Sunshine Crafts

Motif 20: Golden snowflake

2012-02-13T19:04:00.000-08:00

This is the second motif in my set of seven tatted blobs. This one is the 'Sahmura' snowflake from Jon Yusoff's Elegant Tatting Gems. This design reminds me very strongly of the traditional Malay accessories my grandmothers had, all swirls and negative spaces.

I wish I had pictures to show, but most of the pieces have been lost in time. Here's a picture from the Malaysian Tourism site, although my grandmothers had simpler more utilitarian stuff.

It makes me wonder if the snowflake could be tatted in fine gold thread, then stiffened, so it could be a brooch. Hmm, time to google for 'gold thread'.

Motif 19: Flower medallion

2012-01-23T19:11:00.000-08:00

In my last post I showed a set of unfinished motifs. Here's the first one. It's a medallion from the flower garden cluster in the 'Tatter's Treasure Chest'. I like the little sprays of leaves. I think it gives the whole a 'vintage' feel.

I used split rings throughout to get from motif to motif. I almost always use split rings to climb out of rounds, but for motifs like this, I'm never sure if they are the right choice. Cut-and-tie results in bulky ends to hide, but split rings also distort the shape of the rings, turning them into footballs instead of ovals. Still, it's a pretty pink. Perhaps the little lady is due for a new dress?

Motif 18: Forever doily

2012-01-08T02:31:00.000-08:00

I had some quite time at the end of last year, so I tatted and tatted. The first thing I have to show for my tatting spree is this doily. I joined a tat-along on the Malaysian Tatters facebook group earlier this year. The pattern was a clover doily by Eileen Stafford. I over-complicated things by adding beads. After many starts and stops, the last double stitch was completed a few days ago.

Somehow, finishing wasn't very satisfying. Finally, I bit the bullet. First, the doily got a good wash (it really needed it after being carried around in my bag for almost a year). Then I stretched it into shape on an old cloth diaper, covered with another diaper and stacked a pile of books on it. Here's the result.

Much more satisfying! I also tatted these...

Here are 7 indistinct blobs of tatting. Inspired by the header of the 25 motif challenge blog, I made a medallion, a snowflake, a heart, a bookmark, a butterfly, a pair of earrings and a small bit of tatting. Looking all those messy ends, I'm starting to question the wisdom of my 'tat first, finish later' approach. Considering how long it takes me to finish, block and photograph things, it might be another year before I finish writing up the posts for all of these.

Motif 17: Potholder dragonfly

2011-12-30T02:26:00.000-08:00

I thought I'd try something different from flowers and butterflies. Unfortunately, inspiration proved elusive so the best I could come with was this little dragonfly. I know, dragonflies are almost the same as butterflies. This is Lisa Reichert's dragonfly, worked in chunky size 2 thread. It's a simple, effective pattern, but I'm not so sure about my version.

A while back, I made up some skeins of thread, mixed up some batik dye and let the kids loose. The result is a little container of mixed up HDT. Some of the threads came out quite pretty. Others came out looking like turmeric mixed in mustard. Both are nice in food but neither is nice on fibers. Still, add some beads and it's an interesting looking dragonfly; in a macrame potholder sort of way...

Motif 16: Pearly flowers

2011-12-28T01:55:00.000-08:00

I still have flowers on the brain, so today's motif is a little flower brooch from Tatting Lace by Sumi Fujishige. These are done in Anchor variegated perle cotton 8.

It would probably have look better with darker beads, but on the whole I'm happy with it. I think it's proof of the enriching potential of tatting.

Start with some cheap beads.

Add some knotted thread, and get pearly flower buds!

Motif 15: Someday magnolia

2011-12-20T04:28:00.000-08:00

I first saw Nancy Tracy's tatted magnolia on Umi & Tsuru's blog. It's impressively cute, so I saved the pattern and planned to do it someday. I can see from Umi and Tsuru's post that this was over a year ago.

Oh well, today is someday, so here's my version, in bud, and in bloom.

After tatting the pattern, I'm even more impressed. It's clever as well as cute. The way the base supports the center, the ruffly middle bits, the overlapping petals, all of it clever. The only tricky part is getting the chains between petals going the right way. I'm putting this picture here for reference.

See, the chain comes out the front of the first petal and wraps round to the back of the next petal (Many apologies to Nancy Tracy if I got that wrong). I have a feeling I'm going to need this picture in future. I'm planning to make a whole bouquet of magnolias someday...

Motif 14: Flying SCMRs

2011-12-19T06:58:00.000-08:00

I had a sudden itch to tat self closing mock rings, so I went straight to the GR-8 page and tatted some butterflies.

In the spirit of fairness, I won't point out which ones are THE butterfly and which are 'Da Udder' ones.

Motif 13: Peaceful snowflake

2011-12-18T05:11:00.000-08:00

The beaded tatting was making me beady eyed, squinting to get the thread through those tiny holes. So I took a break and made another of Hajjah Jon's elegant snowflakes.

This is the Adan snowflake from Elegant Tatting Gems, done in heavenly blue Cebelia thread. There's something peaceful about the changes of direction in this design. Ahh, so restful.

Motif 12: Double edged butterfly

2011-12-16T05:49:00.000-08:00

This is Jane Eborall's Large Fancy Butterfly done in DMC Cebelia along with a rather alarming number of beads.

The fancy edging is unusual and makes for a striking motif. To be honest, I'm not sure I got the edging completely right, so I just tried to be consistently wrong so the wings would match. The edging is not that hard to do, but it does require more equipment than usual.

Here's what it looked like in progress. There are:-

three (3!) shuttles
a little string of beads on a floss threader, ready to go on the picots
paperclips, paperclips and more paperclips to hold the beads in place
print out and pencil so I could keep track without losing all my brain cells (Jane Eborall functions magnificently with brain cell #3, but I definitely need all of mine)

Motif 11: Light on bracelet

2011-12-13T23:41:00.001-08:00

The little lady seems to know that the best way to get me to make her more stuff is to use the stuff I've already made. She's been wearing her blue beaded bracelet lately, so I started a new one for her.

This is the 'Bloomer' bracelet from Marilee Rockley's 'Boutique Tatting' book. The yarnplayer does two things I like very much. First, she sells PDF versions (great for avoiding shipping costs) and second, she gives people a way to sell things made from her designs. I admire the work that designers do, but being able to execute a design is also a skill. The sort of license the yarnplayer uses lets the designer and the design-user interact in new ways.

The yellow seems awfully bright to me, so I think of it as a 'lit up' bracelet. That's my hand modelling it, but the little lady takes possession later. I probably should have reduced the number of repeats to fit her little hand, but she's been doing a lot of growing lately. I'm reluctant to shorten anything for her. All her dresses are midis now. I could have sworn I bought them full length a few months ago.

Motif 10: Interesting?

2011-12-10T15:25:00.001-08:00

This motif is number 26 in 'Beads and Beads Tatting 1' by Mituko Ikuta. The book is great, in that it has some nice techniques and some usual bead uses, but some of the designs look a bit dated. So for me, this particular design is more interesting than attractive. I'd love to get a look at book 2 and 3 in the series.

There are some mistakes there; some miscounted chains and stitches the 'wrong' way around. Still, split rings makes me happy, so I'll leave it as it is and chase perfection some other day.

Motif 9: Green beauty

2011-12-04T15:10:00.001-08:00

I got Jon's new book, Elegant Tatting Gems, last month and made this snowflake. It's been done for a while, but apparently weaving in ends and taking photos takes weeks and weeks.

The book is very inviting, so I grabbed the first thread that caught my eye and did the first pattern in the book. This is the Adiratna pattern done with Oren Bayan metallic. Jon gives the meanings of the names here. So, loosely translated, this is the 'Green Beauty' snowflake. In hindsight, I should have started from the back. The last pattern is named 'Zamrud' or Emerald. A green emerald would have been more poetic.

Motif 8: Onion doily

2011-10-17T18:49:00.000-07:00

Those onion rings are still occupying space in my head, so I made this little onion ring doily.

This is the 'Green Vedallia' doily from Roger AKA Freedman's needle tatting site. My version should be called 'Yellow onions and shallots'.

I have great memories of the needle tatting boards. I learned to tat in my teens, but I had trouble getting past simple one ring edgings. The problem was those old line by line patterns. I didn't know it then, but I' miserable without a diagram. I slogged at it though, because I really liked the look of the lace.

Then in my twenties, I found the needle tatting boards. There were many lovely intermediate patterns that I wanted to try. The things is, I don't needle tat so half the instructions sounded like gobbledygook. The instructions didn't make sense, but Roger AKA Freedman has some of clearest pictures I'd ever seen.

It finally hit me that I didn't need the words. I just needed the pictures and the stitch counts and I could figure it out myself. It was a eureka moment for me and I've been a happy tatter ever since.

