Lest you think I bin a slackin'

I haven't posted for a bit, but I have been doing some tatting.  I will show you some progress pics as well as a test tat I did for someone. (wow, this turned out to be a long post)

I tested a pattern for a ZigZag Hair Slide by Sue Draney. The pattern will be available on her etsy store in the near future.  What is a Hair Slide you may ask?  it is a doily style tatted motif attached to hair combs to cover up a knot of hair similar to a snood.

This picture was taken before I attached it to the hair combs.  The thread is Lizbeth Vineyard Harvest size 20. The chains in the first 3 rows are lock chains ~ 1st half DS flipped 2nd half DS unflipped ~ which makes for pretty chains when using a varigated thread.  This pattern does require a tie and cut after the 2nd round.  I hate ends, and I know it is a bit arrogant, but I didn't follow the pattern exactly,  I did a lock stitch split chain so I could climb out to the 3rd round.

when you make a normal split chain, you leave a bit less then the length of the chain as it tends to stretch just a bit.  When doing a lock stitch split chain, you leave about 1/3 - 1/2 extra, because instead of simply encapsulating the bare thread, you will have to "pop" the half stitch to transfer it so it becomes a lock chain.

I have been sitting in the car a few times as farmguy did the driving and have been able to get more of my hanky edging tatted.  Here is an update

The thread is Krystle's Wisteria Lane in size 40.  I have completed 3 corners, and have 3 repeats left on the 3rd side, and then the 4th corner and another 13 repeats for the 4th side.  I will then have to attach it to the hanky.  The pattern is Mary Konior's Beauty Spot from Tatting with Visual Patterns.

Last month on my trip to Manitowoc WI, I started Linda Davies Star Attraction Doily using Jess's  Peacock and DMC green from my stash both in size 40. Here is the post from the end of my trip with the progress on the doily at that point.
This is as far as I have gotten now,  round 5 is finished.  The ends are still there, because I never trim them until the item is complete and has been dampened and dried at least once.

Going good so far.  I have broken a tatter's cardinal rule for joins with this doily.  I started out doing the normal up and down joins depending on if I was on the front or back side.  I tat fs/bs automatically.  but was not happy with the little color blip.  I know that several people have posted various ways to avoid the dreaded color blip, Jane Eborall's Blipless join and Lily Morales Larks Head Picot Join are just 2 but I have found the LHPJ method that Krystle has devised very easy and have switched to doing that style of join.  So if you enlarge the pic you will notice color blips for the first 3.5 rounds, after that I used Krystle's version to avoid the color blip. 

Can you stand more?

I have one more pic to post about.

Georgia Sietz has been asking for help with tatting for the Scholarship quilts for the Palmetto Tatter's Tat Days convention. Isdihara over at Ambitaterous has posted links to pattern and requests for tatting.  So I have started tatting a long row of Josephine Rings.  I have used up about 1/2 of a Aero Bobbin of size 40 Olympus in deep green and will finish the bobbin before sending it,  may get another bobbin done as well, as there is other tatting I want to do. We will see. 

 

and one more thing,  

I live not too far from Fargo, North Dakota, the daily newspaper there, The Forum, hosts an online community of bloggers from all walks of life.  They feature various blogs in the paper and online every now and then.  They put out a call for crafty people to blog about their art.  I contacted the person in charge to see what they were looking for as it occured to me it might be a good way to get more people introduced to tatting.  Their blogs are hosted on WordPress.  I would not want to run 2 blogs, and I was told that I would be able to migrate my past content from here on blogger.  It would mean an address change for my blog.  I would also have to learn a new format.  

I would appreciate any advice you can give if I should or should not pursue moving my blog. 

Any pros or cons to WordPress would be welcome. 

nearly midnight again, and I need to get to bed.  

See you all tomorrow.