Tatted Lion

Do you remember all those weddings I went to last year?  Surprise, surprise, now several babies are on the way.  Of course, I have to see if I can come up with something to tat for the new babies.
One of those new brides, our niece, was given a baby shower this last weekend.  I had two weeks to make something for her (the baby isn’t due for another month or so).  They have decorated the baby’s room with “The Lion King” so I started thinking, lion, meerkat, warthog, that type of thing.  I happen to come across Jennifer Williams’ lion pattern and thought “this is it!”
   
© 2008 Jennifer Williams 
Tatted by Wanda Salmans March 2014
This is how it looked before I put the glass on.  I wanted to take the picture without a reflection.  Then, while I was getting it ready to wrap I looked again and thought I would change it just a bit – then forgot to take another picture.
© 2008 Jennifer Williams 
Tatted by Wanda Salmans March 2014
This is how it ended up. Can you see the difference?   Look at the head, I added one more strand of mane.
The lion pattern is actually pretty easy.  Except for the mane and tail it is entirely rings and chains. The hardest part was just keeping track of where I was at any time. The tail is made with Split Ring Braid which I had never tried before.  It’s not really hard, either, but I kept pulling the wrong side through – again and again.  Jennifer has this technique on her page.  I did the mane a bit different than the pattern which are split ring stands; I added lots of picots then cut them open.  I also added a bit of fluff in front of the ear. 
I’m adding this as #12 of my current 25 Motif Challenge
The second picture is from the baby shower.  I’m hoping the parent’s-to-be like it.  There was a lot going on and they didn’t have a much time to look at it.  But I think it came out well.  
Now I have another couple of baby gifts to come up with.  And I just received a request for a decorated bag like I was making last fall.  And I have a couple of patterns that I’m trying to diagram for my pattern page.  And I’ve been having to work a lot of overtime.  And, and, and…!  I think I’m going to be busy for a while!
“I’m not busy… a woman with three children under the age of 10 wouldn’t think my schedule looks so busy.” 
Garrison Keillor
www.brainyquote.com

A change in plans

Last week I came to work with everything I needed to start a button bracelet during my lunch time.  Or so I thought.  I got everything out to start and realized I had forgotten the buttons!  When I started bemoaning the fact I couldn’t start my project my husband started looking around my office and I asked him what he was 
looking for. “Washers” he replied.
Washers – why not?

Lizbeth black in size 20, silver beads, and 7/16″ washers

I decided to use washers so I could start the bracelet instead of waiting.  I think they look pretty good in this bracelet.
I was re-making this bracelet to write up and diagram the pattern.  Using washers instead of 2-hole buttons changes the look as the rings are more spread out on the washers than they are on the buttons.  The beads also change the look a bit.  I’m thinking that the long chains need to be shorted to be the same length as the other chains if washers (or something other that 2-hole buttons) are used.  I’m not well pleased with my closure method, where a washer fits through a ring, so I need to come up with something else.

I wonder how well washers take paint? They would be easy to come by and then could be painted to color coordinate with different threads and beads.

I had meant to have the pattern ready for today, but it isn’t quite.  Almost.  This bracelet was supposed to be the picture used in the pattern, but the pattern is diagrammed for a 2-hole button. I guess I’ll just have to make another bracelet.

Today for Tatting Tea Tuesday I’m drinking TAZO Zen Green Tea out of a mug with snowflakes on it. No, we don’t have snow today (at least not yet – the temperature is 70º F) but I like the shape.  The chance of real snowflakes outside?  It’s supposed to get colder tonight, with a chance of snow in some places not too far away.  Whether we get any or not – we’ll see.  


“Don’t dwell on what went wrong. Instead, focus on what to do next. Spend your energies on moving forward toward finding the answer.”
Denis Waitley
www.brainyquote.com

Bulletin board

When my daughters were young they were in a local 4-H club.  When my oldest daughter was about 10 years old one of her projects was a bulletin board made with a ceiling tile.  She decorated it for a craft project and entered it in both the 4-H fair and the county fair.  In some counties they are held together but in this county they are separate, with the county fair having 4-H categories. She got blue ribbons on it at both fairs.
 