Motif 7: Clever onion rings

2011-10-02T01:36:00.000-07:00

Today's motif is a little onion ring butterfly from Tatted Butterflies by Adelheid Dangela. I haven't done a lot of onion rings, so I googled and found some lovely tutorials from Jane Eborall and Georgia Seitz. The onion rings are worked as concentric rings, with a single shuttle. I thought, "Oh, that's clever. Let's try it!".

It turns out I was being too clever. My onion rings didn't look like the picture. The stitch count was off and the rings wouldn't lie flat.

The pattern clearly states "Work using 2 shuttles". Onion rings with two shuttles are done by working the center round as a normal ring and the outside rounds as a series of chains.

Here's the final butterfly, with two shuttle onion rings. I think it looks better. It certainly lies flatter. So, perhaps the moral of the story is: It's more important to read the instructions than to use clever techniques :)

Motif 6: Butterflies old and new

2011-08-24T02:05:00.000-07:00

I have two butterflies to show. The first is this little motif from Tatted Butterflies by Adelheid Dangela, done in hand dyed Cebelia 20. I just got the book last week. There are no written directions, just some charming hand drawn diagrams. I love it! No words means I can just dive right in and tat.

Next is this butterfly from last year. The little lady claimed it, and I finally put it on a dress for her birthday earlier this month. I tried a new technique for attaching the butterfly. First, I sprayed the back of the tatting with spray mount. Then I stuck the butterfly on the dress and stitched down the picots with a sort of running stitch.

The spray adhesive worked much better than the method I used for the little lady's snowflake dress. For that dress, I pinned down the snowflakes. The pins distorted the motifs and I ended up pulling out a lot of stitches. The spray mount made the butterfly stick, sort of like masking tape. I could stitch the picots down very quickly, and the spray came out easily in the wash. I probably wouldn't try this on an heirloom, or something delicate, but for something utilitarian, it works great.

Here are some close-ups. Here's the butterfly on the front.

There are pink bias binding strips for straps, and a teardrop for the back. The button is purple. It doesn't match, but it's the little lady's favourite colour (after pink of course).

I'm making a lot of sleeveless dresses lately, for two reasons:-
1) There are few things lovelier than a little girl in a sun dress
2) I'm afraid of sleeve caps

Anyway, that's all from me today. My workload hasn't really decreased, but I've found that trying to make more time by not crafting just makes me cranky and unproductive. So hopefully the next post won't take a whole month.

Utilitarian and reversible

2011-07-26T12:18:00.000-07:00

Deadlines are thick on the ground, so I can't seem to manage any crafts that require counting higher than two. Tatting is right out. That leaves me with garter stitch knitting, crochet snakes, and strangely, fine hand embroidery.

I've also been doing some machine sewing of the utilitarian sort. First is a set of chair covers and bags.

The chair covers are to save my mother's lovely solid wood chairs from having felt glued to their backs. My mother wanted to put the chairs against the wall, but was afraid the backs would scratch the wall. The bags are a wedding gift for a friend.

Next are some quick draw string bags to hold the birthday loot from my little guy's big day last week. There were three, but the last one went home with my nephew.

I think household stuff works better and lasts longer if it's lined. If I'm going to go to the trouble of lining something, I might as well make it reversible. Everything here is reversible, which is why there are two pictures of everything.

Motif 5: Final snowflakes (or maybe not)

2011-06-29T12:27:00.000-07:00

These snowflakes have been done for a while now, but for some reason, they were feeling shy and felt they needed blocking. How does the saying go again? 90% of the effort is in the last 10% of the job? I believe it. Blocking, taking pictures and posting seem to take 2-3 times as long as the actual tatting.

These are the last 3 snowflakes in Jon's Tatted Snowflake Collection. From left to right, these are 'Milky Way', 'Carousel' and 'The Twirly'. Originally, I had all sorts of plans to make these in metallic thread, or silk, or using some fancy new technique. In the end I just used DMC Cebelia 30 and a pair or Aero shuttles. I love learning new techniques, but sometimes it's good to remember how much fun it is to tat.

These are just in time too. Jon just showed the pictures for her new book. Ooo, what fun! These won't be the last snowflakes after all!

Sun dresses

2011-05-11T16:30:00.000-07:00

It's hot here. You'd think that being in a tropical country, this would be an obvious statement. Right now though, it's hotter than normal. It's almost too hot to tat since the double knots won't form properly when the thread is wet, and sweaty hands make for wet thread. It's almost too hot to crochet and knit, because who wants to look at warm yarn or wool when it's hot.

So what's a crafter to do? Make sun dresses!

The first is a dress for a neighbour's one year old. It's made from a batik sarong. The sarongs in Malaysia have borders and panels in different patterns. So if you cut the pieces right, you can get nice hems without any effort.

For the finishing touch, I put little green flower buttons.

Next is a dress for the little lady. Clothes for the little lady always involve a lenghty discussion about fashion sense and sensibility. In this case she chose the fabric herself (Can't fault her taste there. I'd have snagged the piece for myself if she hadn't picked it first). Then she told me it should be a princess dress! with puff sleeves! and bows! and hearts! I told here, ummm.... how about some flowers...

So, a few ribbon flowers on the bodice, and a few more along the hem, and we are both happy. I avoid making puff sleeves, and she has a 'be-u-diful' dress.

Scrambled tatting

2011-04-18T20:27:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to teach myself some new tatting tricks, and it's giving me a bit of headache. The first trick is to tat without shuttles. I'm trying to learn this because I'm in love with the Riego join as taught by TATBiT. It's just so clever and beautiful, with one thread slipped into the other, no extra bulk, no blips. The thing is, it requires that the thread be off the shuttle. The only tool I'm using is a little floss threader to pull the thread through.

It's actually pretty comfortable just finger tatting. At first, I worried about having to do a lot of adding new thread since I'm working with shorter lengths. It turns out that it's not that much of an issues since using encapsulation, adding thread is actually one of the easier things to do in tatting, The only issue is that the threads tend to tangle, which makes the whole thing less portable.

The second thing I'm trying to learn is to tat Reverse Riego, again as taught by TATBiT. I still prefer to tat using the slip-n-slide method, but with beads, it causes problems. First, you just can't get a lot of beads onto a shuttle. Next, once the beads are on there, they have to be 'managed'. All unused beads have to be wound up into the shuttle. If they get loose, they get caught in the stitches, messing up the works.

Both of these problems drove me nuts when I was working on a Nina Libin necklace. In desperation, I switched tatting styles, and it worked! The Reverse Riego method is somehow looser than the slip-n-slide. There's a lot of slack in the thread, so there's time to push the beads out of the way before the stitch closes. It means I can spend more time making stitches and less time winding up beads.

Also, with reverse riego, you can use just about anything to hold the thread. As TATBiT suggests, I'm using a netting shuttle. It's shocking how many beads this thing can hold. It makes the whole bead tatting experience more pleasant for me.

My Aeros are looking a bit sad and empty right now. It think I'll start some snowflakes and give my brain a rest.

FO Friday: Headbands

2011-04-15T16:49:00.000-07:00

The headbands are done. I haven't quite figured out how to do those 'take pictures of yourself in the mirror' pictures. So, I got my little guy to take the photos. He's a sweetheart, so he was enthusiastic and patient for the photoshoot, although he still doesn't quite understand what a blog is (he's 6).

Here's a group shot. My mother says these headbands should not be worn by anyone older than 12. She's right in a way. These clash horribly with my current waredrobe (t-shirt and jeans, with a striped shirt for meetings). I must have been channelling my inner 12 year old when I put these together.

It's a Saturday here, but it's Friday elsewhere. So now I'm going to start my weekend by browsing through the FO's on Tami's Amis. Hope everyone out there is enjoying a nice weekend too.

WIP Wednesday: Headbands

2011-04-13T08:58:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine gave me this cute headband. I think it's one of her first projects, so I'm honoured to be the recipient of this gift. There's a saying that goes 'Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery'. I'm not sure I agree with the saying, but in this case, the headband did inspire me, with lots of different variations running through my head.

Here are my versions. Hopefully those rolled up bits in the middle will look like roses when I'm done.

Since it's Wednesday, there are a lot of lovely WIPs on Tami's Amis. Stop by and take a look if you have the time.

FO Friday: Mermaid Hello Kitty

2011-04-02T00:55:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Tattingrid, Sue, Tami and Faizon for the encouragement. It really helped keep me on track.

A few deep breaths and some perseverence later, I have an FO! It turns out I only needed 44 flowers to cover the doll (not sure yet what I'll do with the extras). There's also a hibiscus tucked behind her ear, giving her a Malaysian flavour (the hibiscus is the Malaysian national flower). The little lady wants to put the Hello Kitty doll on some pillows and pretend that she is a mermaid basking on a rock in the ocean. She has a sweet imagination.

