Friday, August 14, 2009

back on track

First up tonight is a pretty little shuttle I received in the mail today. It is from Noreen Crone-Findlay. The same gal who interview Sherry Pence - ladyshuttlemaker. She makes several different style of shuttles.
This little hedgehog shuttle is only 1.5" long. just what I was looking for.

While I was making the Daisy Picot Stars for my daughter's wedding, I was doing a lot of finger tatting with a long strand of thread. It was a bit tiring, so did some thinking and realized that I needed a small shuttle to use just for finger tatting. It didn't need to hold a lot of thread, but be easy to wind, and handle.

So I went looking for the right size shuttle. I talked to Noreen and she was very pleasant to work with and the upshot is this very smart good looking tiny shuttle. It came in the mail today, and as soon as I got home from work, I wound some of the thread on it that was left on another shuttle and tatted a flower using the daisy picot method. The shuttle worked great! Thanks Noreen. It made it so much easier to finger tat the flower. I do a fair amount of SCMR Butterflies as well, and this will work very well for them too.

The color changes on the picots really worked out nicely, although I hadn't originally planned them. They occurred because I alternated between direct tatting the daisy picots and flip tatting them. Something that I discovered while tatting the Daisy Picot Stars. I will post this on my patterns blog.

Now I will show you the doily I meant to the other day. Here is the Beatrice doily by Iris Niebach. I have been wanting to tat some of her work and this turned out to be a good time as any. I volunteered to tat an item for a charity auction for Heather of Tarnished Tatter fame. She had a friend who is dealing with breast cancer and wanted to help raise money.
The thread that I am using is Melamine in size 30 by Heather. She has some interesting colorways available in her etsy shop.



The box in this scan below shows how much of the doily I had to retro-tat but once that was finished and the stitches redone, I was off and running last night. only 2 & a half repeats to go.
Gotta get some supper quick then off to watch the Vikings play while tatting on this doily.






6 comments:

  1. Cute Shuttle.

    I like how your doily is coming along. I'm looking forward to seeing the finished piece

    ReplyDelete
  2. I love Noreen's shuttles for the same reason! Your Beatrice looks lovely. It's my favorite Iris Niebach doily... I've lost count of how many I've made! I've done lots of retro tatting on Iris's doilies also, until I got smart and photocopied the pattern, one time for each repeat. I scribble out the ring or chain as soon as I've finished tatting it... end result... I do very little retro-tatting on Iris's doilies any more!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi Bonnie, I am looking forward to the finished piece as well, not because it is difficult, but to be sure I have enough thread.

    Hi Diane, this is the first shuttle of Noreen's that I have. I like her workmanship. The idea of the photocopies is one i will have to ponder on. It may be that is what I need. although it is more likly that I just need to pay closer attention. Thanks

    ReplyDelete
  4. The doily you are working on is nice. It looks like one of Iris Niebach's designs...did you mention that??...or did I miss something? I Am skimming through blog posts since I have about 400+ to catch up on...LOL!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Ahhhhh I've yet to begin the Beatrice; although, I really want do do that as my first doily.
    It will have to wait until after my husband's heart valve replacement as I'm SURE I won't be able to concentrate enough on that pattern at the moment. But I did finish the hatband; gave up on the monkey due to not being able to concentrate on much else but DH at the moment. Am managing to slog through the desigh-tat lessons.
    I like the colors you have chosen.
    hugs, Bev
    I have 2 of the hand-carved shuttles but I don't tat with them; a bit too primitive but nice for my collection.
    hugs, Bev

    ReplyDelete
  6. HI Chiclet, yes it is one of Iris Niebach's. It is the Beatrice pattern and it does say that in the post but I understand about scanning, I have been wanting to add a couple to my list, but then thinking I need to remove a few, I need time to tat not just read about it, but oh, I don't want to miss what everyone else is doing.

    Hi Bev, best wishes for your DH and his surgery. Thanks for the kind words. it is not a hard pattern, just that you go in and out instead of round and round, so you do have to pay a bit of attention. Can't just get a rhythm going for a whole round before you need to start something differnt.

    ReplyDelete

I appreciate comments, Thank you for leaving one.