Thursday, November 22, 2012

Black Friday Sale

I try to avoid doing posts like this but, I think it's been a while. For anyone interested, I will be having a Black Friday sale. Everything will be 20% off. I'm not sure, but the coupon code on my blog should also work too. So, a possible 30% discount(or so) for followers of my blog. I'm not the only one having a sale, but you'll have to visit Jess' blog for the coupon code. My sale should happen automatically. I'm using an Etsy App to manage my sale. It should start at midnight (my time CST, I think).

That's it for now. I'm still working on the second motif from the Japanese book. I'll share once I'm done. Till next time.

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Motif From Japanese Book

I'm still here. I was in pain for most of last weekend, though I was feeling better by Monday. I was also happy (I know, I shouldn't be) to hear that I wasn't the only one who slipped going in to work that day. I guess our store manager slipped and fell too, among others. Anyway, it snowed again Friday night and during Saturday. So we got anther 6-8 inches of snow. It's supposed to warm up again by the end of the week. Anyway I want to make this short.

I managed to tat a motif from the new Japanese book I recently bought. And, I tatted it with the new HDT I got from Jess.


I assume it has a name but I can't read it. I guess it's pattern 7 from page 53 from the book Tatting Lace by Sumi Fujishige. It's tatted with Jess' Blue Ridge HDT in size 20. It measures about 3.5 inches is diameter. I guess this is more of a glass mat/coaster. This is also the centre of two other doilies in the book. Though I don't know if I'm going to continue in that direction. I'm sure if I could read the book, I could figure out a better way of doing it, but I had to unwind both shuttles in order to overlap the chains in the second round. I did that 12 times. Not fun. I forgot to mention it earlier, but I was using bobbin shuttles to tat this. The bobbins didn't fit through the space.

That's about it for now. I am working on another motif from the same book, which I hope to share soon. It's going MUCH faster than the above motif. I'm also crocheting a shawl for my mom. It'll probably be part of her Christmas gift this year. I also received my Palmetto's Tat Days Pattern CD-I ordered it as soon as they became available. And I've also ordered a few of those new Aerlit shuttles. You'll have to guess which colour(s) I ordered. Till next time.

Saturday, November 3, 2012

New Books, HDT, and Even Some Tatting

First of all, I'd like to mention how much I hate snow and ice. Mostly ice. We had some freezing rain Thursday night, followed by a fair amount of snow, 6-8 inches easily. I made it to work alright, however, I had an incident in the parking lot of my workplace. I was walking up to the building when I found a piece of ice. I slipped a bit, but caught myself. I walked a bit when I remembered something I forgot in my truck. I turned around and "found" the same piece of ice. I found myself on my back a second or two later. I'm fine. Just stiff and sore. Made for an interesting day anyway. A few of you commented about the snow on my last post. It isn't uncommon for us to have snow now. The last few years any that we get now melts away, and the snow that stays comes later and later.

I'll move on to the tatting related stuff now. As I mentioned earlier, I recently purchased a couple new tatting books. Both non English. Yeah, I know. I have two more books that I can't read. Both have diagrammed patterns, however. The first book is Japanese:


There's not much to say about the book. It's called Tatting Lace by Sumi Fujishige. There are a lot of nice patterns so you will probably see some of them. The next book is German:


Again, not much to say here either. This is Spitzen-Kreationen by Suzanne Schwenke. There are a number of nice patterns here too. In a way, some of them remind me of Mary Konior's patterns. There are number of motifs that look simple when by themselves but look much more complex when put together. The large doily on the cover is a good example. The single motifs are triangular. I know you will be seeing some of the patterns from this book

Finally, I'll share the small amount of tatting I've done since my last post.


This is the Ariel Glass Mat from Favorite Crochet & Tatting Designs, Book No. 205. This is the second pattern that I had rewritten. As I'm sure you can see, I made a couple of blatent errors towards the end of the motif. I don't know what happened. I've been working a lot lately, so I'll blame it on working too hard. I had planned on continuing tatting the 2nd and 3rd rounds, but I will have to redo it. I also spilled some Coke Zero all over it too, but I was fortunately using an ecru coloured thread, Lizbeth #603 size 20, so it doesn't really show. I really like the way this looks, though the eight "points" are kinda floppy. This could also work for a snowflake if you only did 6 repeats.

And finally (for reals this time!) I will show you the HDT I recently bought.


These are both from Jess. The top one is Havana, and the bottom one is Blue Ridge, both size 20. I don't really have any plans for them right now. I have Blue Ridge wound onto an Ez Bob, and I do plan on using it soon. Perhaps I'll make something from one of my new books.

That's it for now. I'll be going to bed soon. I have to work tomorrow, so I may miss the latest release of Pop-a-Bobbin shuttles from Jane. I do have the link to her shop on my smartphone so if I remember I'll check them out. I have been working on some chainmaille projects too. I hope to get a few of them listed soon. I am offering free North American shipping from now until Christmas for nearly everything. The Sterling silver jewelry is exempt. Due to my price changes, earrings qualify for free shipping too. Till next time.