Overlapping path thimble ring

2011-03-31T19:05:00.000-07:00

I'll be sewing on little flowers today, but before that, I thought I'd put up a short post. Here's my latest thimble ring (bracelet sizes). It's the first thimble ring I've done where the path overlaps and goes around the ring twice before ending. I had it started, partway done and was planning to add it to Chloe Patricia's photo sharing.

Then I learned a valuable lesson about overlapping paths. The starting point matters. When the path does not overlap, I can restart a round anywhere on the circle. It doesn't make a difference. With an overlapping path, there is a bottom and a top layer. If I start on the wrong layer, the places where my threads cross looks wrong.

This lesson cost me several hours pulling out and redoing the stitches, and I missed the deadline for the photo sharing. One of these days, I'll learn not to do my work last minute...

WIP Wednesday: Mermaid Hello Kitty

2011-03-30T22:48:00.000-07:00

My little lady has been gently (and not so gently) reminding me that I'm making a Mermaid Hello Kitty for her. I'm putting it up for Tami's Ami's WIP Wednesday so that hopefully it becomes an FO soon. It's actually almost done. The only thing holding this up is the f... ff... ff.... (hyperventilating here)...

Ok, let's try that again without the panic. The only thing holding this up is the set of FIFTY little flowers that need to be attached to her tail and body.

Making them is not too hard. It's the hiding ends and attaching that scares me. The original uses yellow felt centers that look like they're glued on. I'd prefer to sew instead of glue, so I'm planning to use french knot centers. Yikes, I'm short two. I could have sworn there were fifty last week...

Motif 4: Brooch & FO Friday: Cyber Zombie

2011-03-18T23:57:00.000-07:00

Today I have both and FO and a motif. I know some people separate their crafts into different blogs. It does make for a nicer reading experience, but I don't think I could manage more than one blog. So, with apologies, I'll leave it as, a jumble reflecting the insides of my jumled up head :-)

In no particular order, here's a the Kerongsang motif from Jon Yusof's Tatting with Rings. I love the names of the patterns in this book. Jon named them after all sort of pretty things in the Malay language. Kerongsang means brooch, so I'm planning to put a pin on this and use it to jazz my baju kurung. It's done in the sadly discontinued Altin Basak metallic polyester.

Fellow Malaysian, Paul, made a nice comment on one of my cluny attempts. He said, "Everyday when you do a part of it, it reflects you that day; so one part will be wonky, one part will be too tight and never really often, perfect."

I like that thought. A mistake is not a mistake, or rather, not just a mistake; it's a record of life events. This particular motif is a record of living through a house renovation. There are tight rings from when they used the electric saw (which made me clench my teeth). The uneven wrapped stitches are a record of the uneven zzzt... zt.. zzzzt of the drill that completely threw me off my rythm. Still, the crafting is helping me keep my temper and my sanity through the noise.

Next is an amigurumi for Tami's Amis FO Fridays. As I understand it, the idea of the WIPs and FOs is to socialize and get feedback and encouragement. I like the idea and I've been looking around at all lovely crochet and knitting, but still feeling a bit too shy to comment.

My many WIP heads yielded only one FO; this Cyber Zombie from Creepy Cute Crochet. This is a nice book to have for making toys for boys, but a lot of the charm of the dolls comes from the finishing details. All the embroidery and embellishments have to be done right in order for the doll to look good. Personally, I find this quite difficult. This is the second time I've made this pattern, and only now am I able to get the exposed wires on the arm somewhat presentable.

Eye infatuation

2011-03-16T22:37:00.000-07:00

In a previous post, I showed a book, Super-Cute Crochet by Nicki Trench, that my friend gave me. In the book, the author uses black safety eyes. The eyes looked cute, so after a little idle googling, I found a saplanet originals and put in a small order.

First I remade my friend's kitty, with plastic eyes and a plastic heart nose. The nose was a free sample from saplanet originals; a clever tactic, since now I've used it, I feel compelled to become a repeat customer. The little lady calls this the 'Dancing Kitty', probably because of the twirly skirt.

Next is this Grim Reaper from the Creepy Cute Crochet book. This one joins the little guy's collection of gruesome amigurumi.

Finally, I made this little fish for my sweet nephew, also from the Nicki Trench book.

The eyes are really, really easy to use and I am completely infatuated. Some purposeful googling produced glasseyesonline.com with the magic words 'Free Worldwide Shipping'. Now I am the somewhat sheepish owner of a small stash of plastic eyes.

I'm putting the stash to good use. Here's the proof! Look into my eyes!

I don't think I'll stop making amigurumi any time soon. Everyone seems to want a toy to squish and squeeze and play pretend with. So I thought I'd use my creepy eyes to join WIP Wednesdays on Tami's Amis. Hopefully the WIPs will lead to FOs on Friday!

Motif 2-3: Bracelet and heart

2011-03-15T03:06:00.000-07:00

The little lady's bracelet is finished. Here it is with the treasure box we made to hold it. The box is from the Canon website. We worked on it together; I cut, she glued.

The bracelet is just tatted split rings with enough stitches and picots to snug up to the beads. It's just the right size for the little lady, but I wish I'd added a few repeats. Then I could share with her! Is it OK for a 30+ woman to wear blue plastic beads?

CindyK left a suggestion to make some tatted hearts. I like the idea very much. So here is Martha Ess's Two Hearts in One. I like the serendipity of online tatting. Here's another version from Val's Simple Passions.

Round 2 really is the toughest. These days, the thought of wasted paper bothers me, so I try not to print patterns, instead working off the computer or the iPhone. For this pattern, I had to give in. I printed it out, found 2 quiet hours, and glued my eyes to the paper.

It also helped that I don't reverse my work. It reduced confusion. I learned this technique from Teri Dusenbury's website, although I can't find the exact link right now. I'll keep looking. Basically, the rings are worked with flip stitches. The chains are unflipped (encapsulated). I just switch shuttles between rings and chains. It also saves having to wind up the long thread after making rings.

Three crochet kitties

2011-03-02T03:44:00.000-08:00

It all started with this machine. The machine takes an exorbitant amount of money, then forces you to use a tiny joystick to manouver a claw to try to pick up the plush toy of your dreams. They recently installed this at the local shopping complex.

In it they put Hello Kitty dolls. The first Hello Kitty (not in the picture) was the best. It had a sparkly tiara, fairy wings and a pink princess dress. The little lady fell in love with it.

After some discussion, the little lady and I agreed to make ONE attempt at snagging the Hello Kitty. Now, I can stitch a pretty seam, but I can barely walk across a field without falling. So, needless to say, I was no match for the ultra-fast buzzer and the sticky joystick.

At that point, the tears were brimming in the little lady's eyes, so after some more rapid discussion, we agreed that I would make her a Hello Kitty doll. Thankfully she's still young enough to think her mother can make anything.

After a bit of googling, I found a cute pattern on Armina's ami-mals blog. The result is the little Hello Kitty on the left. The little lady loves it, and shows it to everyone she meets.

Craft projects are like potato chips to me. I can never stop at just one. So, I found more patterns, and made the one on the right.

A friend of mine saw the little dolls and, because she is a generous lady, she gave me a book; Super-Cute Crochet by Nicki Trench. As a thank you, I made her the little kitty on the cover. It's living with her now, and I fogot to take a picture, so here's the picture from the author's website.

So there you have it, three crochet kitties.

Drowning in deadlines

2011-02-28T19:09:00.000-08:00

I think I will make that title a recurring theme. Being a free lancer is a great way to have time with your kids, but it can be feast or famine. Right now, I'm festing on work, starving for crafty time.

Before the deadlines got me, I was happily following along with Jane Eborall's latest TIAS. I only just finished it last week and got the ends woven in yesterday.

The blue is Altin Basak metallic polyester as recommended by Jane Eborall. It's just as nice as she claims. Unfortunately, I've beeen told by a Turkish supplier that the thread is now discontinued. The silver is another brand of metallic polyester. It isn't nearly as nice. I have some Oren Bayan that feels about the same as the Altin Basak although I haven't managed to tat with it yet. Unfortunately, it's about twice as expensive. Sigh, why do cheap, good things get discontinued?

There was still some thread on the shuttles, and I had some beads from a bracelet the little lady broke. So I'm working on this little split ring bracelet. I'm not sure I like the effect. The thread's a bit too skinny to balance the beads, and stiffness of the thread makes the picots look spiky instead of loopy. Still, the little lady is small enough that it will only take a few more repeats to fit her. I think I'll just finish it off for her to wear.

