Not Alot of Tatting Goin' On

I had another week where I didn't get much tatting done. I really tried. I did manage some early in the week, but I got sidetracked with other projects.

You may be wondering what I was working on if I wasn't tatting. Well, this:

It's a chainmaille bag, often called a dice bag. I finally decided to make one, and honestly, I'm quite impressed with it. While it was fairly easy to make (bear in mind that I am working my way up to making a chainmaille shirt for myself-maybe; we'll see), I'm not sure if I will be making these for sale. Unless someone wants one; it does make a cute tatting bag, if lined and/or you place small cloth bags inside it. Which is what I did:

You should be able to see a red coloured thing through the chainmaille. That would be the Poke Proof Pouch I bought from Jane Eborall a while ago. Might have to buy a few more. Anyway, the Pouch is in my dice bag for a reason. And here they are:

Yup, I have a couple more Pop-a-Bobbin shuttles in my possession. The light one is made out of Cedar, and the black one is Ebony. I love them!!! Sally has a nice story on her blog about some cedar wood she got from a local church. I've been wondering if my cedar shuttle was made out of it. Maybe Jane or Sally could let me know. I'm still on Jane's list for a Coco bola Rosewood shuttle; hopefully it will still be possible. Anyway, they both work great. And, the hooks seem a little different. A little more refined, perhaps. They're still made by Sally's husband, Nick (you all may know him better as "I'm in the garage", but it seems weird for me to call him that; I mean, if I had a garage, I might have that name too). Mind you, I may have gotten better at using the hooks.

And finally, we come to the small amount of tatting that I managed to make this week.

This edging was made from a pattern that Mark, AKA, Tatman shared on several tatting list a week or so ago. In a way, we were his test tatters. The way the pattern was written caused it the curve severely. Six repeats would make a circular motif. I made a few modifications to make the edging straight. It's very pretty, though the large rings at the bottom were kinda a pain in the butt to close since they are so large. I used Lizbeth size 20 in colour number 663 for the edging.

I haven't done much else in the way of needlecrafts. I have, however, been working on a few projects of the culinary type. I've been making cheese! That's right, every weekend for the past month, I've made a small (~2 pounds in weight) block or wheel of cheese. Nothing fancy; the first three were simply called "basic hard cheese". I also made some Feta cheese (which tastes great by the way). This weekend, I made some "Stirred Curd Cheddar". I've got some photos, if your interested. What's that? You want to see them. Here they are:
















The Feta is in the jar on the left. The cheese on the right is the Cheddar I made this weekend. It has to air dry for a few days, then it needs to be waxed. I then have to age it for at least two months. Fortunately, the other cheeses that I made will be ready before this one. In case you're wondering, the Cheddar recipe is from the book Home Cheesemaking by Ricki Carroll. Ricki has a website where you can buy the book, and other cheesemaking supplies. The basic cheese and feta recipes are from this website.

That's it for now. We'll see what happens on the tatting front. Hopefully I will get a significant amout of tatting done. Till next time.