Hello, been a long time.

I really hate excuses for why something has not been getting done. So I have none. There are personal reason as to why I have not been posting of late but you really don't want to hear me rant. I believe you would rather listen to my my woes.

I recently tatted a test piece from fellow tatter "Elaine Phyllis Gan" and turned into a necklace as in the picture below. This was an update to a vintage piece for collar and cuffs.

I also have been working on a little bigger project for my grand daughters in Japan. I am doing lace borders to attach to curtain panels. I will post pictures of that project when I am closer to being done before it gets sent off.

This post is not so long on words but longer in pictures. I do apologize for not posting but you see, I suffer from Hypothyroidism. It does not sound all that bad but it effects nearly 60 million people who many go undiagnosed for years. It is just one step short of full blown diabetes. Doctors know how to deal with the latter but not the former. I have days when I just hurt so bad I don't want to get out of bed. I have days when I am anxious when confronted with things that are unfamiliar to me. There are days when I just want to run and hide because I am so depressed about nothing and everything. Don't even get me started about mood swings, let's just say my husband is a dear man to put with me. I don't work any more though I would love to earn a little money to support my habit (crafting). My doctor was reluctant to even diagnose me until I begged for a full thyroid panel after noticing I was gaining 5 pounds a week and barely eating anything. He put me on one level of thyroid hormone and expects that to fully treat my problem. (This is the standard treatment for any thyroid problem it seems.) I am currently looking around for a doctor willing to work with me to get me feeling more what "normal" should feel like rather than what "normal" I am experiencing these days.

In spite of all this, I wish for you the happiest of tatting days. I hope to be able to write another article again soon.

Happy Tatting

Arial - the Tattered Faerie

Fair Wins!

Today turned into a lovely day to go to the fair. Our state fair has the reputation of the fair being either too hot or too wet this time of year. But for this year we have had wonderful weather for the fair. Today's temperature was just right for being out and about. I will take this wonderful weather over the weather we had all last week of nothing but rain and high humidity.

I promised pictures of my fair entries with ribbons. I will tell you right now that one of the pictures does not do the entry justice.

So we will start with the White Ribbon winner:

This is a picture using natural leaves in the background but tatted violets and pansies from one of my books. Also there is a tiny butterfly in the upper portion. I will have to look up the specific book or hopefully I will be able to find it soon. :( You may or may not be able to see that the ribbon states that it is a third place ribbon.

Moving on to the next pieces:

These are the same Christmas ornaments that I posted HERE around Christmas time. If you would like to see them closer, then please follow that link.The ribbon here is the Blue Ribbon for a first place ribbon for these items.

And the final piece:

This doily is one that I have done in two or three different sizes. The size of this particular one is about 9 inches in diameter. This particular piece has both the Blue First Place ribbon and the Purple Ribbon which stands for Best of Division. I will try to look up the specific pattern for this doily and try to post a much better picture once I get them back home.

This is all that I have for now. I am very tired from my adventures today.

Happy Tatting

Arial - The Tattered Faerie

Vacation and waiting....

Well, I am getting ready this week to go on a vacation in south Missouri. I am not only packing up my kitchen necessities but also my camera and tatting shuttles. I have a lot of my tatting patterns on my tablet now which cuts down on the number of books I need to take with me. Too bad I don't have access to all of them yet, but I am working on it.

I have come to the realization that I have some how misplaced two of my books. I was going to take them with me to work on some new techniques but I can't find them anywhere right now. The first one is "Tatting: Artistry in Thread" by Helma Siepmann. The second is very much like it is "Tatting Collage" by Lindsay Rogers. I was planning on working on some pieces to learn better how to create images. If I could improve my designing, next year I might just be able to enter some items into the card class at the fair. I have also decided that this is the year I will begin to work on jewelry and working with beads trying to find a better balance between the beads and tatting so that you know the piece is tatted yet the beads are a stunning addition to the piece instead of taking it over. Don't get me wrong, I like the designs that others have come up with but to me you end up losing the idea of tatting amid all of the beads. There has got to be a balance between the lace and the addition of the bead.

