Finished Tatting and some more Catch up

I have some tatting to show that I just finished.  Last night in fact.

This is Jane MacTats edging turned into a Cross by Grace Tan.  Jane details the pattern on her blog.
The link to the pattern is on the right side of her blog.

The colors are Yellow and light Blue, the colors worn by the sports teams at a high school near here.  The organist for our Church is graduating this Sunday.  She attends this school.

The threads are Flora Size 20

I want to show you a neat item that I ran across a couple weeks ago.

 This is a collapsible light box.  It comes with 4 backgrounds, white, black, red and navy.  This one only has a front opening, but you can get them with both a front and a top opening. 

Here I have attached the removable front.  The slit is so you can insert your camera I think.

Here it is folded flat

Here twisted into a small circle

And finally in it's little pouch with the backgrounds.
I purchased mine from here http://www.obnphoto.com/light_tents.html  I got the 17" one.


Now for some Catch up

I promised to post the contents of the little tin boxes that I included in my PIF give away a few weeks ago.  The tins have all been received by their winners and so I can now show you what I had put in them.

Inside the tin was a new Aerlit Shuttle with extra bobbin, some doodads, 4 brass earring findings, but they have no way to attached earrings to them but they work really great as picot bead holders, or stitch markers. And 2 unused balls of antique size 70 or 80 Tatting Thread.  All the balls were brands that are no longer being made.  Also the earrings that I made.  I hope the recipients were pleased when they opened their boxes.

A friend lost a family member and I wanted to make something in rememberance.

 

These are the pieces that I made  And put together they are an Angel

 The thread is Lizbeth size 40 with a silver blending filament.  The halo is made from just the blending filament. The head is crocheted using the same white thread and a pattern I found online for an amigurami ball.  I had to take my glasses off to see what I was doing, but I think it turned quite well.

This is the back view.  The wings are made using the Hope Butterfly pattern from Lady Shuttle Maker.  You will find the pattern on the right side of her blog, way down toward the bottom of the page, along with other patterns she has for free.

Well, this is long enough.  I think I might be caught up on the tatting I can show.  I am still working on 3 projects.  2 I can't show you until they are finished.  The other one I can show progress, maybe this weekend. We will see.  Just realized that I am not caught up.  I have a dragon or 2 to show. 

angel but no wings yet

I have been tatting. several of my projects are private and can't be shown, but this can.

it may look like a heart and a bell, but this time it is an angel wings and skirt.
the threads are size 20 Lizbeth, in dark olive and Carousel.  The beads are 2 sizes of seed beads, 10/0 in the wings and I think 11/0 in the skirt.  The beads in the skirt were a free gift from Fire Mountain beads and didn't have any information.  and I also used tear drop beads.  I have no idea of what color these beads are called, they are multi colored iridescent.

The skirt stands up just fine see...

but, the wings aren't going to work.  there are too many beads, I will need to use the smaller size seed beads, and less tear drops.  and I think I will have to snug up the center of the heart or add some more connecting picots to give it some more stability.
the heart pattern is Small Tatted Heart by Betsy Evans. 

I was lucky to have the little face bead in my stash.  it has a large hole through it from top to bottom, so will have to come up with a wig to cover that. 

here is a look at what it would look like if the wings worked

we have had 2 major snow storms in the past 4-5 days.  Saturday night through Sunday morning, we got 9" of snow with only a little bit of wind.  Tuesday night through Wednesday (today) afternoon, we got another 9". this more then doubles the entire amount of snow that we had received in the whole rest of the winter. 
I wasn't able to get out of our yard today, so didn't get to work.  Farmguy will have to get the yard blown out tomorrow morning so I can get there. At least it is the end of February, so spring will be here soon enough.

Hope you all had a great Leap Day.

goodness gracious

I didn't realize that it had been so long since I posted any tatting.

I have been tatting, but didn't want to post some things before they had been received by the person I was giving it too.

So,  while I don't have pictures of all that I have done,  here is some of my tatting.

I test tatted Fox's Abigail motif,  she did a great job on the designing.  this is unblocked, and it lays very nicely.  she also did a very nice job on her written pattern.  there were only a couple minor spots where a join symbol was missing.  I believe that she has a diagram available for this now. 

I made these for a friend of mine with a birthday in December.  The threads were some I had laying around, so no labels.
unfortunately, I have lost my notes, so am not sure of the patterns,  the angel is one of Martha Ess'.

 Here is a project that I have been working on fort quite a while.  I started it late last summer.  This is the front of a reticule.  I is tatted in size 10 White Lizbeth with both pink and green blending filaments added.













Here is the back of this reticule.
I have the joining round and the beading round at the top. and I think I am going to use my Lucet to make the drawstring.    I am finally seeing the end of the tunnel with this,  it has taken me much longer then I thought it would.

The pattern is from Old Time Crochet magazine August 1992.







here is the definition of reticule from Dictionary.com

ret·i·cule

[ret-i-kyool] Show IPA

–noun

1.

a small purse or bag, originally of network but later of silk, rayon, etc.

This is Day 1 & 2 of Jane's TIAS.   If you don't know what  a TIAS is, it stands for .....
Tat
It
And
See
Jane releases only a small part of the pattern every day or so, and doesn't tell us what the final result will look like,  you are "tatting blind".
you can join at any time, and catch up as you go or just to see our progress go to the  TIAS blog

Here is day3

and Here is Day 4.  I have no guesses, I will have to wait and see what the next steps are.  I have participated before, and sometimes have been able to figure it out early on, but not yet this time.








Well, it is time to head for church, so will post this now.

angels motifs 8 & 9

I needed an angel for a gift tomorrow, so sat down tonight and tatted these angels. The pattern is one of Nancy Tracy's from http://www.be-stitched.com/
The first is a rayon thread. I do not have the tag any more, so have no idea the name of the thread or the size but do know that I picked it up at Nordic Needle in Fargo ND. they are on the web so check them out.
The second one is an HDT in size 10 that I bought on ebay from klmattox it is a nice color way.

I had some trouble with the double picots for the wings on the angels. the rayon wanted to twist so after finishing it, I wet it down and pinned it out. it is still a bit wet, so will go back on the styrofoam board to finish blocking. I think that I will need to wet the cotton one too and pin it out. the wings want to twist on that one as well, but I let the shuttle dangle and straighten out the twist in the thread a bit before making the picot so they are straighter.

This is a nice quick pattern. The rayon one took me about 40 minutes and the cotton one about 35, so it works up quick. The only technique that might not be familiar to beginners would be the double picots, but Nancy explains a bit about how to do them in the pattern and for further information you can look up Mark Meyers site or do a google search for double picots and find some good information, or simply ask the Here-Be-tatters email group for help.


Here is some of the HDT that I bought this past week. The first scan is of thread from Marilee Rockley, Yarnplayer arts, you can find her on Etsy. Thread #1 is called Vibrato it is size 10. #2 is called Summer Trail, it is a Pearl cotton size 10/2. #3 is called Nectarine and is a Linen 30/2. #4 is called Lavender and is a size 80

The second scan is of thread from Linda Mattox, klmattox on ebay. these are center pull balls of size 10 crochet thread. The blue color way is the thread that I used for the angel above.

Happy tatting
Ladytats