25 motif challenge, 2nd round

2011-01-28T01:20:00.000-08:00

After a bit of thought I think I'll try the 25 motif challenge again this year. There are so many more tatting designs I want to try, and the challenge is a great motivator. I'll start simply with these 3 white snowflakes done in DMC ~~Cordonette Cordonet~~ Cordonnet 40. I have a box full of different weights of the stuff, and yet when I try to type the word, I have to look up the spelling... every... single... time... Sigh, spelling is not my strong point.

Oh well, back to the snowflakes. These are 'Spring Blossom', 'Sunburst' and 'Pirouette' from Jon Yusoff's snowflake book. Sue, one of the nices commentors around, left a note saying that she liked the 'Astral' snowflake. I agree with her, so far, 'Astral' and 'Pirouette' are my favourites.

Three more snowflakes and I'll have worked my way through the book. I find these snowflakes so restful, yet satisfying. What will I do when they're all gone?

Motif 22-25: A day late

2011-01-01T09:13:00.000-08:00

It's been a year and a day since I started my 25 motif challenge, and I've only just finished my last 4 motifs. It seems I haven't changed much since I was a freshman; slacking off for a whole semester, spending the last few days cramming, then asking for an extension :)

Still, it's been a lovely experience. I've come into contact with many kind, helpful and talented people. Perhaps, if I can manage to grow up a bit, I can try again this year.

Motif 22: Suncatcher 3 (this one's a garden)

This is the third and final window picture from the Burda tatting book. The original is all white (a winter garden). Mine is a spring garden, made in DMC Cebelia 20.

Like any garden, it required some pruning (cutting thread ends) and watering (wet blocking) to look presentable. Here's how it looked before the pruning.

Motif 23: Choker 2

I made another choker using Jon Yusoff's wrapped rings. This one is the Kejora motif (DMC 80, 1.5cm rings, size 11 delica beads). I'm auditioning ribbons again. I think I'm leaning toward the black this time.

Motif 24: Approachable lace

This edging is from Tatting Lace (by Sumi Fujishige). It's done in DMC Cebelia 30. It's approachable for a few reasons. First, it's a pretty straightforward pattern. It only uses rings and chains, and with a slight change in working order, it's possible to do a motif in one pass, no cutting.

It's also approachable for non-tatters. I tat in public and I'm often asked 'What are you going to do with it?'. This edging looks like a normal bit of lace, so instead of asking 'What are you going to do with it?', people would make suggestions like 'Oh, this would look pretty on a sleeve! You could put this on a scarf.'

It's made up of little motifs, so most of it sits in a ziplock bag while I work on the latest piece. People would pick it up and model it, wrapping it around a wrist or laying it along a hem. So it is indeed an approachable bit of lace.

Motif 25: Beaded necklace

This is Nina Libin's Kaethe necklace. It's done with DMC metallic embroidery thread. I don't hate this thread. I don't like it either. There are a multitude of errors in this because I find beaded tatting VERY VERY DIFFICULT. Thankfully, the sparkly beads do a good job of hiding the mistakes.

Motif 21: Plain sized snowflakes

2010-12-27T13:42:00.000-08:00

I have chunky snowflakes and tiny snowflakes, so these are just plain medium sized snowflakes.

These are from Jon Yusoff's snowflake book. The first is Oasis in Anchor perle 8. The second is Floret in the DMC perle 8. The last is Astral done with 3 strands of metallic embroidery thread, 2 blue one silver. Next time I use the metallics, I won't mix colours. The effect is more heathered instead of sparkly.

Motif 20: Christmas rose

2010-12-25T02:56:00.000-08:00

This design is called Rose du Noel so this seemed like the best day to show it. It's by the immensely talented ElisaduSud, translated and diagrammed by the equally talented and generous Mimi Dillman.

It's done in DMC perle 8. I'm rather disappointed with this thread. It's pricier than the Venus crochet cotton I normally get, so I expected better quality. Instead the dye doesn't go to the core of the thread, so little white blips show through.

I was making these clunies privately, in the wee quiet hours of the morning. I was getting comfortable, so I popped it into my bag to tat-on-the-go. This was a bad idea. Let me show you...

Clearly, my clunies aren't quite ready for public life.

Motif 19: Rings for a choker

2010-12-23T23:53:00.000-08:00

I love the internet. It gives you an opportunity to see different interpretations of the same design. I little while ago I saw a lovely pair of 5 point rings turned into earrings by Mary Robinson. I'd already started the same design, but seeing hers was encouragement to keep going.

To recap, this is Jon Yusoff's Melati design for her Tatting on Rings book. This version is done in DMC 80 tatting cotton. The ring is 1.5 cm in diameter.

The idea is to sew them on to a ribbon and make a choker. Right now I'm deciding which ribbon to use; green and cheerful or black and elegant. Right now, I'm leaning toward the green.

This last picture is for Claudia. She left a nice comment about my thimble rings. This was meant for Chloe Patricia's photo sharing, but was a bit late. I don't know if this is a positive or negative example (this isn't my best stitching). I suppose it's meant as encouragement (hopefully) for anyone wanting to make one.

Motif 18: Suncatcher 2 (perhaps a snowflake)

2010-12-20T04:49:00.000-08:00

This is the second window picture from the Burda tatting book done in DMC Cebelia 30. It would look better mounted, but I can't find the right size ring.

This motif has a bit of a sad story to go with it. I was working on it while riding in the car. When I got out, I thought my tatting was safely in my bag. Unfortunately it wasn't. It fell out of the car and got left behind. It's a split ring design and I was in the middle of adding new thread, so I lost not one, not two, but three shuttles.

That's not even the worst part. The worst is that two of them were English Aeros, the first shuttles I ever owned. They were probably over a decade old, yet still capable of that distinctive old Aero ratcheting click. I could just cry.

...or...

I could go shuttle shopping.
Those new pastel clovers sure are cute...

Motif 17: Fantasia Fan

2010-12-17T16:12:00.000-08:00

This is Teri TATBit's Fantasia Fan. It's been finished for a while, but I'm in awe of Teri Dusenbury and it took me a while to work up the nerve to ask for permission to show a picture. She kindly said yes when I asked.

It's almost completely rings (lots of split rings), and some pieces are done separately and attached as you go. It took several tries, cordonnet cotton and a bit of blood to finish this. It's worth it though. The design is gorgeous; the only piece of tatting I've ever felt like framing.

Perhaps the blood needs explanation. Below is my unpicking tool. It's a tapestry needle stuck in some polymer clay. Normally, when retro-tatting 2-3 stitches, it's comfortable and safe to use. However, when retro-tatting dozens of stitches (while cursing your own inability to count), the unpicking gets ...vigorous... Puncture wounds are the result.

Motif 16: Tiny snowflakes

2010-12-12T02:33:00.000-08:00

I'm still working my way through Jon's snowflake book. I've stayed away from the black thread, so my taste for tiny things has returned. These are all made with size 80 thread or smaller. Although tatting with tiny thread is OK, trying to wield a needle to hide the ends is still daunting. I'll wait for the morning, and better light.

The first is called 'Circle of Crowns'. With that name, it had to be worked with gold thread. This is two strands of clover embroidery thread; yet another metallic thread that I now hate. This stuff is like barbed wire. I have a bandage on my finger because it was shredding my ring making hand.

The other two are 'Radiance' and 'Minaret' in Anchor 80. I think I'm being slowly converted to Anchor instead of DMC thread. The variegated colours are more fun.

Motif 15: Butterfly

2010-12-11T00:32:00.000-08:00

This is the vintage butterfly from Heidi Nakayama's site. It's a simple, elegant pattern, but for some reason I kept making mistakes and had to redo the upper wings two or three times. I think when there are no split rings to keep me on my toes, my mind wanders.

The original plan was to put this on a tote bag for myself. I made a tatical error though by leaving it out on my table. The little lady found it. With shining eyes, she told me it was 'sooo pretty' and could please I make her a dress with it. Sigh, who can resist a four year old with a smile and a please.

Motif 14: Suncatcher (not a snowflake)

2010-12-04T16:44:00.000-08:00

How do I know it's not a snowflake? It's got 8 arms!

This is one of the 'window pictures' in the Burda Tatting book, done in DMC Cebelia 20. I really want to make the block tatted doily on the cover of the book, but I'm a bit intimidated. So I'm warming up to it with the smaller motifs. Maybe next year I'll try the doily.

Motif 13: Crossing snowflakes

2010-12-01T22:46:00.000-08:00

Tatman showed a tatted cross and challenged people to figure out how it was made. I was intrigued, probably because the instructions sound like origami. In tat-talk: "Use two shuttles, no cutting". In origami-talk: "Use a square paper, no cutting". Origami is the first craft I ever learned, so the terms are stuck in my brain forever.

Crosses really aren't my thing, so I added two more 'arms'. I asked for permission to show a picture. I think he said yes, but if I misunderstood, I'm really, really sorry and I'll take the picture down. It counts as one motif, because it involved quite a lot of head scratching. It's done in Anchor perle 8.

