Hat Band Progress & Spring . . .

I promised a picture or two of the Wisteria off my back deck so here is my portion of spring. I was finally able to get a couple of pictures  because it stopped raining.

and a close up of the cluster:

I really love the smell of this plant in the spring when it is in full bloom and covers most of the back yard.

I have some progress photos for you on the first hat band. This is taken from a Japanese pattern book called "Tatting" by Yusai Shokoin. He is an amazing Tatting artist and his patterns are fun to do. I just have not gotten brave enough to do the bead work on some of his pieces.

This is the look of the band on the straw hat that I have:

As you can see it is still in process but I am able to work it up quickly. Below is a close up of the medallions that I am using for this piece.

Well that is all I have for today. I will be busy trying to get this finished today and set up the next band before I post again. The weekend will be busy with my grandson's first birthday party but I should be able to find some time to tat and with 8 good band patterns picked out I have projects enough to keep me busy even on International Tatting Day on Sunday.


Happy Tatting
Arial - Tatting Faerie

Crazy Days . . .

This spring has been unusually warm but it has brought out the beautiful flowers around my house. The daffodils have bloomed and gone well be fore Easter this year. The wisteria vine is now in full bloom in the back yard. This is so beautiful and smells so good when you walk outside. We turned on the air conditioner for the first time this year to try and remove some humidity from the air. However, we found that all of the sudden the AC was no longer working. Come to find out that there were NO leaks in the system. We believe that maybe some houghers got to the valves and drained the Freon from our system. Now we are on the lookout for some locks to place on the valves to prevent this from happening in the future. 


Enough of that nonsense, now on to the tatting content. :D


I have come up with a solution as to what is unique that I can sell on etsy. I was watching GMA yesterday when I saw the segment on The Golden Hat Foundation where celebrities were passing around this hat and taking their pictures in it. Granted the site deals with autistic kids but this actually brought to mind the hat pictured below: 

The band design in this photo is the Black Magic tape done by Mary Konior in her book "Tatting with Visual Patterns." Below is a close up of the pattern:

So I have gone through my pattern books and have several new medallions picked out to build new bands on. I also have a few tapes picked out including the one shown above. The twist on this is that I will be doing the tapes in black to start off with in order to go with a straw colored hat that I have. This should be a really fun project for me to work on. 

I may try to get a picture of my wisteria and post a picture for you all tomorrow.

Happy tatting

Arial - Tatting Faerie

Finally....

I have some time to spend working on the pictures I promised last week. For a week coming back from a vacation, I was busier at home than anywhere else. I am glad to finally have a few moments to actually do things that need to be done around my house.

This is the first set of Workbasket Magazines that I came across. These are from the 1960's and not ones I already had in my collection. The tablecloth on the cover of the first magazine is a tatted item that I may modify to create either a table runner or some curtain inserts from. 

This is the second set of Workbasket Magazines that I found the second day of antiquing. These are from 1948 and 1949. I did not have anything earlier than 1950 in my collection and am happy to include these to what I have. Each magazine has at least one tatted pattern and some have two.

This particular shuttle is one of the older plastic shuttles that were made in the 1940's or there about. This one had both ends sprung, so I will have to give it some tender loving care to get the points back  together. 

This is one of the new egg casings that I am working on. It is an adaptation of an edging that I had previously discussed HERE. I may have to go back and redo the main ring around the egg as there should have been one less loop and chain to make the count work out for a total of four sections evenly spaced around this part of the egg. There is nothing as yet on the other end. I may just leave it open instead of putting a medallion on that end. 

The edging in this piece I am working on is not very clear in this picture. I took the idea minus the beads from "Contemporary Tatting". It was originally part of a tatted choker called Gemma.  This one is still a work in progress. Once I finish the edging then I will need to decide what I should do for the open sides. This would be good for butterflies and flowers done free style. 


For all the eggs, I still need to decided the background colors that will set off the tatting. These are paper mache' eggs with no painting on them currently. I am still deciding whether or not to use gloss or satin finish as well as colors.


