Tatting and temari

There are two unfinished doilies sitting in my drawers.  I'm trying to finish them.  It's not going well.  Here's the smaller one.  The pattern from a Japanese book, and it's supposed to be dainty and lovely.  Right now, it looks like a dish rag.

I know blocking will do wonders, but I had to take a break before I got discouraged.  So I made a temari.

Good week for tatting

It's been a productive tatting week for me.  I finished a collar and an edging, both from the Tatter's Treasure Chest.

With the left over thread, I made these little onion ring motifs, from 'The Tatting Book 111'.

And for a final distraction, there's this little bracelet, from a pattern of my own devising.

Bit by the tatting bug

I tend to swing back and forth between my various hobbies.  Right now I'm tatting, and starting too many new projects.  That's the thing about a hobby though.  You can start as many projects as you want.  No deadlines, no pressure.

I'm working on a tatted collar.

It's actually a re-make.  I made one a few years as a way of coping with a truly painful work project.  Unfortunately the stress shows in the work and there are shredded, discoloured parts where I pulled too hard.

I also finished a Bloomer bracelet designed by Marilee Rockley.  I made one out of DMC Cebelia thread.  The little lady wore it to a school outing and it instantly turned into a floppy, fuzzy mess.  So now I'm on the lookout for a thread that works better for wear-ables.  I wore this today and it seems to be holding up quite well.

How long is long enough?

With shuttles firmly back in hand, I'm back to tatting.  This is an edging I started a while back.  I was thinking of making a border for a skirt, but I realize now that I don't have the patience.  So now I'm planning to put it on a bag.

The question now is how long should it be? I think I'll just empty the shuttles and call that long enough.

I can tat

It took a bit of time to reactivate the muscle memory, but thankfully, I can still tat. The pattern is the "Nouveau" bracelet by Marilee Rockley The thread is some HDT made by fellow Malaysian, Zarina.

I had some extra yarn from making the pony, so I made a heart too.  The pattern is from heidibears.

Relearning

I finished my crochet project. It's a little flower pony from a design by Heidi Bears.

The pony came out so nicely, I felt confident about starting new project.  I picked up the tatting shuttles and started a bracelet.  After spending too much time trying to find the right thread and beads, this is the mess I made of things.

Looks like I'll have to do a bit of relearning before I can tat successfully again.

Tatting, sewing and crochet

I finished the tatted bookmarks.  There are 7 little bookmarks, one for each day of the week.  I couldn't decide which project to start, so I started both; one amigurumi (another Rose Roxy) and a top for the little lady.

Maybe I should start a knit shawl too, just so the knitting needles don't feel left out...

Itchy fingers

I'm itching to start a project.  I tried making myself finish stuff.  I finished a rainbow loom bracelet (lattice braid from Amanda and Monica RLoomy) and three little tatted bookmarks.

It doesn't seem to help.  I still want to start something new.  I've got a bunch of yarn dumped out on my table.  Maybe I'll start a doll tomorrow, or maybe sew something for the kiddos.  We'll see.

Simple tatting

I'm not actually doing tatting penance, but I am tatting something else for a bit.  I found this in my tatting box.

A while back, a local magazine asked about doing a piece on tatting and asked for a simple project.  I was playing around with making a simple bookmark, showing the work at different stages.  The tatting article did get published, but this project didn't get used.  I figured I might as well turn the bits into something usable.  I'm finding the simple rings and chains quite soothing.

Two steps forward, one step back

I was feeling good about wrapping up unfinished projects, so I picked up a doily I've been working on for years and started tatting on it again.  I started the final row, still feeling good.  Then I realized I'd misread the pattern and missed a ring.

I had to chop off the final row.  It's a good thing I managed to take it off without nicking the previous row.  Still, I feel like I should do some sort of tatting penance for making such a silly mistake.

Cleaning out my desk

Last week I pulled out all the little unfinished projects around my table and took a stab at finishing them.  I had 3 unfinished items, and now I'm happy to say that they're all done!

I have a tatted bookmark...

a rainbow loom bracelet (pattern by YarnJourney)...

and a unicorn finger puppet (pattern by WhisperedWhimsy).

Got to choose one

I've been playing around with Kak Jon's little tatted motif, trying to find ways to interweave them.  I thought I'd gotten a decent way through, then I really looked at it this morning and realized I'd done the joining in two different ways, one through the side, and one through the middle.  Now I've got to choose one and cut off the bits that aren't woven the right way.  I guess I've forgotten some of my tatting wisdom after all.

I'll post one more picture of the knitted shawl (design by Ilga Leja) before I stop talking about it.

Something I used to do

I seem to remember that I used to do a lot of tatting.  I still like my tatting shuttles, but I'm just fickle when it comes to crafting.  I do whatever I feel like, no rhyme and reason to it.

Jon over at Tat-a-Renda shared a little motif, so I decided to break out the shuttles and see if I can still flip a knot.

Looks like I still can.

Various states of tatting

I have too many tatting projects, all of them at various stages of completion.  Here's the only completed piece.  It's Jane Eborall's 2014 TIAS.  I finished it weeks ago, but took forever to get a picture.  I really enjoyed the clever way the mast is worked.