It's done pretty much as he outlined except that one arm is just normal split rings, simply because I like making chains of split rings. Tatman promised a pattern. I'll put a link here when it's up.

Motif 12: Chunky snowflakes

2010-11-30T20:59:00.000-08:00

I finally got around to buying Jon's snowflakes book last week. I paged through trying to find a favourite to do first. I couldn't pick one, so I decided to them in order. I've been working with black thread, giving myself eyestrain and realizing that my eyes (if not the whole of me) are not as young as they used to be. So, to save myself pain, these are done chunky and not actual size.

The first one is Alladin, done in 3 strands of DMC metallic floss. I am never tatting with this thread again. It's like working with tin foil. My teeth fillings are still zinging.
The middle one is Effloresscence done in multi-colour Anchor Perle 5. Even though it looks like an exploded clown, I rather like this one.
The last one is Sweet Rose in DMC Cebelia 20.

It's the last month of the year and my count is 13 motif's short of 25. I've decided that failure is an option, so these are grouped, just like I normally would. You never know though, sometimes I work well under pressure. We'll see how it goes.

Motif 11: Pair of hearts

2010-11-23T01:35:00.000-08:00

I have a copy of 'The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye' by A.S. Byatt. The first story, 'The Glass Coffin', has a certain crafty charm.

In this story, a tailor has adventures and gets the girl. In the end, he misses being a tailor. So, according to the story, 'He ordered to be brought to him the finest silk cloth and brilliant threads, and made for pleasure what he had once needed to make for harsh necessity'.

Silk cloth? Thread? Now that is a proper happy ending! Today I have some silk to show, and that happy ending is tumbling around in my head.

Here's the first bit of silk. It's a pair of tatted hearts, in chunky silk thread. The one on the left is Jon's Mother's Day heart . The one on the right is from Iris Niebach's site. Hmm, looking at it now, it's a bit wonky. I think I'll have to try it again in cotton. They are both technique hearts, one has daisy picots and one has dimple rings.

The next bit of silk is a pair of Japanese thimble rings for Chloe Patricia's monthly photo sharing. I like making thimble rings, but making them with silk thread is positively addictive. Chloe Patricia is working hard to promote this wonderful craft, so if you have the time, please do visit her site and look around.

Random

2010-11-08T18:24:00.001-08:00

Today, I just have some random crafty bits. Here's a monthly thimble ring from a few months back. It's stitched in unravelled bunka thread. Bunka is a strange thread to work with. It has kinks from being unravelled, so it pop-pop-pops as pulls through. Very disconcerting, but it works up quickly. Great for crafting when deadlines are looming.

Next are the little lady's pants. She was a bit annoyed because her brother was showing off his 'baju melayu', with 3 pockets in the top, 2 in the pants. She told me she wanted pink pants, WITH POCKETS. Personally, I agree with her. Why don't they put pockets in women's clothing? Anyway, these are the results. My pink tolerance is quite low, so I opted to mix and match.

Motif 10:Lacy medallion

2010-10-06T18:52:00.000-07:00

The last time I tried this motif, I lost a row. I managed to redo the row, but in the process, I found 3 little mistakes. Then, managed to add 2 times as many chains as was needed, resulting in a ruffle. I told myself that I liked the ruffle, that no one could see the little mistakes. I took a deep breath, and tried to accept my little doily...

It didn't work. So here it is again, lying flat like it should. (This is the Lacy Medallion from the Tatter's Treasure Chest. The first attempt is done in Olympus perle 8, the second is DMC Cebelia). It seems I have to tat everything twice to be happy.

Here's another little top for my little lady. I should call it the 'Jon' dress. The larger snowflake is 'Featherline' in DMC cordonnet 20, the little ones are 'Hearts in a Snowflake' in DMC 80, both from Jon Yusof's excellent site.

I tried a different approach to finishing this dress. Instead of facings for the neck and armholes, I lined them with contrasting satin bias binding. I like the little splash of colour it adds, but I'm not happy with how it puckers the armholes. Oh well, live and learn.

Baju kurung onslaught

2010-09-10T15:38:00.000-07:00

It's the day after hari raya and I'm watching the sunrise after a quiet/busy celebration yesterday; quiet because we didn't visit too many people, busy because small children (my pair and my brother's little guy) lend a bit of chaos to any event.

It's traditional to have new clothes for hari raya. In my parents' time, it was a big deal because this might be the only time in the year you get new clothes. Now, we mostly keep it up for the kids.

This year, I made quite a few baju raya (hari raya clothes). For some reason, I feel compelled to document my endeavours. I'll give a warning first: "Boring post ahead, many ugly pictures"

First here are 6 sets of baju kurung I made for my friend. She asked me if I'd tailor for her little girls, and I said yes. I spent a lot of time worrying as I was working on these. I worried I'd run out of fabric, that I wouldn't finish in time, that I'd ruin some little girl's hari raya by making some terrible mistake with her baju raya.

In the end, it worked out Ok, and I actualy managed to turn my handiwork into profit. The last time that happened, I was 9 years old, selling origami models to my class mates for 5 sen. My school was a bit strict, so my mother put a stop the enterprise, but it was fun then. It's still fun now.

Next are the ones for my family, in all their unironed glory. They are unironed because I was in a hurry to get a group shot before my newphew's set went home with my sister-in-law. Year after year I tell myself to buy something that doesn't need ironing, but then I go the Kamdar, and hear the siren call of the cottons. I'm a sucker for natural fibres and can't resist the wrinkly stuff.

There's one big one for my brother, one with sparkles for the little lady, two baju melayu for my big guy and my nephew and one inadvertant extra. The little lady's has beading on the neckline (I'll get a close-up when it comes out of the wash). The extra is because I mismeasured my nephew and made his too small. There was extra cloth so I opted to just make another one. I'm not sure what to do with the extra. If you've got a 2-3 year old boy and would like a baju melayu, drop me a comment.

The next one is my current favourite (you can tell by the extra wrinkles). The skirt is linen and the top is Japanese cotton, a really yummy combo.

This last one is a mother daughter set, one for the little lady and one for me.

So there we go, 14 baju kurung, 11 of them finished in the last 3 weeks. Hari raya is a time of forgiveness. So, if any readers made it this far, I beg your forgiveness and wish you grace on this fine day. 'Selamat Hari Raya, Maaf Zahir Batin'.

Lost row

2010-08-11T18:54:00.000-07:00

I lost the last row of my current doily to stupiditis (missed the first ring of the row), so no finished tatting today. Grrr...
I've decided to console myself with cookies or, since it's fasting month, just a picture of some cookies.

These are the cookies from my daughter's birthday goody bag last week. I bought pink sanding sugar because the little lady loves pink. Now I am spoiled for life. Making pink cookies is just sooooo much more fun making white ones. The baking goods shop has sugar in green! blue! purple! ...Sigh... I'll never be able to make plain old white sugar cookies again.

I was able to be a bit more crafty for the little lady's birthday. Here are her goody bags, made of wrapping paper.

And here's her birthday dress. She calls it her 'rodes' dress (she still has trouble with the 'zzz' sound).

I'm pretty pleased with it. It has box pleats on the bodice, a hand stitched piped neckline, roses on the pleats, and roses on the sleeves. She likes it too. She's worn it 3 times this week.

Everything's pretty

2010-07-28T23:19:00.001-07:00

I made this thimble ring last week, just in time for Chloe Patricia's monthly 'Share your thimbles'. I wasn't very happy with the colours (not enough contrast). I showed it to my little guy and told him it wasn't very pretty. He told on "Oh Mak (Mak means Mom in Malay) I think it's pretty. You can make it any way you like, it's still pretty to me!". He's such a sweet heart.

The little guy turned 6 last week. For the past two years I've made him origami to give to his nursery friends. Two years ago, he even had little hand sewn totes as goody bags. This year, he told me he didn't want origami. He wanted normal plastic bags, with chocolates, jellies and sweets.

I was a bit sad, because, well, he's growing so fast, developing his own opinions. Sigh, sometimes we all wish they could be babies forever. I was also relieved. Origami takes time. He still wanted baked goodies though, and we had to negotiate a bit to get the baking down to acceptable levels (60 choc chip muffins and 12 cupcakes). Here's a picture of one of his birthday cupcakes. The silver balls are a compromise too. I hate them, but they are his favourites.

Motif 9: Snowflakes

2010-07-19T19:19:00.000-07:00

It's already July and I'm still in single digits for the 25 motif challenge. Either I've got to tat faster or stop grouping my motifs. Oh well, I it is supposed to be a challenge. It wouldn't be fun otherwise.

Motif 9 is a trio of snowflakes done in DMC 80. The first is pristine white, but those darn colours were impossible to resist.

