Yesterday,  I posted pics of  an improvised drying rack for hanging tatting shuttles after I have varnished them.
Lynn posted a comment saying that she uses  a pasta drying rack for drying her lace bobbins.
I thought that this was a great idea, and filed it away in the- hmmmm… ‘clever… file’….
When we dropped in on a garage sale,
I spotted a wire basket
that gave me an aha moment…..
I thought…
it’s not a pasta dryer
but ….
this will work
BEAUTIFULLY
for drying  the tatting shuttles.
So, that’s my ‘yay’ for the day.
And, now, there’s another totally excellent book that I want to give the thumbs up to….
‘Tatting with …read more

This has been a weekend full of fun tatting projects – from dragons to doll clothes:
Here be dragons!  The other day, a member of the Tatta Tat Tatting group on Ravelry began a conversation about tatting dragons.
One thing lead to another, and before long,
I had invited the group members
to participate in a challenge, to make dragons.
The challenge is to make a
dragon in any medium
that includes tatting.
The first thing I always
do when working on
a new piece, is to get out
my sketchbook.
As I was sketching,
the thought popped up…
Could I make a dragon shaped
tatting shuttle?
Well, it took a heap of drawings and sketches, …read more

While we were driving to the West coast at the beginning of Sept 08, I finally finished crocheting the background for a freeform butterfly shawl that I’ve been working on for ages.
The shawl is a combination of tatting and crochet and is a small semi-circular shoulder shawl. It is super comfortable to wear as it stays in place without tugging.
I love putting crochet together with tatting as they are  harmonious  partners.

I went through a fair amount of frustration with making the shawl, as I had to frog it many times to find the perfect combination of threads.
But, now I love …read more

I have been in love with lace since I was a child. I began making lace when I was a little girl. One of my grandmother’s friends taught me how to make holes (on purpose!) in your knitting, and that was it for me….. addicted!
I’ve been making lace ever since. I started crocheting lace when I was a teenager, then learned how to tat in my 20’s. And, I’ve been knitting lace ever since I learned to put those holes where I wanted them!
But, that was lace making in the 20th C, and the title of this posting is about …read more

 
I love teaching workshops at the Knit and crochet shows….. workshops
I love to bring together lots of different fiber arts in my workshops: mask making, doll making, crochet, tatting, spool knitting, freeforming and all manner of other things unfold in workshops.
It’s always a ton of fun!
Image source: Noreen Crone-Findlay copyright

I LOVE Celtic interlaces, so was delighted to see this neat website:
Celtic Interlace
Celtic Interlaces translate so beautifully to needlework of all descriptions…. knitting, crochet, tatting, embroidery…. you name it!

The dragonflies have been dancing and flitting about lately, and seeing them has finally made something click for me….
I’ve been playing around with designing a tatted dragonfly for years, and have never been satisfied with what I have come up with.
BUT… when we were walking the dogs this morning, it struck me that I have been trying to do an accurate representation (in tatting) of still photographs of dragonflies.
What really clicked for me was that I realized that I wanted a simple image of the dragonflies in motion. I thought about what we see when a dragonfly zooms past us:
The …read more

Amy and Donna over at Crochetville have started a fun challenge.
It’s the 2008 Crochet Games of Ancient Greece Challenge.  It’s an invitation to challenge yourself to create a work of crochet that will be a challenge for you to complete from the opening to closing of the Olympic games in Bejing.
At first, I thought…. there is NO way on earth that I can do this… I am working to deadline on my new book, AND have projects to complete for SEVEN workshops that I am teaching in September at the Knit and Crochet Show in Portland OR.
Then… it hit me…. …read more

Yesterday, I posted a note about the tatted cord that I have just designed. It’s for a Lady Hoare tatting shuttle that I made and broke… rats… so it became a necklace.
Here’s how I tatted the cord:

With a dental floss threader, thread a heap of ‘e’ beads onto the cone of Lion Brand Lamé yarn.

The cord is a sequence of *5 double knots (dk), slip a bead down the thread to the last dk, 1 dk, 1 picot, 1 dk, slip a bead down to the dk* repeated from * to *
The pic above …read more

I just posted about the friendship bracelets that I tatted while I was in the design process for
this tatted cord:

I am really pleased with the cord. I wanted it to be simple and not too frou frou.
It’s light and really pleasant to wear.
I am going to make it up in other threads to see how it looks in other colors and textures.
I loved the process of coming up with this design, and now, I am super inspired about designing all kinds of other tatted jewelry!
Fun!
Image Source: Noreen Crone-Findlay (copyright)