Because of situations out of my control, I will be shifting my tatting posts from a previous forum to this one.  Sometimes the twists of fate can be challenging, but tatting lives on. 

Comments ( 0 )

What do tea leaves, teapots, candies and edging have in common?   Tat Days, of course!  And Tat Days is only 24 days away!  This year's theme is "Tatting, Tea and Toffee"  making the connection to the riddle easier to recognize!  This year The Thread Bears took on the task of creating a quilted wall hanging to be auctioned off at the conference.  Proceeds from the auction will go to the scholarship fund to help subsidize participants in need attend the conference in the future.

We started with a quilt blank handed to us at last year's gathering.  The theme was easy enough, but bringing it all together would be more challenging.  A Martha Ess teapot from her pattern book "Tea is for Tatting" was a necessary part of the design certainly.  We chose her Shamrock Teapot  from page 30 as our central piece.
 

Not wanting to cover the entire 24 - inch white square with tatting, we looked to a fabric motif that meet the theme and also cover part of the area.  It was just before Christmas, and the fabric store was filled with festive apron panels.  One such apron panel contained a border of cups.  They appeared to hold steaming hot liquids with piles of whipped topping. 
It seemed to be a perfect addition to the quilt.

As a group we created 2 of Martha's Tiny Square Teapots from page 13.  These were tatted in colors that complimented the other colors around the quilt.That left finding a way to pull it all together.  With a bright white center and a brown-and-cream border, finding a way to blend in the reds and greens required a delicate eye.  Green rickrack in the proper color was impossible to find.  But cream rickrack was available in every fabric store.  And that was the perfect transition from the border to the center.  Jill labored over finding the right edging to make the border festive.  Her yardage of a simple edging in Cranberry Bush that tied the greens and reds of the border with the bright white and dark tan of the quilt blank.  The corners look like this:  

  From here we only needed to fill in the spaces with tealeaves and candy.  Thank you Patty Markley for the wonderful leaf pattern you taught at Shuttlebirds Conference back in April.  We had used it as an example of block tatting as well as an all-chains pattern in one of our teaching sessions.  So we had some excellent tea leaves to use.  We added some of the Mary Fitch leaves made from simple rings to set off the more solid leaves and ended with some corner embellishments that showed off our rings-only and chains-only efforts.  These were accompanies by the candies in both cinnamon and toffee renditions created from the pattern I'll be teaching at Tat Days this year.

With these in place, we finished off with a set of 3 teabags created using a block tatting technique with sugar crystals on the edges.  Then to make it all complete we embellished the cups on the border with bits of tatted bling.  

As a group we are very excited about the project and are looking forward to helping create another donation project next year.

Comments ( 0 )

My return to Black Mountain after the excursion to Shuttlebird's in Spokane was marked by days away from the computer.  There had been little to no internet access while on the train but I did have some at the stops I made or in the rail stations along the way.  There was more than a mountain of work waiting for me when I got back and my beautiful granddaughter came for a week-long visit that filled the free moments with baking cookies for Papa, splashing in the wading pool, making Pigs-in-Blankets for supper when we weren't eating cereal, yogurt and other yummies (although she told her parents that we never fed her) and playing the the notable girl-next-door.

While I was gone, I looked pretty much like this:  
But once back home, I was glad not to be carrying
the 50 pound backpack, cooler and computer
that had become my constant companions.

Black Mountain had not been sitting still while I was gone, either.  It was time to tally the hours our tatters had spent tatting, teaching and demonstrating around town.  It's remarkable what kind of time weekly meetings can produce.  In 1 year, Thread Bears totaled almost 400 hours of tatting as a group, more than 50 hours teaching each other and about 100 hours demonstrating in a variety of venues.

This past January, we saw the creating of a spin-off group (no pun intended) known as the Tuesday Tatters.  A number of the participants belong to both groups.  This means that participants logged an additional 200 hours or more tatting in 2014.  Pretty remarkable for a rural community.

And while this area is rural when compared to places I had been in the past month,  Western North Carolina is definitely a craft community.  There are craft and folk schools throughout the mountains, so it's not too much of a surprise that this could have happened.  This area is rich in spinners, weavers, dyers as well as quilters, knitters and lace-makers.  In Black Mountain alone there is a quilt shop, a yarn shop and a general fabric outlet that even carries some tatting supplies. Impressive for a community of less than 8000.