The first is Jon Yusof's 'Hearts in a Snowflake'. I really like working Jon's designs. Her diagrams are very clear. I didn't block it properly, so the hearts don't show. The second is a round snow crystal from 'Tatter's treasure chest' and third is Kira's Star by Birgit Phelps. I can't seem to find the pattern online anymore.

I'm contemplating a largish design in size 80 so these snow flakes are for practice. For the past year, I've tried to to do front and back side tatting. I do modern joins (as taught by Teri Dusenbury) and I post my shuttle back to front (as outlined on Elizabeth's Lace).

My tatting still doesn't look that professional, but I think the picots and joins are getting better, so I figure it's worth the effort. However, with these itty-bitty snowflakes, I can barely see the stitches. At this size, wonder if it's still worth the effort...

Thimble ring stitching

2010-07-14T18:21:00.000-07:00

I was sad that I missed Chloe Patricia's 'Share your thimbles' last month. So this month, I'm starting early. I'm also doing a thimble ring post, just for my own reference.

From her blog post (third picture down), I think Chloe Patricia takes her stitches from the middle to the edge. One of the Japanese books shows how to stitch from the edge to middle.

I tried both ways, but for both methods, I kept turning the ring over and over to get the needle at the correct angle to take a stitch. To avoid tangling and needle pricks, I ended up unthreading and rethreading the needle after every round. This was causing shredded thread and frustration. Threading needles is hard on the eyes.

I really wanted to work out a way to keep my needles threaded between rounds. Here's the method that works for me.

So here's a bangle in progress. It has 6 paths. At this point, 4 paths have been started and I've secured the thread to start the 5th round. You can see the 4 needles stuck in the base fabric and the 5th needle waiting to go.

Here's the first stitch. The needle goes from the edge to the middle (right to left) with the thread under the needle.

Here's the second stitch. The needle goes from the middle to the edge (still right to left) with the thread still under the needle.

So I just go around this way to get a full path. With this method, I just hold the ring vertical with my left had, rotating the ring as I go and always taking my stitches from right to left. I leave my needles threaded and stuck in the base fabric as I stitch.

Here are the 3rd and 4th stitches.

I also found some computer aid to help me do base markings. I use this site to generate graph paper. I set the horizontal grid spacing to the height of my ring. I set the vertical grid spacing to the width of a section. Then print, cut and use.

Motif 8: Button bookmark

2010-06-30T04:58:00.001-07:00

I wasn't able to completely give up the colour, but I did tone it down a little. This is Jane Eborall's elegant bookmark with buttons, done in DMC cebelia 20. Personally, I think it's much pretty to hide away inside a book.

The overlapping bits had me a bit worried, but it was a surprisingly restful project. The only problem was loss of portability. I had to sit a table so I could rest my shuttles on it. If I didn't I ended up with an impressive tangle.

It's a good think I like to untangle things. It was one of the first crafty things my mother let me do. She'd let me play with her knitting things and as punishment/reward, I'd get to untangle the resulting mess.

Motif 7: Unintended colour study

2010-06-12T23:18:00.001-07:00

The plan was to make one doily, in one variegated colour. I was having ...umm... dye lot issues. So there was a change of plan, and now there are two doilies. This is the Scalloped doily from 'The Tatter's Treasure Chest', done a piebald selection of hand-dyed and store-bought unidentifiable perle 8.

I'm not sure whether or not I like these. I've been admiring the beautiful colourful tatting on other people's blogs, which is why I wanted to make some for myself. Now that I have them, some part of me can't help thinking 'lace should be white'!

Motif 6: Puffy flowers

2010-06-12T02:39:00.000-07:00

I finished the latest of these a few months ago and forgot all about it. They're perfect for keeping my hands busy while I wait for downloads and other annoying computer things.

The one in the lower left corner is the Carnation Boutonniere from 'The Tatter's Treasure Chest', done with DMC 80 . The others are all variations on the design, done with unidentifiable crochet cotton from my local craft shop.

Here's one I made last year, made up as a hair comb for my sister-in-law. I'll probably do the same thing to the others, but as barrettes. The comb works great for my sister-in-law's lovely, bouncy curls. I have stick straight hair; I need a barrette.

I have an urge to make a baby bonnet. It's an illogical urge, since my kids (and all my friends' kids) are long past babyhood. Oh well, if I were being logical, I wouldn't be making knots in thread. Does anyone have any pattern suggestions?

Magic thread trick

2010-06-08T12:19:00.000-07:00

I read about using floss threaders on Jon Yusoff's blog (also in Crazy Mom Tats) . I was so excited when I found some at a local pharmacy. Unfortunately, it didn't work well with my current project. Maybe the perle 8 was too thin and squishy. Maybe I had the wrong brand.

Anyway, it did get me thinking about other things to use for the magic thread trick. Here are two that I'm trying.

The one with a circle on the end is a needle threader. I've read about using them in other places (Teri Dusenbury's blog and as a tool here). The longer one is a twisted wire needle (used for beading). The eye is collapsible, so it pulls through very easily. As long as I keep my stitches loose, it works great.

Thimble rings

2010-05-21T15:52:00.001-07:00

My son spotted my bag of thimble rings and asked if he could play with them. He arranged them and counted them and told me there were thirteen. I was surprised. I didn't realize I'd made a full baker's dozen of them.

Before I show mine, let me show the master thimble. I won this in a lucky draw from Chloe Patricia's blog. It almost hurts to look at; the stitching is so fine. I'm using it as motivation whenever I get too sloppy with my stitches.

Here's a super bright one from two months ago.

This is from last month. I think it looks like peacock feathers.

Here are the latest ones. The blue-green one is my current favourite. It's very calm.

Motif 5: A bit of edging

2010-05-05T18:18:00.000-07:00

I had an eventful month that robbed me of the will to do anything except eat, sleep and watch movies. The good thing is I'm too scatter-brained to maintain a funk for long. So the shuttles are starting to move again, the keyboard keys are clicking.

Here's a little tatted edging made with the last of my DMC cordonette 10 (It's from the book 'Tatting Ideas' by Yusai Shokoin). I have nostalic thoughts as I use up this ball. It's the first ball of thread that I bought specifically for tatting. Before that, I'd been trying to teach myself to tat using a huge ball of acrylic yarn. The results were less than encouraging.

Here's the inside of the bag. Those little dragonflies are at least three years. Let's not look too closely, eh? My joins were still a little iffy back then.

These are my two latest baju kurung. The yellow one almost fell victim to my 80% rule. My 80% rule dictates that only 80% of the garments I make end up being wearable.

The yellow cloth was a remnant. I knew there wasn't enough, but I loved the colour too much to resist. I decided to reduce my usual measurements a little bit. Since I usually cut loosely, I thought I'd be OK. When it was finished, I was able to wear it, but the result was miserably unflattering. After much foot stomping, I finally cut it down and turned it into a baju kedah for my mother. It fits her beautifully. She even looks better in yellow than I do. Sigh...

The black one fits fine, but Malaysia is in the middle of a heat wave. It's not the most comfotable thing to wear right now.

Motif 4: Mignonette motifs

2010-04-06T22:33:00.000-07:00

I got delayed by mid-terms and missing camera batteries, but now I can finally push down my picture of defeat. Here are some motifs from my lone Japanese tatting book, all with bits of mignonette. The white one is in DMC Cebelia 10, the pink ones in DMC Cebelia 20.

Right now, I'm taking course on multimedia technologies. It's a hands-on course, and one of the assignments is to create a magazine page using Adobe Illustrator. For my assignment, I decided to make a page for an imaginary tatting magazine, with a diagram for a little tatted butterfly (DMC Cebelia 20, dyed with batik colours) by Anna Wuerfle Brown.

My little lady grabbed this out of my hands when I showed it to her. Then she got out a roll of sticky tape and stuck it on to her dress. I guess that one way to accessorize.

Defeat

2010-03-08T20:34:00.000-08:00

I got some great tips and encouragement on the previous cluny motif. Thanks Katie and Mimi.

Unfortunately, this motif didn't turn out so well. This is my attempt at Teri Dusenbery's Fantasia Fan. When she posted it on her blog last year, I nearly drooled on my keyboard; it's so beautiful. Since then, I read and re-read her articles on modern joins and directional tatting.

Finally, I tried it, in slippery, slidy burgundy silk. After three weeks of fiddling, I admit defeat. Every centimeter of that thread has been unpicked and re-done at least twice. At this point, I just don't have the skills to make this.

Sadly, Teri Dusenbery took down her patterns. I wouldn't even post this picture except at this point, it's just a mess, and doesn't remotely resemble her gorgeous fan. Perhaps, if she publishes the pattern again, I will buy a copy, gather my cordonette cotton and concentration and try it again.

