Tat's Heaven

Burns Night is annually celebrated in Scotland on or around January 25. It commemorates the life of the bard (poet) Robert Burns, who was born on January 25, 1759. The day also celebrates Burns' contribution to Scottish culture. Burns' best known work is "Auld Lang Syne".   To mark the occasion I tatted some Scottish thistles, here is one I wore as a brooch yesterday. Although I do not live in Scotland, last night I went to a Burns Night celebration in a country house where the host is Scottish.  I tatted 80 thistles to be placed on the table, you can just see one on the right of the picture. I designed this particular pattern for the thistles myself, it is quick and easy, well it had to be with so many to make!  The picture does not show up the table cloth very well,  but it is pure linen and over 100 years old. The evening was great fun with the traditional  haggis accompanied by neeps (swedes or turnips ) and tatties (potatoes).  This is when  pota...

My first attempt at a pattern from Marilee Rockley's book Tatted Jewelry which Sue Anna kindly sent to me.  The aim was to start with a pair of earrings, but instead I went straight to the necklace featured on the front cover called "Newcastle Necklace" I was intrigued at the name of this necklace as we have a city of Newcastle in England, perhaps Marilee can tell us what prompted her to name the necklace as I am sure it had nothing to do with England.  I think I might rename mine "Celtic Dream" only because the charm looks celtic and of course it is green for Ireland.  Actually I had little choice on the colour as apart from some HDT which I am saving for the other necklace in the book, I only had green in 10 that was usable, the border was the combination of two threads.  The charm was also the only one I had in my stash so hopefully it does not look too out of place. As promised this is the progress on the font, designed by us, we had the plans drawn up for i...

There has been great excitement here in the last few days and we are in "wood heaven".  I admit not everyone gets excited by wood, but when there is an "Im in the garage" to please,  then it is a good enough reason!  The first bit of excitement was learning that a piece of Oregon Myrtle kindly sent by Karen had cleared the dreaded English customs and was on its way to us.  The other was discovering when walking home from work yesterday that a tree just around the corner was being cut and it was an English oak.    My first instinct was of course to ask the men felling the tree if I could take a piece, and yes I was allowed, but obviously I could not carry much. The tree looked like this yesterday after its massive prune, it definitely had had a "bad hair day" or a "close shave". When "Im in the garage" returned home from work we went out in the freezing cold and dark to gather a few more choice pieces from the huge selection.  It felt as...

If you go to over to Jane's blog you will see a beautiful Christmas tree that she has designed, it is so clever and fun to make.  Whilst I was with her at the beginning of January she showed me one of the trees she had completed and kindly gave me the pattern (perks of being her sister!).  I could not wait to try it out in lots of colours, but so far only managed one and here it is.  It will look fabulous in white, silver, gold, purple............................. Again many thanks for the comments regarding the new hooks,  I have now ordered the crochet hooks but will have to wait for two weeks before they will arrive at the English supplier from Japan.   However, I can inform you that there will be a variety made including double hooked ones (thanks to Jon for suggesting that idea),  but obviously these particular ones will have to be slightly more expensive than the single hooked ones. In the meantime 'Im in the garage will be concentrating on the ...

Thank you to all who purchased shuttles over the weekend, they went incredibly fast out of Jane's shop and I can inform you that they were all posted this morning. 'Im in the garage is having a little break from shuttle making as he needs to catch up with some other wood work projects.  He is just about to start to make a baptismal font for one of the churches.  I ordered the bowl for it today and work will commence this weekend, if I am able I will show your pictures of its progress. We have been thinking of a new line, but need some feedback to whether it is worth making a quantity of them. Not everyone likes a hook on the end of a pop-a-bobbin shuttle and others prefer to use a post shuttle so we were wondering if a hook on the end of a piece of turned wood is an item that  people would wish to purchase? The picture shows three in purple heart wood (the shuttle on the right of the blog header), they have removable caps on the end with a ring on the other end so that th...

It is the Feast of the Epiphany in the church, and strangely enough I seem to write a blog post on this day every year.  Epiphany means a sudden realisation or comprehension of the meaning of something.  My Epiphany was this week when Jane showed me, probably not for the first time, how to do a split chain, something that in the past I just could not get my head around and tried to avoid as much as possible.  My only problem is now finding enough time to actually sit down and put into practice what I have learnt, especially since returning home and catching up on things that need doing.   Just as I was having a tatting lesson the post came and a card with a red envelope arrived through Jane's door. Inside the envelope was a tiny little sock and tiny little mitten.  The mitten was for Jane and the sock was for me, we are not often together so the timing was excellent and as you can see it has a pop-a-bobbin shuttle in it, a Mahonia one which is my very own shuttl...