Well that is enough for today. I still have a few other things to catch up on around the house before settling in to do more tatting.


Happy Tatting
Arial - Tatting Faerie

No Time this week.....

With my middle child moving apartments this week, I have not had much time to myself. I am babysitting the grandson who is currently asleep on the living room floor. Poor fella, knows something is going on and just sat an cried for much of the morning before he finally passed out in my arms. He will be turning one in just a week or so.  I know last week I promised pictures but that will have to wait until tomorrow. 


This is a very short post but will have to do for now.


Happy tatting
Arial - Tatting Faerie

Nearing the end.....

Well not the end of life but the end of spring break. Next week it will be back to classes for hubby and housework for me. I have many ideas for things to create in the coming weeks. I just hope I can retain some of them long enough to get them down on paper. I will have to play with diagrams on my tablet later to see what I can do with it. Hubby finally broke down and bought a stylus for me because it makes working with the tablet much easier. I now need to break down and find an app that will let me paint out designs.


I really enjoy my spring break adventures. This is the time that usually includes both my birthday and our anniversary, so we are looking at unique things to do. I always love going to find the different antique shops that can be found in the area we visit. It is a fun scavenger hunt to see just what items that will turn up in the places that I visit.


Tomorrow we will travel back home to see what last night's storms brought to our house. One of my sons is now going to check on the house and my little white Mustang to make sure that everything is okay. Seems that there was hail back home just under the size of a ping pong ball. 


Well, we are now packing up and planning on what we will do for our last night here. 


Happy tatting
Arial - Tatting Faerie

Nice finds and other stuff....

I promise when I get back that there will be pictures for you guys to see. I have been having fun going through my favorite antique shops here in Branson and finding the unusual and long looked over items. I now have a total of 15 new to me "Workbasket Magazines" and an ivory colored shuttle. Yes, I did go back and adopt the lonely little shuttle. I will have to work on the ends as they are "sprung" and need just a little tlc to get them back together. 


Today is my birthday and I have been told that I can purchase anything I would like to get. (Ladies, you know that can be a dangerous gift from your man.) Not yet sure just what I will be getting today but it will be something interesting. Then there is dinner out at where ever I want to eat tonight. So many good restaurants and so hard a choice of what I want to do today. 


I did manage to do some more work on my egg cover yesterday. I have one half complete but not sure just what I will do with the other half. Before I close the casing I will need to coat the paper mache' with that high gloss finish that will make that the tatting stand out. I am also going to play a bit with some of the medallions that are in the magazines to see what I can come up with.


Happy tatting.
Arial - Tatting Faerie

Yesterday's Adventure

Yesterday we got out a bit to explore just what shops are still open and active here in Branson. I found with sadness that one of my favorite antique shops was totally demolished in the tornado. However, we drove downtown and those shops were doing full business yesterday if not more because others were gone. I managed to purchase about 4 "workbasket" issues that I did not have in my collection. I am debating about going back to adopt an older shuttle that I saw in the shop where I got the magazines. The other thing I picked up was three balls of DMC size 30 so I can work on some special items to sell.


Last night we went to a Mystery dinner. It is titled "Mystery is Murder." This is the second time I have gone to a Mystery dinner theater and we loved it. If you get the chance to attend one of these, do! You will have so much fun trying to guess who did it. 


Today will be a quieter day and maybe I will get some tatting done. I want to finish up the egg case I am working on and create some necklaces or bracelets for sale soon. I am continuing on the roses that I began this blog with as I will need some approximately 100 tea roses by this fall. The current count is just short of two dozen and I have three colors so far. I am not posting pictures this week as I am not at my normal computer or area for good lighting. I hope to post pictures when I get back of the tatting I have gotten done this week. 


Well it is off to work on breakfast and get ready for the day. I know we will be out doing more shopping (my second favorite past time), but I plan on tatting today.


Happy tatting
Arial - Tatting Faerie

Greetings from Branson....

