Tat's Heaven

A bit of tatting and a lot of nattering went on this weekend as I was with Jane.   This was a photograph taken with Jane holding her Ipad, it took quite a few attempts to get a reasonable picture!   As the year progresses I hope to get a few more photographs of myself and other tatters, who I will be meeting in various parts of the world. In my luggage was the latest batch of shuttles which will be sold in her Etsy shop very soon. Jane also introduced me to this most useful tool that I did not know even existed, it is for opening split rings so that chains etc can be fitted on them.  The gadget is now on my shopping list, no I did not take hers away with me!  Previous to discovering it I was trying to open them with scissors and my poor nails and you can guess who came off the worst! I went for a shower yesterday and the cat had decided to get there before me!  I am now home where there are no felines to get in my way! But she is cute!

We are having awful weather in the UK so much rain and it is really cold, just a fortnight ago some water authorities were about to impose a hosepipe ban due to an acute shortage of rainfall.  On Sunday I saw a really funny sight in the middle of the town, a man was standing with an umbrella sheltering from the rain and a duck had decided to waddle next to him so that it also did not get wet!     Panic hit the country just before Easter after the petrol tanker drivers threatened to go on strike, culminating into a fuel shortage as people filled up their tanks.  The latest shortage is postage stamps as people rush to buy them before a huge price increase next week.  Things are really crazy here.   I turned the Easter Egg pattern into a bookmark This is Martha Ess's bookmark Mirror, Mirror from her book Playing with Picots Also from the same book Canopy No one said there was going to be a shortage of thread or shuttles so we just keep on tatting!  Which ...

As you know my big sister has written and so kindly shared many of her patterns.  Over the years I have managed to tat only about half of them.  On her last blog post she showed a pattern that went over a CD and I got it mixed up with another pattern of hers that I had tatted in that era which was this one  The clever thing about this snowflake pattern is the two thicknesses of thread that are used.  The tatting isn't very good as I was learning to do SCMRs at the time, but it was a really good way to practise them. I also look at the thread colours and sigh to myself, as at that time I had such a limited supply, even some of the beads I don't recognise anymore.  I feel very spoilt now with all the different colours that are available including variegated, and HDT - its a tatters paradise!

It could be said that, along with many others in this part of England, I have become a little obsessed with the RMS Titanic which hit an iceberg 100 years ago today and sank in the early hours of the 15 th April 1912 in the North Atlantic with the loss of over 1,500 lives. Part of the reason for the need to soak up all the information that can be found about what happened to this ship and its passengers on its disastrous maiden voyage; is that I live very close to the port of Southampton and many of its crew came from this area. At the time of the disaster there was hardly a single street in the city that hadn’t lost someone on that ship and in those days that meant families were left without any income, there was no compensation or help for them. The stories of the crew and the passengers have been told and retold many times but they are fascinating.  I have even met two people who had relations on board the fated ship. Someone I know very well discovered that her great unc...

There might be just time, if you can find thread and buttons, to make one or more of these eggs before tomorrow!  I have had so much fun making them and giving them away.  The six eggs below were made using HWT (hand wound thread). The pattern instructions are loosely based on the buttons and thread sizes given but stitch count can be altered if they do not lie correctly, especially on the first and last chain.  Buttons are not all uniform sizes and so for that matter nor is thread!  Many thanks for the encouraging comments on my last blog post and I hope you enjoy making them as much as I have. The larger version with beads  And some were turned into Easter Cards I hope you all have an egg-citing time making them! BUTTON EGG PATTERN   ©  Sally Kerson 2012 Materials required:- 1 four holed button slightly under ½ ” for size 40 thread or slightly over ½ ” for size 20 thread. Abbreviations: R ring Ch Chain Cl close p picot LBP long bead picot vs...

As I said in my last post I had another idea for a design and this one is very seasonal, and yes as Jane McLellan said there is a huge gap between the original idea and the final product, but I don't find that gap fun at all!  I have worked on this particular idea all week between preparing for Holy Week and children's activities, and also having a massive Spring clean in certain areas of the house.  I even spent hours removing wood dust off the freezer washing machine and surrounding areas in the garage, when 'Im in the garage was out, you have no idea what mess he makes in there to produce shuttles! So the result is these two button eggs, well I hope you recognise them as such!  I showed the first one to several people but did not say what it was supposed to be and they all said it was a pendant.  I was rather deflated at that, but how would they know what I was trying to design?  I then came up with the second button egg.  So which one should I run with?...

Not having the patience and the time to spend doing a lot of tatting, I  frequently have an idea in my head of a design and want instant and fulfilling results when I attempt to do it,  but this never happens.   I have such tremendous admiration for those who seem to just pluck something out of the air and then tat it. Although talking to my big sister it doesn't really happen like that, there are many trials and tribulations along the way.  I made this pendant, a failed attempt as it is not what I was aiming for, but I did wear it today, it reminds me, of a fuchsia flower Well a little!  But this one does have a bee attacking it! More shuttles and the new line of "hooks with hats" are going into Jane's Etsy shop later on today. A zebrano shuttle to wet your appetite. I have another tatting idea which I am going to try this week, so keep your fingers crossed!