I will post about my fair entries just as soon as I hear anything new. The fair starts August 8th in Missouri. Judging should be done this coming Monday just before the fair. Not sure if my friend will call me with the news or not but I will find out for sure Tuesday, August 13 when I get to go see my entries. I will also get to take pictures of my entries to post for you all to see.

Happy tatting

Arial - the Tattered Faerie

State Fair Entries

I have exciting news! I am exhibiting in three classes this year at the Missouri State Fair this August. I got my entry tags so to attach to the pieces that I am submitting. I will not be around for the drop-off time as we will be on vacation that day. My good friend Nancy Richmond has offered to drop them off for me. This is just so exciting. I am not one to push my own work but she and the other ladies at the Sedalia tatting group encouraged me to enter items into the fair. I thought I would start out this year with simple items and just see how they do. If I do well, I will create some special stuff for next year.

Summer projects are winding down and fall will soon be here. Next weekend begins our summer vacation. My daughter will be returning to college after that is over for her first of two senior years. Since she is a double major, it will take her an extra year to finish up her school work. She has done exceptionally well in school over the years and I am so proud of her.

This will be a short post today. I have to plan out just what I can take with me to work on while on vacation. I like having my patterns in electronic format because I can take my books with me for inspiration. But I will also be taking my camera so that I can practice taking good pictures. That way I will have much better pictures when I take them in the future!

Happy tatting

Arial - the Tattered Faerie

What can I say?

I am not going to apologize here for not posting. If you are like I am, you hate the excuses that some people use for not posting in a long time. Well, what can I say? I have not posted because I am out living life. Yes, all the messy sloppy things that come with life and often get in the way of our good intentions to attempt to post something everyday. I am not sure just how productive my summer has been tatting wise. I did get my very large project done. The only thing not done on that project is still adding the ribbon. I will most likely not post another picture on that project until September once we have had our gathering.

I am still debating on entering the state fair. I was promised help with the entry form but as usual life got in the way. She has since opened up a shop which, right now, is taking all of her time. I don't blame her for the lack of help, she is after all trying to get it up and off the ground. I had to go in a couple of time and help out with some network set up so that the stations could actually talk to each other. I am just not sure which of my pieces I should enter and what categories  They are just so confusing to me and I am not one to blow my own horn about my work. (That is what makes this blog so hard to do sometimes, I feel like I am bragging.)

The picture below is of the components for a corsage  I am making for the meeting. The large components are "carnations" from the recent flower pattern that was posted on the internet. The smaller components are small flowers that will have a bead for the center. Now I just have to put everything together.

Maybe I will post again before fall, maybe not. Just know that I am out living life until the weather turns cold again. I wish that you also are living life with friends and family.

Happy Tatting

Arial - The Tattered Faerie

Summertime Brings Hats. . .

I was wandering through some of my pictures today. I found several of my hatband pictures that I had done over the last few years. The white band was the very first one that I had done. It came from the Mary Konior's Visual Tatting Patterns "Black Magic" pattern.  I had worn it several places shortly after I made it. Almost got the hat grabbed off my head a couple of times. I had one waiter actually comment that he would have liked to have one as well.

The next two motifs were from a couple of my Japanese pattern books. The first one has now been moved to my newest white fedora which is actually formed from eyelet lace fabric. I will have to get a picture of this one sometime. 

The next one still resides on my straw fedora and I really like the way the black sets off the straw color. I have received more compliments on this hat or any one of the hatbands when I wear them.

The last hat band I did from a narrow band pattern but it seems to really get lost on the hat. I will have to explore with some other patterns to see if I can add something to it to make it stand out. 

I put up a recent picture of the straw hat with the third band and a purple carnation that is tatted as well. I am currently working on a black one for now to see if that would look better. Something about mixing color with the black on the hat seems not to set well. I may do a second or third one as well just to see how they look in a group. I may also order some colored threads to create some colored hatbands this summer. I may also try to find another white hat to dye just to have another color hat besides tan, black and white.

Happy tatting

Arial - The Tattered Faerie

Busy days!

