Tat's Heaven

Another project I started almost exactly a year ago was a tatted trim for this scarf.   I never finished it at the time because I ran out of the big brown beads. When eventually I got some more beads to complete the project, interest of course was lost, together with the scarf!! So instead of a fringe this long scarf has a rather smart tatted trim.   Today was a bright and sunny day and I was really surprised to see the bits of the Cedar Tree that had been damaged in the storm had been chopped up.    Such an amazing amount of wood and so we are going to collect a few more logs tomorrow morning.

I managed to finish the bag which is embellished with tatting in the form of a braid.  Here is  another picture of it.  Must say I am quite  pleased with the result and the fact that there is at least one less 'work in progress' in the house now! And a close-up of the braid/tatting I used two threads together to make it more interesting.  Then tatted one row of chains with picots and the second row joined on to the first row as I went along, not pulling it too tight but keeping it firm.   Simple but very effective.  Here is another fun way of using tatting as an embellishment

I was meant to tell you either yesterday or first thing this morning that more shuttles would be on sale in Jane's Etsy shop, unfortunately life took over and I did not get around to writing a blog post until now.  However, it really wasn't necessary as the shuttles sold extremely fast .  After I heard the news I went into the garage to tell the 'shuttle maker',  and then we looked at the blocks of wood on the shelves trying to decide which should come down to the work bench in order to make the next batch of pop-a-bobbin shuttles.  About five years ago I purchased some tiny cards and envelopes and they have been very useful for putting the odd bit of tatting on, but I still have about 30 of them left and it seems pointless keeping all of them for the next five years   So I am making these tatted crosses and sticking them on the cards, some I will give away at Easter whilst others will be sold.  Here they are on the cards, all packaged up And the pattern is...

I finished as much as I wanted to do of the Masquerade runner, the final few squares were a real struggle to tat as I had lost complete interest in the project.   Also I am not completely happy with the end result and  it may need a tatted border around it to enhance the piece.  I was thrilled though to see that it went with the cushion that will be fairly near the finished runner, that is if I decide it should be on display.  So should I give it an orange border as depicted in the cushion or the dark blue? Decisions are awful to make but I think on this one it is going to be a matter of trial and error! There has been a lot of activity in the garage of late making items to sell to help pay for the fallen Cedar Tree.  A  new line came into being this weekend, a holding cross made with wood taken from a Wellingtonia Tree (Sequoia) which stands at the gate of the church. These crosses are very tactile as you can hold them in the palm of your hand and even put...

More shuttles will be in Jane's shop sometime Saturday, not sure when, you will have to be very vigilant and watch Jane's Etsy shop.  This time there will be post and pop-a-bobbin for sale made out of some very unusual wood.  However, one got left behind because I took a fancy to it.  The photograph does not do it justice but the wood is pink ivory and so it has a pink tinge to it. I only just managed to make time to join in with Jane's TIAS and here are my scissors.  I do confess that I did know what the end result was going to be right from the beginning, the pink pair were made before the game started, but it was fun watching everyone else guess. I love this pattern and can see me tatting it again and again, many thanks 'big sister'!