Here are the unfinished projects.  That messy pile contains 2 doilies and an edging.  I think the only way to reduce the pile is to focus and practice project monogamy.  Unfortunately, I keep getting distracted by every shiny bracelet pattern that comes my way.

Tatting Mysteries

I've missed the first part of Jane Eborall's mystery TIAS 2014, but this weekend, the excitement got to me and I spent some time getting all caught up.  The HDT is from fellow Malaysian Zarina.  Isn't it pretty?

Tatting continues slowly on the Mystery doily by Vickie Reynolds.  Here it is at Round 5.

This pattern has ever so many tiny rings to pull closed.  I think that's why this happened:

Oh well, I guess that's a sign to go shuttle shopping.

Sewing

I've been making Halloween costumes.  I'm normally not keen on Halloween.  Malaysia has many, many festivals, and I don't see the need to import any more.  Still, my son's music school had a Halloween themed concert and I didn't want him to miss out on the fun.  So, I decided to make costumes that had some chance of being used afterwards.  For the little guy, I made overalls (from a Burda pattern) and a hat (from fleetingthing.com) so he could go as Mario.

The little lady wanted to be Princess Peach, so I made her a dress (from a McCall's pattern) and a crown (inspired by a tutorial from craftyc0rn3r).

This was my first time using downloadable patterns and I have to admit, I'm very pleased with the results.  Cutting, trimming and assembling the patters wasn't exactly a party, but it was not as fiddly or frustrating as I thought it would be.  The results are more precise than anything I'd attempt to draft by myself.

I started the mystery doily for the third time.  This time, I'm using Cebelia 20, a thread that I have in large quantities.  Here it is at round three.  Hopefully third time's the charm and I'll actually make it to the final round with this one.

Distracted

My bead tray is now all cleared and put away.  I made a tasbih for my mother, and a little beaded heart.  The heart pattern is from 3dbeading.

I hid the ends and pressed the two completed rounds of the mystery doily and decided it was done.  It's a decent size to put under a vase and I've run out of thread.  I contemplated getting more, but going through my thread stash convinced me that I have too much thread.  So I am starting again, with different thread.  I've actually made decent progress on my third try, but no pictures yet.

I've cleared most of my small piles of random craft supplies and was planning to tackle my sewing basket.  However, I got some new toys in the mail and got distracted.  These are little fabric flowers made with Clover Kanzashi flower makers.  So now, I have another little pile of unfinished items.  Sigh.

Simple tatting

A few months ago, I was asked for a tatting project suitable for a do-it-yourself project.  To be honest, I think tatting is skill.  It takes time to learn and isn't all that suitable for quick project.  Still it got me thinking about simpler forms of tatting.

Here's the simplest thing I could think of to tat.  It's a card with tatted flowers.  I think these are good for using up thread scraps and for playing with picot sizes.

I also wanted to make something with simple rings and chains; something that could be tatted with a paper shuttle using any kind of thread.  These book marks are the result. From the top, these are made with pearl cotton size 8, Cebelia size 20 and embroidery floss.

I must have been feeling industrious because I actually scratched out a diagram for these.  Here's the proof.

The mystery doily continues.  I actually finished round 2 with my variegated thread.  Unfortunately, round 3 didn't work out.  I'd planned to switch to a different colour of pearl cotton thread from my stash.  It seems that not all pearl cottons are created equal, so round 3 had smaller stitches than round 2.  The whole thing looked bad, so out came the scissors, snippety snip snip.  Ah well, time to come up with another plan.

Also ongoing is my quest to clean up my piles of random craft supplies.  Here's the next pile to tackle: my overflowing bead tray.

A flaw in my plan

The Mystery Doily is coming along and I'm happy with the thread colour.  However, there's a flaw in my plan.  This is only the second round and that's how much thread I have left.  I'll be lucky if there's enough to finish this round.  I'm still deciding whether to go hunting for more of the same thread or to make the other rounds in other colours.

I've been itchy fingered lately, starting lots of little projects and not finishing them.  The abandoned supplies all over the place are starting to bother me, so I'm trying to spend the next week or two finishing things up.

Today's project is these tiny butterfly hair clips.  The butterflies have been sitting in a box for months now.  Today, I wrapped the clips in black ribbon, added antenna and sewed on the butterflies.  The pattern is from the One & Two Company.

Here's the next thing on the list.  Hopefully tomorrow there will be finished objects instead of a pile randomness.

Behind

I'm getting behind on a lot of things.  I've been meaning to tat this mystery doily from Georgia Seitz's website along with Kak Jon.  I'd meant to start almost a month ago, but only now managed to get enough momentum to tat.

Here's my first try.  I don't want to use white thread because I already have a plain doily in progress, so I thought working with a strand of gold thread would be fun.  It doesn't look good and it's so stiff I doubt it'll block nicely.

Here's the next try and I think it's a keeper.  It's variegated Anchor pearl cotton.  So far, I like the slight colour changes.  I'll think again after the first round is finished.  If it looks too muddy, I'll give in and switch to white.