Tatters and Volcanos

There are several tatting friends who have wonderful blogs that I enjoy very much who live in the area of the Merapi volcano who I hope are doing well and will continue to be safe.

I hope that all people who live near there will be safe and I hope that no more will be injured or killed.

Lattice Tatting

a Quicky post,
on the Here-Be-Tatters yahoo email group, there has been a discussion of Lattice Tatting.

I am posting here 4 scans of Lattice style tatting from Julia E Sanders book Tatting Patterns.
Collar page 16

Detail of Collar pg 17

Doily pg 19

detail of doily pg 18


~~later~~ I got to thinking that while I didn't have the lattice snowflake anymore, there might be another project in my UFO stash. so here is a project that I was working on many a year ago, put aside for some reason and never finished.


Looks like I will have to finish it this winter after I have gotten Christmas items and other sewing projects finished.

There is no pattern for this, if I remember correctly, it was a way to practice mignonette stitch and I liked the look of the Lattice; just something I was working on at the time. I used very tiny joining picots to make the Lattice here, but I have done it with alligator joins. I will have to put a 4th round of some kind on this as I didn't join the outer rings to each other. hhhmmm wonder what I should use....

2 pr christmas trees

Here are both pair of the Christmas Tree Earrings that have been requested by a gal in Texas.

and another bit of news.

I have started an Etsy.com shop so will be posting these there. It may not be a very busy shop, that will depend on what I can get done, but it will not be just tatting. http://www.etsy.com/shop/ladytatslace

I have a lot to learn about taking photos of my items. I have always used the scanner, but tried my camera for the picture above. Some of what I post for sale on etsy,will not be able to be scanned so will be learning how to take good pictures with good presentation.

I have a couple of bookmarks that I tatted over the summer that I have not yet posted so those will come in time. Right now I have them scanned, but I might try taking photos to learn just how to do it right.

If anyone has any suggestions, let me know.

I have a Fujifilm FinePix A330 which is listed at 3.2 mega pixels. I have had it for 4 or maybe 5 yrs or maybe longer. It was one of the first things I bought on ebay. I know it was one of the better ones at the time I bought it.

Jeff's ghost

Jeff Hamilton of Bridge City tatting has designed a ghost he calls Ripley. the pattern is available on his blog

here is my version of Ripley,


one arm ended up straight but that is o.k. and it looks like I scanned it from the backside. I usually tat frontside/backside, in which case if I scanned it from the wrong side, I also tatted it backwards, but it still looks pretty good.

the thread is Aida in size 10? I very seldom use this thread so thought I would try it. I have a ball of red Aida that I do not like, it twists really badly but this one isn't quite as bad.

Thanks Jeff for the ghost pattern

pair of Christmas Trees

here is the first pair of Christmas tree earrings
Size 40 Lisbeth thread in Christmas green with red, silver and gold Delica beads and 1 gunmetal teardrop bead for a trunk.



still working on the 2nd pair

it is snowing and the wind has been blowing 40 - 50 mph all day today. I put the winter "we may be closed due to weather" message on the answering machine at work before I left today. a little early for my taste.

farmerguy did get the final 40 acres corn combined, in the rain yesterday so it was done before all this wind knocked the ears off. that at least is a relief.

first try at wire tatting

I have decided to branch out a bit and tried tatting with wire. I had some copper wire on hand and paired it with some beads and worked up this pair of earrings.

I then splurged and bought some more wire, silver and gold and brass colored as well as some ear wires and jump rings, so will have to see where this takes me.

~later~ I forgot to mention, this is 28gauge wire it is a spool that I picked up in the bead section at I think Hobby Lobby in Fargo ND. but the silver, gold and brass wires are both size 28 & 30 and I ordered them from Firemountaingems

beads on an earring

Yesterday Jane Eborall on her blog posted about beads and sizes.
Today Gina posted on her blog about bead sizes and gave us a nifty scan to show relative bead sizes.
Bree has posted a wonderful tutorial about beads
so I thought I would add a bit to the discussion.
I am working on 2 pair of these earrings. I am using Lisbeth size 40 thread in Christmas Green with delica beads. I can add the delica beads with a size 15 mini crochet hook.


I didn't block this yet, and since this is just the first trial to see if the person who commissioned these liked them, there will be a few corrections to the techniques I used for adding the beads.
I used 3 different techniques to add the beads,
1. the direct method, where you thread the beads when you are winding the shuttle,
2. adding beads to a joining picot between the rings and between rings and the chain below
3. adding beads to a long picot that you then join back to, I used this for the side beads on the 2 top rings.

I am grateful to all those who post instructions for new techniques on the web.

the pattern in one of Jane Eborall's, I don't think it is listed on her pattern website so you will need to contact her for the pattern if you want it.

~later~ I have heard from Jane and it looks like the pattern may be in the public domain.