid for.)


I have managed to get back to some tatting but it is something that I can not share yet as I have picked up a test tatting project. More details will be published once the book has come out. In the process of tatting this piece. I have used some of the "fiesta" threads that I hand dyed and dyed up some varigated "Kelly green" threads. I really can't wait to share pictures of what I have done. You will just have to imagine until I can. I am continuing to work on simple projects to build some products for my soon to be Etsy store.


Happy tatting
Arial - Tatting Faerie

While I am waiting.....

While I am waiting for one person to respond to my email about the books, here is something that I found that will definitely be an inspiration piece for me to duplicate in the near future.Once I hear from the last winner I will happily tell you who the lucky 4 were.

Source: intatters.com via Patricia on Pinterest

This floral piece is absolutely beautiful to look at so I am going in search of some new patterns or some very old patterns so that I can put something like this together. It is also an inspiration piece for some additional elements with my hatbands that I hope to have for sale soon in my Etsy shop. I am slowly getting things together that I will want to list in the shop that I really enjoy working on. I have some jewelry designs in mind as well. I know it will be nothing fancy at first because I am just starting out. There have been just so many steps for me to get this shop together. I am in the process for filling out the paperwork to get my company tax number from the federal government. Not sure just how long this will take for them to respond.


Well that is all from me for the day. 


Happy Tatting
Arial - Tatting Faerie

Things came up.....

I am so sorry that I was unable to publish the names of the winners of the books yesterday. My daughter-in-law had severe issues with her dental appointment yesterday where it took far longer than we thought. So a huge chunk of my time was spent watching grandbabies yesterday. Today I am trying to get in touch with all of the winners. Just as soon as they are notified I will update this post with their names. 

I do have to ask here for the person who goes by the name "StringyDogs" to email me at arialgr at gmail dot com. I really have no way to get in touch with you otherwise. If you could please up date your profile with an email then it would be much simpler for people to get in contact with you. It would be easy to create an address at gmail using your "StringyDogs" name if you still want to remain anonymous to the outside world.

Sorry to tatting images today. Not much gets done when I am with the two little ones as they are both under 2 and need lots of attention right now.

Happy tatting

Arial - Tatting Faerie

Proposed Exchange.....

Okay here it is:


A few days ago, I was going through all of my tatting books just looking to see just what I might turn into a jewelry piece. bookmark, or hatband. I was sort of forced to look at some of my older books because of other things going on in the house at the time that "forced" me to clean out from under my desk. Well, I discovered that I had 4 duplicate books in my stash. Rather than let them languish going unused, I decided that I needed to get them into the hands of another deserving tatter. I know that I could send them all to one place and be happy but I would rather send them to multiple homes to spread the tatting around the world. In return, I would like this to be a fair exchange on the part of the recipient. In other words, I would like for them to put together a package of tatting related items to send in exchange. 


In order to do this fairly, I am restricting this to only those who have posted here on the blog or on the Facebook groups and will be selecting by random number for three of the books. I say "three" because one of the books was particularly asked for by a long time online tatting friend. This is the only exception to my rule. Below I will be posting the covers to the particular books that I have duplicates of. Please indicate the one that you have the most interest in.

This is Tatting Technique & History by Elgiva Nicholls. (I am sorry but this is the on already spoken for.)

This one is Tatting for the Beginner: Snowflakes, Crosses & Edgings by Nettie Lou Strafford Shipp.

This one is Tatted Snowflakes by Vida Sunderman.

Last we have Elegant Tatting Patterns by Janet Carroll


Yes you may attempt to bribe me to put you up near the top of the list but that may or may not work. ;)


I will give you two days to post to this entry on my blog or my post in Facebook. As I did last time I will post an addendum to this post stating that the drawing is closed and will then follow up the next day with the winners.


Let the games begin. 


Happy Tatting!
Arial - Tatting Faerie

Book Exchange is now CLOSED!

Journeys beginning....

Well, yesterday was a very long and busy day as we sent my middle child off to basic training in the Air Force. I have pictures of the occasion but they will be posted to my Facebook page when I get them off the camera and processed. 


I must admit that I have not been doing a lot of tatting in the past few weeks. I have not been too idle though as I have been trying to decide some other things to sell in my Etsy shop. I don't just want to sell hatbands as I would not get many sales that way. I always dive into things in a big way but then tend to fizzle out. I am just hoping that by varying what I do I can keep my interest going much longer. Also by keeping this blog, I hope others will keep me  encouraged and accountable in getting on with the shop. I have done a lot of research on opening the shop. I have gathered all the "helpful" information that they have to offer. I will be filling out the necessary paperwork to get the tax-id's that will be needed to deal with the financial end of the shop. I want to do things right, so I need to find out the tax information for my state yet as it is necessary to collect the state tax for those who order from within my own home state. 


Even now I am finding it difficult to stay still long enough to finish this article. *sigh* I am not sure if it is all the stress that is going on right now or I am just anxious to get things done right and move on to the next phase. I have not given up on the dyeing of thread, I just need to build up an income so that I can purchase my own chemicals and threads without putting a burden on our already stressed household budget. I have a small budget for putting together some items that I can sell. Once I begin to sell some things, I hope to be able to expand what I have to offer. I just want to make sure that I can offer some very unique items that will please. I am also looking at offering some "pockets"  and "pouches"  for tatting accessories down the road. I have fabric already and may see about using some of the stuff mom can no longer use as well. This will depend upon my brothers as we get ready to sell her old place so that we can better take care of her needs.


I have put off getting into my day long enough. I guess that I need to let this entry be even though there are no pictures for you all to see. Hope you have a very good day and that the universe is kind to me when it comes to cleaning house and my tatting ideas.


Happy Tatting
Arial - Tatting Faerie