So for now, I'll leave that picture up there as a lesson in humility. I have some mignonette motifs on the shuttles that are coming along nicely, so hopefully there will be some nicer pictures on the blog sooon.

Motif 3: Cluny coaster

2010-02-15T20:59:00.000-08:00

From strips...
To blocks...
To actual motifs...
But what's this! There's a ...GASP... mistake.

So, one more try, and here's a motif I can live with. This is Mimi Dillman's tatted coaster in DMC Cebelia 20. It could be better, but honestly, I don't want to look at another cluny for a little while.

This last motif is a testament to what practice and frustration can do for you. The first one took me two weeks. The second one, fueled by annoyance, only took me three days.

Brother-sister outfits

2010-02-06T17:53:00.000-08:00

I'm putting together some pictures of some outfits I made for my kids, but before my dreary long shots, here's a little close up.

Here are the roses on my little lady's latest dress. The roses are 3-strands of embroidery floss in stem stitch. The leaves are 2-strands of floss in back stitch. I've been reading about liberated quilt making. The idea, as I understand it, is to work without marking, with minimal planning, to achieve an effect that is more joyful and spontaneous.

I tried to embroider these roses without any marking. I like the roses, but frankly, I don't see the liberation. I do know that my anxiety increased, worrying if the lines would match up. Perhaps even spontaneity requires practice.

So now, on the the brother sister outfits. I like to make matching brother sister outfits for my little lady and my big guy. I'm not quite sure why I do it, but they look cute together, so there are quite a few sets now. I still can't figure out how to take a decent picture of a full outfit, but I wanted to put the pictures all together for the record.

Here's the first one, also the first baju melayu I made for the little guy. I didn't sew for him as a baby. He was a regular shaped baby, and store bought was fine.

Here's set two, a baju melayu, and two top and bloomer sets from a nice green stripy piece. The little lady has always been a beautiful, big bundle. I sew for her out of necessity.

This is from Hari Raya two years ago. The dress was a bit of an afterthough, which is why the sleeves are a different material. The lace is not just for decoration. It was necessary to make the dress long enough.

These are from Hari Raya last year. This set is special. This is a brother/sister/cousin set. One of the baju melayu is for my sweet nephew. The long one is a baju kurung. Finally, something traditional for my little lady.

Here's the latest set. The little guy calls this his Kungfu outfit because of the white pants.

Motif 2: 26 Magic Thread tricks

2010-01-30T17:04:00.000-08:00

Here's a tatted collar (the rose collar) from Tatting Ideas, made in DMC perle #12, ecru. There are 13 little medallions in there, two ends per medallion, so 26 magic thread tricks.

I shouldn't have worried about running out of thread. Thread-wise, tatting is very economical. There was even enough left over for a little butterfly.

I've been practicing cluny leaves. So far, I've gotten to the point where I no longer need COMPLETE AND UTTER SILENCE to make a leaf, but I still can't string together more than 2-3 without making a mess and needing to cut off. Oh, well, more practice needed. At least the tangled strips are getting longer.

Enough?

2010-01-28T03:42:00.000-08:00

I'm adding the last outer edge to this collar. I'm only 1/3 of the way through, and the only thread I have left is that little pile and whatever's on the shuttles. Augh! Why do I do this to myself. If there are any friendly tatters reading, send me some good luck... send me some good will... send me some DMC perl 12 :)

Thimble rings

2010-01-22T01:07:00.001-08:00

I posted some pictures for Chloe Patricia's 'Share Your Thimbles'. I'm taking a group photo before my kids put them through too much wear and tear. The blue and white one's my favourite. I like the colours and I like the thread. It's DMC rayon floss. It's slippery and tangly, but my local needle work store caries a huge range of colours at a pretty low price. That makes it a winner in my book.

Josephine knots

2010-01-15T16:41:00.000-08:00

I write about posting regularly, then I go offline for two weeks. I was holed up in a traning room without internet access; excellent training, but not good for craft blogging. I check my blog and I find all these lovely comments from these wonderful people. Now I'm really encouraged to keep going.

I did manage to get some tatting done during breaks. The pink motif is a medallion from this lovely Japanese tatting book, done with DMC cebelia, size 30.

This is my first attempt at Josephine knots. There are 10 in the motif, so it was good practice. The one on the right is the first, on the left is the last. Keeping the tension loose was quite a challenge.

I want to get comfortable tatting with beads, so I made these with the chunky silk I had from making thimble rings.

I'm also trying to teach myself InkScape, so I diagrammed them for practice. Here's the blue one.

Here's the purple one.

I followed Jane Eborall's excellent tutorial for beads in split rings. It worked, but I think when the split rings come one after the other, perhaps it would make more sense to have them on a third thread, then use alligator joins between the split rings. If I get around to trying it, I'll post a picture.

Next, perhaps I'll take a stab at cluny leaves. I forsee some tangled, mangled threads. Five threads, all at once? I think I'll wait until the kids are asleep before I try it.

Motif 1: New Year

2010-01-01T03:43:00.000-08:00

January 1st is a good time for resolutions. One of mine this year is to blog more regularly. I have certificates, source code and papers; all kinds of things to document my professional and academic life. I'd love to have something to document my crafting life.

I think part of it is to lose the feeling that blogging is difficult. I just need to take a picture, write some notes and post an entry. I don't have to worry about the dirty laundry showing in the picture or the typos in the text. In my work, when my inner perfectionist threatens my deadlines, I tell myself 'Done is better than perfect'. I have to develop the same feeling for blogging.

In order to help me to post more (and also since I'm going through a tatting phase) I thought I'd try the 25 motif challenge. If I can manage to figure out how to sign up, this is motif #1.

This is Jon Yusoff's elegant 'Magic Moment Snowflake', done in cheap Venus crochet cotton from my local craft shop. It's fresh off the shuttles, unblocked, ends showing. However, the tatting is done. So is this blog entry.

Done is better than perfect.

Baby bangle

2009-10-19T18:21:00.000-07:00

When I saw this blog I knew I had to make a bracelet for my little lady. She loves accessories. Since she's only three, I worry about sharp metal bits and pointy pieces. I bangle made of paper and thread? Perfect!

My first two attempts went wrong. The base wrap tangled with the thread and the thread itself wouldn't line up. I think the problem is in the material. Your base can't be made out of floppy, glossy junk mail paper, and cotton balls don't work as padding.

I switched to heavy card stock and wooly serger thread and tried again. The bracelet on the left and the ring on top are the result. These went to my daughter. She's bashed them about a lot, so they look rather worse for wear.

My big guy doesn't like to be left out, so he requested a bangle for himself. He even chose the colours. I switched to plastic for the base and made the ones on the right and the bottom. They're holding up better than the paper based ones, and have even survived a few dunkings. I'm looking forward to making more of these in the future, perhaps one for myself next time.

Birthday dress

2009-10-13T06:27:00.000-07:00

I did make a little something for my little lady's birthday a few months back. I turned an old shirt with a ripped seam into a little dress.

Here's a close up of the smocking. It's a simple diamond stitch in a pastel rainbow of colours. It was quick and easy to do because diamond stitch works up fast. Actually, it took longer to gather the pleats than to do the actual smocking. If I were to do it again, I'd choose slightly darker shades.

I've made her quite a few dresses out of old clothes, but this will probably be the last. She's gotten big enough that getting enough fabric is too much of a struggle. Here are some previous dresses from re-purposed material. The pink one is from an old batik sarung and the blue one was a baby blanket.

It's not like I don't have any new fabric to work with. I think it's more that if a piece of fabric manages to stay out of the rag pile, it must be very comfy, very pretty, and well loved. I like the thought of passing some of that love on to my little girl.

I'm quite pleased with the results, since this is only my second attempt at smocking. Here's my first, a top I made for myself when I was a teenager. Clearly I hadn't yet learned that sometimes, less is more. There is way too much fabric in the smocked section, resulting in a HUGE ruffle. I had to stitch some elastic along the top just to hold it up. I can only wear it when I'm feeling super skinny or else I feel eight months pregnant.

Birthdays

2009-08-27T18:17:00.000-07:00

I just got through two birthdays and some tight deadlines at work. My kids have birthdays two weeks apart. So far I've resisted the temptation to combine their birthday celebrations. I figure they are beautiful little people (5 and 3 now) and deserve their own special days.

Each kid gets two events, one at their play school, one with the family. For my big guy's birthday, he had cupcakes and origami to take to school. I made almost 100 cupcakes and 100 models. I'm kicking myself for not taking pictures. The cupcakes were quite a sight en masse.

Oh well, imagine the cupcakes in the picture (made for another occasion), multiplied by 4, in pink and blue and green and chocolate. My big guy loves to help decorate cupcakes. Every time we go through the baking supply section, he talks me into buying a tube of sprinkles. He's also beginning to learn how to fold origami.