The material it is covered with was not purchased for the project but chosen from what material I had on hand that was large enough (this is NOT what she would have chosen otherwise!)  Even the flowers were from what I already had. 
Some of the decorations in one corner was old costume jewelry that I had been keeping for some reason.  She added glue to the posts and pins of these prior to poking them into the board.  The string of pearls were from a roll that I had in my stash, artfully arranged and attached with hot glue. 

To go along with the romantic feel I gave her some of my tatting for one of the corners.  It was gathered a bit to give it some dimension – and it didn’t look right when left flat.
The pattern for this is out of “Aunt Ellen’s Treasury Tatting Patterns”  I had been trying to find 
a pattern for a tablecloth and this was one of my trials (I didn’t go with this pattern).  It’s made with an ecru size 10, Anchor thread I think. 
This bulletin board has been hanging in what was my daughter’s room all these years.  Her room has been the guest room since she moved out when she went to college and now where I keep most of my craft-y stuff.  It fits right in 🙂
Today I’m drinking Mango Maui tea from Hawaiian Islands Tea Company.  It has a wonderfully different taste from the teas I usually drink.  I’m sipping it from a very unromantic-looking cup that has a cute crocheted owl cozy on it.  I picked up the cup at a local craft fair where the seller sat crocheting the cozies as she waiting for customers.  This blue owl is the first one she made out of “un-natural” owl colors; she wasn’t sure they’d sell.  The cups were all ones she’d picked up from second-hand stores or yard sales.  
What connection does Mango Maui tea and owls have? None that I know of except I’m drinking one out of the other 🙂
My daughters and others in their 4H club showing off their club banner for the 4H fair, about 1996. My oldest is holding up the banner and my other daughter is on the far right with the striped shirt.
4-H pledge
 “I pledge 
My Head to clearer thinking,
My Heart to greater loyalty
My Hands to larger service
and 
My Health to better living
For my club, my community, my country and my world.”

Tatting Tea Tuesday on a Small Scale

This week I’ve been tatting in small thread.  
This is Gütermann silk quilting thread. in color 386.  I bought it last August when I bought the Perfect Quilter thread.  I have been carrying it around with me for a while but had not even put it on a shuttle until about a week ago.  Other than being so small as to be hard to see it is easy to tat with.  I only broke the thread once while working on this piece (so far!) and it actually broke about four inches from the ring I was closing.  I have to work on this when I have lots of light, as much for the size as the color. It’s been fun working in such fine thread though challenging, especially as I’m working on my vest between times, which is in size 10 thread.  I’m finally remembering to number this for my 25 Motif Challenge – I think it’s number 11.
Today for Tatting Tea Tuesday I had a cup of Celestial Seasonings Cinnamon Apple Spice tea with a touch of honey out of a big mug, not this little cup.  This is a demitasse cup and saucer that my mother gave me.  The cup is 2 ¼” tall, which is how I know it’s a demitasse (meaning ‘half-size’), or child size, cup.  I didn’t realize that the size of a cup determined what it is!  Did you?  I’ve always thought it was a tea cup if you drank tea out of it 🙂  Today while trying to correctly spell ‘demitasse’ I found a blog that describes the history of the cup and saucer and how their sizes define their use.  If you’d like to learn more check it out here on the blog “Demitasse Cups & Saucers”

The white shuttle is another gift from my mother, found at a yard sale. All of the variegated  pink and white thread was wound on it, extending way past the edges of the shuttle.  I don’t know how long it had been wound but, surprisingly, the tips are still tightly together.  In fact I’ll probably have to work on it a bit if I want to tat with it. Unwinding the size 70 or 80 thread wasn’t bad but going the other way took a lot of effort.  There are no markings on the shuttle to say who made it.  I’ve seen similar ones before but I don’t remember where or what brand they were. It has a very smooth surface, is about 3 inches long, and in very good condition.  Both blades are slightly marred in one place along the edge, but other than that it looks brand new.  As it’s already wound and has a ball thread I guess I’ll have to see what I can make with it.  How about a demitasse doily?