I have been too long away from my blogging. I do have some pictures to share with you all. I believe that the last time I wrote I shared that I was working on a special project for our annual fall ladies gathering at church. As of today I am up to 76  motifs. The jar that I started keeping them in is now half way full of these motifs. I plan on getting them all done and then attaching ribbon to each to form a bookmark.

I took a break at 50 motifs and tatted a cross using the modified pattern from Mary Konior's Visual Tatting Patterns "Black Magic". You can find the modified pattern HERE.

I also tried out a pattern called "Thank You Carnation" by Tammy Rogers that can be found HERE.  I have temporarily attached it to my straw fedora until I can put together the pin backing for this item.

We also have a new member of the family at our house as of a couple of weeks ago. She is called "Baby Girl" for now and is settling in nicely to our home. The first couple of days she spent in hiding because that was what she was used to in my son's home. Seems she really didn't like the little ones so spent much of her day in hiding and then coming out at night. She is finally out during the day and up in our laps when we sit down. She is a tabby / calico mix  because of the markings that are tabby and several color spots like a calico. She loves to climb on things and is now very loving and affectionate. I do find that if anyone else is around she tends to avoid my lap in favor of someone else.

We have spent the last few months travelling on the weekends to visit my son & his family in Nebraska. Celebrated birhdays and holidays. I have gone to local meetings with other groups, one in Sedalia that meets every Monday and one in Versilles which meets once a month. I only go once a month to Sedalia because it is over an hours travel from my home. I am looking forward to a visit from my other son & his family as they have been stationed in Japan since August. I have a grand daughter who I am anxious to meet for the first time since she was born last September.

I had almost forgotten how much trouble this blog can be. I can create the content on my tablet but I have to go onto the computer itself in order to set up the layout. The blog app will load the necessary pictures but they seem to be added to the end instead of where I want them to appear.  So I end this blog knowing that I will just have to re-edit a little later before publishing. (Now that editing is done, it is published. )

Happy tatting

Arial - The Tattered Faerie

TIAS 2013 Days 6 - 9

I seriously owe you guys an update on my project for the TIAS 2013. I managed to get them done but I have been so busy with other things that I just didn't get them posted here.

Day 6

Day 7

Day 8

Day 9

I spent much of my day up in Sedalia with some fellow fiber enthusiasts. I am working on another single shuttle tape lace for another ornament. I found just a few more excellent patterns and hopefully I will end up with a dozen ornaments for my tree next year. Since I have these now, I am also going to work on some new eggs as well for this spring. Not yet sure if I will be dyeing the threads yet but that will be determined when we get to later in the week and my "busy" time goes away.

I will work on getting pictures of the new laces as I get them done. I may seriously think about dyeing threads for a pastel look. I found some really seriously bright colors that may also be good for bright egg patterns. The picture below is the jar that I purchased a couple of weekends ago that had those threads in it.

I also found a very great stash of tatting shuttles in an antique store just not that far from my home yesterday. The big one in the picture below is a "knotting shuttle" used for the bigger threads. I am so happy that I found these and hubby was so great about letting me get them.

Well that is all that I have now. If I could just find some time to relax and play with my threads I would seriously be happy.

Happy Tatting

Arial - The Tattered Faerie

TIAS 2013 Day 5

We are back with another day of TIAS 2013 .  If you follow along with Jane's blog you will see some very creative guesses for what the object will be when we are done tatting.  Here is my latest entry to that group:

Generally I begin working on my blog entries on my  Samsung Galaxy Tab in the blogger app. However, I always have to return to  my computer to add my piture in the right place and even import it into my blog. I did find a way around the picture thing but it still means I have to take extra steps to get this blog fixed up right. It is interesting to note that I will have to go back to working directly with HTML in order to get this to look right on my tablet so I can get it up on my blog as I would like to see it. Gotta love modern technology. It is a really good thing that I am a programmer by training and can deal with this.


Happy Tatting!

Arial - The Tattered Faerie

Continuation of TIAS . . .

Well, I am back from a long weekend in Nebraska. The house was so dry that I ended up with horrible headaches and nose bleeds.