For the little lady, I made goody bags. She's a sweet girl, and her face lights up when she sees something 'piddy' (pretty). Each bag had a washi egg, a bright bundle of cookies and other bits and pieces.

I feel light when I look at those pictures. They represent a very successful stash-busting exercise. Aside from the baking supplies, everything there (origami paper, florist paper and ribbon for bags, cellophane for cookies) came from my stash of craft supplies.

Each kid also got a home baked cake. The big guy got a big chocolate cake with chocolate cake. I did try to take a picture, but it was just a big slab of brown. Not good to look at. Here's the little lady's cake. It's a butter cake, with butter cream icing and marzipan flowers. She enjoyed the cake, but when she tried to eat the flowers, she was absolutely disgusted. Yuck! Oh well, perhaps I'll try using fondant next time.

Frayed denim

2009-06-20T13:36:00.000-07:00

I live in jeans, and as a result, I have quite a lot of old denim. So I thought I'd make a frayed denim blanket. Making it was harder than I thought it would be. I've never tried to handle that much weight through a sewing machine, and putting in that last row took some wrangling. Thank goodness for my mother's beautiful old Bernina. I'm glad I decided to offset the rows instead of doing a grid. If you tried to match the seams, you'd have to sew through 8 layers at each seam. With an offset setting, there are only 6 layers.

Fraying the seams caused me quite a bit of anxiety. It took me over a week to cut all the seams. I tried everything, scissors, clippers even electric scissors. The scissors could barely cut through the cloth. The clippers worked, but only through two layers. So, it took two passes to finish a seam. It took forever, it hurt my hands, and I got bored. The electric scissors were the most comfortable, but they kept slicing through the stitching.

In the end, the easiest was to use a simple blade cutter. I put the seam on a chopping board, then hacked at it with the blade. It still hurt the hands, but it was quick and strangely satisfying.

After cutting the seams, the blanket went through a wash and dry cycle at the laundromat. There aren't many self service laundromats in my area, so even that was a bit of a challenge. I got a funny look from the girl in charge of the dryers when I pulled all the fluff out of the machine.

Here's the blanket before and after washing. The seams did fluff up nicely, but I don't think the effect is worth it. Too much effort. Next time, I'll find something else to do with my old jeans.

Almost round

2009-05-18T14:33:00.000-07:00

Today, I have a collection of almost round things to show. First are these washi eggs. I think I was influenced by all the decorated easter eggs floating around on the web; all those lovely spring colours. I spent part of my childhood in Canada, so easter eggs, chocolate bunnies and candy chicks definately have some resonance for me.
It took me the longest time to figure out how to blow out the eggs. I googled for instructions and kept reading about drilling holes and using rotary tools. So I hijacked one of my father's drill bits and gave myself sore fingers spinning the thing around on the egg, trying hard not to crack the shell. In the end, I got frustrated and just tapped the drill bit against the egg. That worked wonderfully; a beautiful, tiny hole, no sore fingers. I still don't quite have the knack of it though. I can't find a straw/tube slim enough to slip into the egg without creating a gigantic hole. Next time I'll try a sports ball pump or something like that.

Next are these almost round origami balls (they're actually cuboctahedrons). I still feel stunned looking at these thing. Who would have thought that you could get such lovely curves from straight, square papers. Those clever, clever origamists...

Little boy sewing

2009-04-30T20:59:00.000-07:00

I've been doing a bit of sewing for my little guy lately. This is the backpack I made for him to take to school. It's fully lined, and it's got just enough space for a change of clothes, his activity books and his colour pencils.

This is the top of the bag. I don't know if you can see from the picture, but there are three loops there. Two are for the straps. Originally the plan was to thread the straps through the loops, fold them over, then sew them down. I put the bag on my little guy and just knotted the straps to get the right length. The knots held so well that I've never gotten around to the sewing. I almost didn't put in the third loop, but now I'm glad I did. It's perfect for hanging the bag on a hook.

I have a beautiful piece of pink cloth that I'm itching to turn into a bag for my little lady, but putting in that covered zipper caused me quite a bit of hair pulling. I'm not going to attempt another bag until I've figured out a saner method of inserting a zipper into a lined bag.

Here's the new 'baju melayu' (traditional Malay clothing) I made for my little guy. Yes, it's pink. He chose the colour himself. He's a sweet guy. Once, I put some ribbon flowers on his sister's dress. I had some extra flowers, so he requested that I put them on his pants. I put them up near the waistband, hidden by his shirt, so it wouldn't cause too much teasing at school.

I haven't made a 'baju melayu' for my little guy in a while, so I decided to do a 'tulang belut' (eel spine stitch) on the neckline. This stitch is a feature of traditional 'baju melayu'. It's a decorative stitch which also helps to strengthen the neckline. It's kind of like a herring-bone stitch lying on its side.
Mine isn't as even as it could be, for a few reasons. Firstly, I don't practice it enough. Secondly, I cheat. As you make the stitches, you're supposed weave them over and under each other. I cheat by doing the stitch correctly, but omitting the weaving. It speeds things up a bit.

After all this little boy sewing, I feel a bit guilty. The little lady needs clothes too. I have to get moving and plan some dresses for her.

Paper quilling

2009-04-15T12:48:00.000-07:00

When I was looking for the crepe paper iris pattern, I saw an article for quilling. I couldn't resist, so I made these little uglies.

As usual, I neglected to read instructions carefully, so I cut 1.5 cm strips instead of the usual 3-5mm. The result is way too bulky.

These picture frames were next. For the black and pink frame, I had planned to do the white scrolls all the way around, but my little guy (my son) got involved. The big red ... roses? ... on the right are his idea.

The last paper item for the day is this little Kusudama ball, design selection and phtography courtesy of my little guy.

Temari

2009-03-30T13:10:00.000-07:00

I made these temari a few years ago. The balls look a little worse for wear because I let them be used in the traditional sense (basically, I let my kids play with them).

I was learning to make these following tutorials from the excellent, but now sadly defunct, Temari 101 website. The site was great. The first ball featured overlapped diamonds (the small blue one). It took me two tries to get it right. The black, red and white ball was my first try.

The next tutorials featured a whole bunch of spindle balls. I made one (the pink one), then I had my first baby. Temari require marking with lots and lots of pins. Pins and babies don't mix, so I stopped for a while.

The kids are bigger now, so I ready to try some more. The black one is another spindle ball.

The yellow one is my mis-guided attempt to follow these excellent instructions. I'll have to try again some other time. I seem to do better with my second attempts.

The ball at the back is the Rainbow design from the Temari Traditions book.

These two are my latest. They are both attempts of the Triads design from Temari Traditions. The design is a fully covered ball (meaning that the entire surface off the ball is covered with stitching thread). Getting the effect requires precise marking, something I'm still working at. The purple ball looks pretty good though, so I'm happy.

More paper flowers

2009-03-22T00:16:00.000-07:00

The thing with my son is that once he starts making something he won't stop. After the button flowers, he wanted more flowers. So I broke out my paper craft books.

We upgraded from pipe cleaners and scrap paper to proper floral wire and crepe paper. He cut and glued, and I assembled. We did the roses sort of like they did here, but much lazier, just drawing everything free hand.

The iris is from one of my old craft magazines. Now he's insisting he needs more than one purple flower.

Quick origami decorations

2009-03-08T07:19:00.000-07:00

I was itching for a quick finish project, so I made these origami decorations. These are the first three balls from this book. They are made of six paper squares, folded, then glued together. The folding part comes together pretty quickly, and putting on the tassels is very satisfying.

I must have been feeling an urge to minimize when I made these. The first one is grape fruit sized. The second is orange size. The last one is lime sized.

Paper hearts

2009-03-06T05:47:00.000-08:00

I did some crafting with my 4 1/2 year old today. We made the paper flowers from here. My little guy chose the paper. I drew the hearts. He cut them out, and we assembled them together.

The stems are pipe cleaners. I haven't played with pipe cleaners in years, forgot how much fun they are. Have to get more pipe cleaners...

Strappy dresses

2009-03-02T05:58:00.001-08:00

I thought I'd start with some of my daughter's dresses. These are two strap tops I made for my lovely little lady recently. This first sunny dress was a real breeze to make.

It came together in a charmed three hour session during one of my daughter's rare naps. I even managed to get the heart-flowers embroidered before she woke up.

The second dress was the complete opposite. Here's the first version. That pink ribbon added a touch of colour, but it made the dress too stiff. The straps were too long and the whole thing just fit my little lady. Trust me, 'just fits' is not how you want to describe the dress of a growing two year old.

I decided to un-pick the side-seams, straps and skirt and fix the mistakes. In two days of seam ripping and re-sewing I managed to attach the back opening backwards and sew the skirt so that it was twisted like a pretzel.

It finally did come together though. She's worn it a few times, so now I feel better about all that un-picking.