Tat's Heaven

I am always trying to find ways to tidy all the bits and pieces that are around the house connected with tatting and came up with two helpful ways to do this.  Off I trot to the garage to see if they are possible, so with suggestions from the boss of the garage, we came up with these. Let me introduce an Aero bobbin holder, they can be loaded with up to six bobbins on each stem, either empty all full of thread.  They are only suitable for Aero bobbins but could (if someone really wanted one) be made to take machine bobbins, which would mean making the stems thinner, at the moment the bobbins fit comfortably on the stems. Not stopping with one idea the next one is an ez bob holder. It only takes the large and small size though, as they are the only ones I have to gauge the size of the holes in the middle, each size is different.   This is the prototype and the next one needs a wider base as the bobbins slightly over lap which is not ideal.  The bead at the top comes o...

As well as the button necklace this has become one of my favourites and I just can't stop making them.  They have also been admired by many people who are amazed to hear that they are tatted! These two are using HDT from Natalie at The Yarn Yard. The one above is called 'Fairground' and the one below is 'Caterpillar'. The colours are so vibrant. The next two are threads that Sue Anna kindly sent me the first one is  Lizbeth 'Niagara Falls' And this one is a HDT called 'Snowflake', these are much paler colours but they still look just as good especially on a darker skin. You will have noticed that in a previous post I ordered the beads for the centres and I thought I had enough findings, until I came to the silver lobster clips and so ended up searching old jewelry for them! Must go and buy some. Most of you have probably heard by now that I am accompanying Jane (well she is actually looking after me!) to the Palmetto Tat Days in September - this wil...

For over 25 years I have been associated with the Beaver Scouts in the UK, they are the youngest members of the Scout Organisation aged 6 - 8 yrs old.  So every-time someone wants to design a tatted animal and doesn't know what to choose, I shout 'A Beaver' in a very loud voice.  I have even nagged Jane for years and years and so she finally designed one as a doodle, which she will put on her web site next week and here he is. I just love his huge white tooth. These are my beavers, I don't consciously collect them, they just happen to come my way, the one on the far right at the back I won in a raffle. The Canadian Mountie and the one at the front were brought back from from Canada by friends, and the other two are associated with Beaver Scouts.  I have no house room for anymore! About 15 years ago I acquired quite a large stuffed Beaver and it became our colony Beaver Scout mascot and we named him Boris.  Unfortunately the older Scouts got hold of him and put a cord...

Today marks 200 years since Edward Lear was born. He was an English artist, illustrator, author, and poet, renowned today primarily for his literary nonsense, in poetry and prose, and especially his limericks, a form that he popularised.   Almost everyone knows his nonsense poem  "The Owl and the Pussycat"                                                                      The Owl  and the Pussycat  went to sea In a beautiful pea-green boat, They took some honey, and plenty of money,                                           Wrapped up in a five pound note.                                    ...

Having made so many of Jane's winsome earrings I decided to make a necklace using the same method and here it is. Quite a long necklace! I must admit it was a bit of a fiddle taking the thread off the shuttles each time and feeding them through the beads, but it was well worth the effort. I purchased some beads before the postage went up in the UK, being particularly interested in the flat shell beads which are so useful for both earrings and necklaces.  I was going to wait and look for these on holiday but decided that if I saw more I could buy them, as long as I remembered the colours that I  already have!  In the meantime I am actually using these beads now, so they were well worth purchasing.

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 ...