Hubby and I are on spring break vacation this week. He just finished giving mid-term tests and his school is now on spring break. 


You may have heard about some recent tornadoes that hit this area just two short weeks ago. We were concerned that we would not be able to come down as planned. Nice thing is that most everything is okay here and the roads are open to traffic. Driving the "world's longest parking lot" known as Highway 76 you see the damage that was done to some of the landmarks along this road. You also notice the total randomness of the devastation that hit this area. According to the mayor, only 5 restaurants were hit, about the same number of shows were also damaged. Some buildings are missing only glass windows while others are totally gone. I grew up in Missouri, spending many summers watching this town grow. There are some landmark buildings that will be missed, while new ones will pop-up in their place. Several of the souvenir shops were demolished because they were mostly glass in construction. So this week we will be going to shows that are open, eating at a few restaurants and shopping both new and antique in content. If you get a chance to come to Branson, do not be afraid to. There are plenty of places to stay and more than enough things to do both in cost and free. 


Today is my rest day so no tatting has been done yet. Sorry that there are no pictures of either the trip or tatting. Right now most of the state is covered in rain so I do not get out my camera unless absolutely necessary.


Happy tatting!
Arial - Tatting Faerie

Miscellaneous Stuff....

Well, I did finally manage to get some tatting done yesterday! Yay, me! I actually made good progress with the pattern that I was working on in my mind. However, there are revisions going along as I tat. Even in size 80 thread, the pattern is much larger on the egg than I hoped. So there will be a revision in what I am planning on doing. Here is the first picture of what I have done so far:

Only thing I don't like about this picture is that the white of the shell shines bright when the flash of the camera goes off. Well, that is what I get for taking pictures in low natural light facing a black background. 


For the next week I will be taking time away from home as we run away for hubby's spring break. This will also be our anniversary week and my birthday. I am not yet sure just what I will choose for my birthday present yet but it will be something very nice. :D  I always enjoy running away from home because it is just hubby and I that are gone that week. This year is the first year that we will not have kids behind at home. All of my kids are out of high school and on their own. The baby of the family (my daughter) will be returning to college this weekend. The only sad part of the weekend is the funeral of my uncle. It was not an unexpected thing as he had been sick for quite a while with lung cancer. He is really better off because his suffering is over now. He was a really amazing man as well as a retired State Highway Patrol Officer. I am glad that I got to know him. 


Enough with the procrastination, I have a lot of packing to do before we leave tomorrow. I hope to be able to post some stuff while I am gone. I understand that the place we are going has free internet.  Not many places do, unfortunately. 


Whatever you do today: do it with purpose, fun and a goal in mind.


Happy tatting!
Arial - Tatting Faerie

Frustrating Days.....

This has been one of those weeks where you might as well plan on not getting anything done. Just when I sit down to do some tatting, I need to go do something else. Granted the other things are important but so not compatible with my tatting time.


This week started off with a very busy weekend with all three of my children home. This will be the last time in who knows how long before we get together again. Since I have Hypothyroidism, my energy levels are never where they need to be when I get this busy. I go to bed so exhausted at night because my metabolism is never where it should be to keep up. The plus side to being diagnosed is that I have stopped the uncontrolled weight gain that I experienced over the years. My husband was complaining that I hardly ever ate much but was still gaining weight. Now if I could just get the metabolism kick back in to lose the weight, I would be much happier. (Sorry about the rant but I am fighting fatigue today.)


My uncle passed away the first part of this week and we will be attending his memorial service coming up this weekend. I will also be taking my daughter back to meet her ride back to college. It is a very good thing that they are in the same town. Next week is our annual "run away" for spring break vacation. Hubby and I will be traveling to a well known town in southern MO to spend a quiet week. This is a good school break for him as he is a college professor and just needs the time away. In an effort to get ready for the next week, I have been working on getting my patterns in electronic format to put on my tablet so I don't have to drag my entire library with me. In all of this I have discovered that there is actually nothing in the android market that will read an "rtf" formatted file. So now I have to convert them to either PDF format or epub. Guess that means that my files will be converted all over again.


