In Honor

In Honor of the woman who originally taught me to Tat, I am offering a giveaway!
My Nana was an enigma, She was born in aught 2 as she used to say, She passed away in 2000. 98 is a formidable accomplishment in life. Her story truly is long and involved but suffice it to say she lived a very long full life. She buried all of her family, including her son, my father. She survived 2 husbands. Sold Stanley Home Products, as well as being a full time beautitian! She had a shop set up in her basement. Her nickname on the CB was Gadabout. She loved to travel and see new places. She taught me to crochet, knit and Tat. She would not kiss me because I had WHISKERS! She also gave me her recipe to make her Date Nut pinwheel cookies. What is funny is this, I am the only one she taught these things. She always just "DID" for others, I was the only one who asked to learn them.
So here is the Game~ Guess the Gadabout's Birthday!!! The person who guesses her birthday or guesses closest to her actual birthday will get the white snowflake with the silver beads that is the main blog picture for this blog. I got such wonderful responses from you all I want to return something to you. So, I will take guesses until Yule! December 21, 2008. I will determine who is closest on that day and will send out the prize on Monday the 22nd of December. So send your submissions to my email, inkydaffin AT gmail.com with the subject of "Gadabout". I will notify the winner via email and as a comment to this blog entry to let everyone know who won.
I want to thank Everyone who has posted comments to my posts. You ALL have been wonderful and for that I am truly thankful. In the event that two guess the same date and either hit the date exactly, or hit the closest date exactly I will JUST have to tat a second one to send out. I hope that will be acceptable as far as a tie resolution.

Mike.

Come on up to the Lab and Ill show you my favorite obscession.

Forgive me the RHPS reference, but I watched it with a friend this week and I just have it on the brain just like the newest iteration of the last snowflake I posted. I wanted to give a new friend something a little different, I offered her a snowflake and then decided to send her Two instead. I did not want to send her exactly the same one as before, because well after all, NO SNOWFLAKE is exactly the same as any other. Going on that theory I figured I would change the snowflake a little to see what I got. I decided to use Half double sitiches for the long legs of the flake points. I did the Second half of the DS first on the way out to the point and did the First half of the DS on the way back to the center. I figured this would give the resulting spirals a symmetry to them. Now that I have had a chance to look at this enhancement to the original pattern I Love it even more than the first one that I did. I still get the swirl effect but now it is even MORE pronounced. Also since this alteration works, I guess doing the hds in the same direction for the whole length of the bar to the point and back could also make for a nice effect. I guess what I am saying is this, "It is excellent to follow a pattern, You will always get the expected result. Adding your own flair to the design will make it uniquely yours and could end up pleasing you more than accomplishing the pattern did the first time!" Tatting is such a relaxing passtime for me that I look for ways to make it more fun! I hope you like this flake as much as I did making it. M.

Size does matter

I was speaking with my friend Sandra recently and she said, I am doing snowflakes in sz 10 as they go together quickly and you get a huge snowflake. I got a request for a burgandy flake so I decided to pull out some thread in 10. Here is the result. I pulled one of the rings too tight but Ill correct that on the next one. I loaded enough thread to do 2 of them. point to point this flake is 5" across she is OH so Right! in so many ways. Thanks Sandra!

Playing in the snowflakes.

I found a pattern I liked some and decided to work on it and make it more my own. Here is what I ended up with I really like how the tips of the snowflake are tipped and I get the curve just right. I like how it swirls. I have been counseled about posting things and not posting my pattern with it so I am going to include probably more information than yall ever wanted to know but here goes.

Here is one version of the written pattern I will include 2 for the sake of just being redundant. Muahahah! 
*R 2ds 5p sep X 2ds 10ds cl rw
ch 3ds 6p sep X 2ds J last picot of ring continue 13ds rw
R 2ds 7p sep X 2ds cl rw
15ds j last picot of last ch rw.
Repeat from * 5 times
and:  

* R: 2---2---2---2---2---10 cl rw
CH: 3---2---2---2---2---2---2 j(p on r) 13 rw
R: 2---2---2---2---2---2---2---2 cl rw
CH: 15 j(p on ch) rw * 5 x

And here is a visual pattern as well.

I do not know how, I do not know when, I do not even know why, but I found these tonight when I was out picking up last minute things to make holiday fixings and I am GOING to use them somehow some way in my tatting!!! these are just TOO cool!!!

Working with large pearls while tatting.

As all of you know adding large beads to work can be tedious. I am doing a collar where I am adding 6mm pearls and I was trying to get it on my regular little shuttles. Talk about tedious!!! Still I was trying to work with it but I had just too many pearls for the work I had to do to get safely or securely on the shuttle I was using. Then, I remembered! My friend Sandra sent me some really interesting shuttles from Russia!! I pulled out the middle one, green, and loaded the pearls on it. Talk about AMAZING!! the shuttle is not really any larger than the shuttle I was using but is much much taller! So I loaded my pearls and started tatting. Here is the current result. I am Such a happy TATTER right now!!!

Christmas just would not be the same without...

Ornaments! So I have been working on tatting around christmas ball ornaments. I have been experimenting with different styles of beads on the balls and I like how thats going but adding the beads where I do I have found that it makes the tatting that much more difficult to manage and work with. Still here is a selection of the balls that are done. :D