I am still trying to assimilate what I learned in Spokane.  Part of it revolves around friendship and camaraderie, part of it around technique, part of it is the learning process that involves being not only a student and participant, but also a teacher.  I thoroughly enjoyed every moment!  I hope to do it again sometime! 

Comments ( 0 )

For a number of years now I have been scrupulously avoiding using the Split Chain Technique.  I have watched YouTube videos on it, read the written version of how to carry it out and just about everything I could on the subject.  Nearly every time attempted was a failure.  But at Shuttlebirds Tatting conference, Jean Reeves from Oregon offered a class entitled "More Half-Closed Rings." I'm not sure what I was expecting, but I signed up for that class.  At first it was overwhelming.  It seems there was a "Half-Closed Rings" class that had preceded this one, and it was offered in conflict with the classes I was teaching. Without the ability to be in 2 places at once, I had not taken the first class.  So at first it seemed that I was struggling to catch up.  But Jean was so very patient with me and by my second attempt, I was on the move!  It wasn't long before I realized I was working on the Dreaded Split Chain!  Now I feel much more accomplished at it.  Enough so that when offered the opportunity to do so in a pattern, I went forward without hesitation.  Here are the results:










I do wish the pattern had written out instructions indicating to the tatter that the split chain did not need to come off the chain row at the center but rather at one of the off-sets, either to the left or to the right.  But while the author did not say that, my notes in the margin indicate that such an allowance is beneficial.  I'm thrilled at how it is turning out.

Comments ( 0 )

So it's official!! I am off to Shuttlebirds! Without a doubt this is the longest trip I have ever taken!  3 1/2 days on Amtrack to Spokane, Washington to attend the 2014 Shuttlebirds Tatting Conference.  Last fall when Patty invited me to attend, I thought, "Too far; too much time; too many excuses!!"  With a little saving and a little planning, coming to Shuttlebirds would at least be an adventure!

I set about developing a plan that would not only allow me to attend, but also to teach.  The works of Linda S. Davies are patterns I have admired for a long time.  In fact, my first ribbon at the Mountain State Fair was awarded to one of her pieces called "Stargazer Lily", modestly adapted with one of Reit Surtel-Smeulders' butterflies hovering over it.  With little time to get creative, I contacted Linda to ask her permission to use 2 of her patterns for class.  She was very gracious in giving her permission only asking that as many pictures of the class members and their final projects as possible be taken so she could see how the classes and projects go.  For a complete listing of her free patterns, visit  TopTattyHead Blogspot  .  It's really quite amazing, especially when it is realized that she is working in threads size 40 or smaller. 

Riding on Amtrack for several days with clothing, food, supplies for the conference, cameras, etc. made me look like a well dressed bag-lady!  But train travel is a little like camping out:  everyone is in the same boat, so respect of space and personal items seems to be the order of the day.  Sometimes people snore, so others put in their ear buds and turn up the music.  Sometimes children cry or are running about; they are tolerated or those who cannot tolerate it ask to be moved.  There's fine dining available as well as fast-food fare - all at a price, of course, but it's manageable, especially if one brings along some food of their own.  Many of the travelers were from other countries originally, even if they have been residents of the US for some time.  I overheard one lady's cell phone conversation go from English to Polish and back again without missing a beat.  I met farmers, miners, retirees, college students, nurses and native Americans.  The first two portions were on cars that were completely full.  But the stretch from Chicago to Spokane was not only more sparsely populated, but passengers seemed to be making shorter trips along the route rather than going the full distance.  So there were people getting on and off at various points along the 36 hours that it took to go from Chicago to Spokane.  

Tomorrow the conference begins and we will enjoy the fun and fellowship of tatters from all over the west coast and beyond!

Comments ( 0 )

Buttons come in many styles and configurations, as evidenced in the button display above.  We are going to investigate how buttons can add an element of whimsical fun to tatted edgings in our Lesson this month!  Karey Solomon's book "Tatting with Buttons" will be our guide

Comments ( 0 )

Best Tatted Wishes to all the tatters I know!

Comments ( 0 )