I have had an idea of what I wanted to do for my next egg pattern. In the process of converting the books, I ran across a diagram based on an older pattern that I could post here. I am basing my work on the older pattern but this will give you an idea of what I am looking to do.

This pattern shows the split ring modification that is suggested in another website. Because of the thread that I am using, it is easier to tat the complete individual pieces to join and not mess up the color blend. Lots of ends, I know, but I am not planning on any rough treatment of this item once it is on the egg. The rain is coming down outside and that makes me want to go back to bed which does not get anything else done for me. 


Well, that is enough ranting for today. Hope you all get more done than I will today.


Happy tatting!
Arial - Tatting Faerie

Busy Days......

UGH! The last few days have been terrible for tatting. I have not been home long enough to work up even a small design. The weekend was very busy with family so very little gets done when you get that many people together. Not that long ago my family was just five. When my two sons got married we zoomed to a family of eleven. This next year we will be adding two more little bundles which will bring the total to 13. My daughter is still in college, so it will be a couple of years yet before she adds to the family.


Well, the only thing I can show today is the package that I received from Handy Hands over the weekend. 

I have already begun looking at the Apple Spice thread by winding it on shuttles ready to go so that when I finally get some time later today, I can get back to tatting.


Well that is all my free time for now. 


Happy Tatting
Arial - Tatting Faerie

Getting anything done in tatting this weekend might be next to impossible. I have all of my kids at home along with their families. This makes for a very full house and busy schedule. There will not be much done after this morning with my tatting. I hope to work on something small but you know how that goes. 

This is the first round for this egg. I have not yet decided just what background color the egg will be yet but it will be a gloss finish when I get it painted.


The tape was one that I talked about a few posts ago from the Japanese pattern.


Happy tatting,
Arial - Tatting Faerie

I have been browsing....

I have spent the last several days wandering through the etsy site looking at the types of items that are for sale in the tatted category. I have been trying to get an idea of what sorts of things might sale and for how much. Most of the patterns I found available for sale seem to be things that were quickly and easily done. Earrings, necklaces and hair pieces seem to be the most popular items available for sale. I found items with beads were the ones most often done. I am wondering if doing something a little different yet along those lines might just help me stand out from the crowd and help my items sell a bit better. Granted I may do some bookmarks as well but I am leaning towards flowers and coin necklaces. I have been looking through many of my patterns to find just the right pieces to tat up for the shop. Before I can open shop, I will need to have an inventory of items prepared for shipping.  I see a lot of black and ecru jewelry out there for sale. I just wonder how well colors would go over. I believe that next year I will also offer tatted eggs for sale as well. Whenever I have given them away, people have been quite impressed. 

Today my quest begins to find ideas that will help me to stand out from the crowd. It is a very good thing that I have a wide variety of patterns in my library to choose from. For example, I have several Japanese pattern books that will be good starts for the sort of items that I have in mind. Many have small motifs that will adapt themselves well to what I have in mind. 

This tape lace that I found in the book; "Tatting Lace" by Yasashiku was very easy to work up. I believe it would make a good necklace, coin bag or bracelet.

This is tatted with Lizbeth size 20 thread called "Falling Leaves". I played with the tea rose in this thread but it was just a little too big to fit in with the roses I have already done. So this is relegated to larger projects or just playing around learning stitches. I often find myself drawn to anything size 30 or smaller. I don't do well, however, with anything smaller than size 100. 

I am wondering if people would be interested in beaded fobs as well. I have made two or three for use on my small hooks and they help me keep track of the small hooks and fit well into my traveling kits.

This is what I have on my hook but I would consider making others if people are interested in them as well as the tatting. I believe that I will just have to learn to tat with beads in addition to all of these new tatting techniques that I will be working on in the coming weeks.

So it is off to play with different patterns to see what would look the best and might work in a shop. Lots of inspiration but where to start is the question.

Happy tatting

Arial - Tatting Faerie