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.