I remembered that I did owe you all a post of my progress on the TIAS 2013 . Jane is now up to Day 4 and the challenges are interesting. The current section lets you use either a "lock join" or a "Catherine Wheel Join" for attaching the chains to the current tatting. I have discovered that I need more practice with my joins as I managed to get most of them except two. Below I am posting days 3 and 4 as my last blog post had days 1 and 2.

So I will be practicing the "Catherine Wheel Join" to help get my skills better prepared for the jewelry I hope to be working on this year.

I am not sure just when I will begin posting any progress on my items but I have plenty of ideas running through my head and I just need to get them down on paper or in thread before I can get things settled in my head. This will also be in conjunction with my doing some new color way patterns.  More on those in a later post.

Happy tatting.

Arial - the Tattered Faerie.

This Year's TIAS 2013

With me wanting to do different things this year, I have decided to  take part in Jane's TIAS 2013 challenge. The link takes you to the introductory page but the links to the documents are found in the left column of her page.

I have also been looking at doing some bead work for the first time this year. I will be looking on "youtube"for the appropriate videoes that will teach me how to do it properly. Not yet sure when I will start loading my shuttles  with beads to do the work but it will be one step at a time.

This has been another busy week and this is the first day that I have actually had time to sit down and play a bit. I joined a seed bead group on facebook that I hope to help me learn bead work much better.  This will be the year when I will take steps to begin working on different types of jewelry to sell. I know that I will not make a fortune with my work but I would like to make enough to just fun the things that I play around with.

For the moment, my containers that have my tatted eggs in them are eluding me. So I will have to spend some time looking for the ones that I have already created so that I can add new ones to them this year. I do plan on dyeing more threads to see if I can get some unique colors going for these projects. As much as I love the thread colors that are available, they sometimes have colors that I don't want mixed in with the color combinations that I do want. I am not sure that I will be able to achieve the pastel colors that I want but that will take some experimentation before I can get the colors I want.

The living room is starting to look much better as I have put away Christmas things and begun to clean up the clutter that is my house. I think that the next place I will work on will be my office since I really need to have a better place to do all the projects that I am planning on playing with in the coming year. Eventually there will be newly painted walls around the house but those will have to wait until it is not so cold outside and I can open the house to paint. It is really bad that we have not done much on the house in the 20 years that we have owned it. Last year we replaced the roof (which had 3 layers of tile in a few places) and redid the chimney so that we could use it this year. It was starting to show signs of toppling towards the top and some of the brick face was beginning to pop off. I feel much better about having the outside work done to fix up the house. This year I will begin by working on the interior to bring it up to date and fixed.

Well, I need to close this out and get on with my day.

Happy Tatting

Arial - the Tattered Faerie

Missed opportunity....

Have you ever had one of those days when you find something that you really want. You try to get it but then something happens and you can't get it. Well, I found a wonderful set of 13 detach-a-spool shuttles on eBay. However, someone is more willing to pay far higher than I for those shuttles. I find them a dream to work with. I hope that the person who wins the bid will treat them with kindness and use them every day. I had great plans for them in my mind with all of the projects that I have planned out for this coming year.

My house is very empty now with the kids in many different directions. My daughter has gone back to school for the semester  My middle son is finally re-united with his family at their first duty stating in Nebraska. The oldest son has been gone since summer to Japan with his wonderful family. So the house contains just me and my hubby now.

Gone is my excuse to put off cleaning up the house because no one is there to interrupt. I am planning on learning some new things this year in tatting. I want to extend my tatting skills by adding beads to my work. There will be beads on the picots first and some sewn on in various locations to begin with. After I am comfortable with that I will slowly begin adding simple beads to the tatted part of my work. I have always been reluctant to load my threads with beads as some seem to do. As beautiful as their work is, the tatting gets lost in all of the bead work done. I want to take the time to make sure that the balance between bead and tatting works for me before I call it done.

So with my physical therapy out of the way until Thursday, here I go jumping into cleaning the house and finding my corner for doing my tatting in again. Oh, I do want to find a warmer corner to do it in for a while. The chair by the front window has become way too cold with the winter chill that is around here right now. I am afraid that if I bundle up I would really lose my stuff in my wrappings. LOL

Well that is all from me for now.

Happy Tatting

Arial - the Tattered Faerie