“You can often measure a person by the size of his dream.”
Robert H. Schuller
http://thinkexist.com


I linked to Artful Affirmations

TIAS and Tatting Tea Tuesday

We’ve reached the end of the 2014 TIAS.  It was a lot of fun (when isn’t it?), with a sailboat at the end. 
 The “Knotty Thought” in Lizbeth size 20 # 130 Island Breeze and # 657 Ocean Turquoise Dark
I must have been a bit psychic to choose threads that go so well with a nautical theme don’t you think?

Today for Tatting Tea Tuesday I bring you progress on my vest.
I picked it up again – finally.  I started it in April of 2013, got as far as finishing the collar then put it down and didn’t pick it up again until about a month ago. Since then I’ve put about 20 hours into it. This is the center of the back.  I’m hoping that my ideas for this work out. 
Today I’m drinking Peppermint Tea with a touch of honey out of a cup I found at Goodwill.  It stood out amid quite a variety of cups and mugs in it’s color and decoration, the only one of it’s kind there.  The cup caught my eye, with it’s blueberries and blossoms.  I thought it was Corelle but it has ‘epoch’ on the bottom. So for the whopping price of 50 cents I brought it home. It obviously doesn’t hold as much as one of the mugs I’m used to drinking from, but I enjoy using it. 
Did you know there is quite the connection between sailing ships and tea? There was a time when clipper ships brought tea from China to England.  The tea clippers actually raced to be the first to make it back from China.  Those ships must have been quite the sight to see.  There is only one of the clippers left, the Cutty Sark, in dry dock in London. How much easier it is to get tea now, but without the romance of sailing ships!

“Happily, one great tea clipper has survived and is now in dry dock at Greenwich in London. Cutty Sark, launched from the Clyde on  22 November 1869, was one of the last tea clippers to be constructed.  Built for John ‘White Hat’ Willis, she was intended to win the annual clipper race, although in fact she never beat her biggest rival, Thermopylae.  The decline of the clipper tea trade meant that Cutty Sark only carried tea until 1877, but she survived many later incarnations, and is now the only remaining tea clipper in the world.  Small to modern eyes, Cutty Sark is nonetheless breathtakingly beautiful, and a visit offers a fascinating insight into the life of a tea clipper.” 

from the UK Tea Council
The Cutty Sark at Grenwich in London

I linked to Artful Affirmations for her Tea Cup Tuesday

It’s Tuesday

The 2014 TIAS continues
The most often guessed is a sail boat but I’m not sure, Jane can be pretty sneaky! (in a good way!)  Whatever it is we are more than halfway through.
I have been tatting but don’t have pictures of what I’ve spent the most time on.  I do have this little piece made with Coats Cotton Machine Quilting thread.  I don’t really have a plan for this piece but I had the thread with me (why? I found it in a drawer and stuck it in my box…) so thought I’d try working with it.

And it was very trying.  I usually tat with size 20 thread and I’ve got a project going in size 10, so working with this was quite a chore.  I would get about three rings and a chain done then break the thread on the next ring.  Today I very consciously made my stitches and pulled the rings closed very carefully. Success! The thread didn’t break! 

Last week Tuesday I didn’t have to go to work due to snow and bad roads.  We got somewhere between eight and ten inches by the time it was done.  And it hasn’t melted yet!  Which is very unusual around here.  Then Sunday night we got another two inches.  But the sun is shining today and they say we’ll get above freezing maybe tomorrow.  By Sunday it should be in the 60’s (ºF) and the snow mostly gone.

We found some lovely tea related images from tea loving Grace in Italy - which we have put together as a montage and thought we would share...I haven’t been doing Tatting Tea Tuesdays much lately, not because I haven’t thought about it but I’ve been drinking a lot of coffee instead of tea.  Including today.  But I did get some tatting done and I’ve found a blog that’s all about tea cups!  If you also like tea and tea cups check out Artful Affirmations.  

                                                                              image from Pinterest