Something in the works

While I have something in the works, you must settle for a picture of my latest Beribboned Bookmark today. I made this one for myself. This Bible is pretty large so I might make myself another one that is a little longer. I do like them short enough that there is no chance of them hanging out of the book to get caught in the zipper of the Bible cover. I find I use the ribbon much more now that I have lovely lace to look at as well.

As to the project in the works, I hope to introduce it this weekend. Four designs are done, but there will be more over time. However, I've got a tremendously long and busy day today that has nothing to do with tatting, so we'll all have to wait until the weekend. I've bespoken my daughter's good camera to take photos. I want something better than my iPhone can produce and with more staging than I can arrange with the scanner. Curious? I hope so. ;)

Colorful Glimmer

I had a special request for something really colorful with lots of shimmer and here it is. I have two orders for them already. The four rings contain 56 beads that vary slightly in shape and size which really adds to the reflective effects. Color placement is totally random. They look fun and colorful in bright light, but they just glow like a casket of jewels in soft lighting. None of my efforts to capture the latter in a photo has been successful, but I've decided I've got to have a pair of these for myself.

Filling Custom Orders

It has been a great weekend. I'm so excited to be filling my first orders. I've delivered a pair of earrings (Trio of Hearts) in a bright pink with white pearl beads and completed the tatting on two beribboned bookmarks with a third in progress. The two shown here are in baby pink and olive green. The third is a dark red. I've also had a request for a custom pair of earrings that required a new design. The design was approved yesterday so I'm well on my way to having them done. I'll post a picture of them once they are completely ready.

Halloween Tatting for Scrapbook and Card Making

I added two ghost/pumpkin pairs to the shop today. The ghost is 6.5 cm tall in size 3 perle cotton, 3 cm tall in size 16.

Halloween in July

You've heard of Christmas in July, well I've felt motivated to tat with the Halloween theme in July instead. I put up some pumpkin earring jackets in the Etsy shop last night and I've been playing with ideas for a ghost pattern. When my own ideas just weren't coming through, I decided to tat Mark Myers Scary Ghost in size 80 thread. (Correction: It is Mettler Machine Quilting Thread, about a size 100.) It's finished size is 4.5 cm by 4.5 cm. I used split rings to climb from row 1 to row 2. It was just the break I needed to get the clogs in my brain turning again. I started flipping through my design notebook and spotted an element in one of my doily designs that suddenly resembled a ghost. The little ghost by Scary Ghost's side is a prototype of one of the ideas that resulted. Don't look too closely because he's tied together in places and there are spots where I cut things out and kept going--very much a rough work--but you can see where I'm headed anyway.

Trio of Hearts Earring Jackets

I'm one of those people who doesn't look her best in long, dangling earrings, but I like to wear my tatting. Back in the 1990s I made earring jackets for myself and my friends--little pieces of tatted lace that you can wear with your favorite post earrings. You just place the post through the designated part of the lace and then put them into place. The lace is so thin that it doesn't affect the fit of your earrings. This is a recent design and very simple if you can make dimpled rings. I think it looks best with small earrings so more of the heart shapes can be seen. My mother, my oldest daughter, and my great niece love them. They've requested several pairs in their favorite colors.

Tatted Bookmark with tiny pince-nez

I found myself in the backseat of a moving vehicle on my way to see the latest Harry Potter movie with only one loaded shuttle in my purse so I started playing around with what I had. The result is this edging strip bookmark with a tiny pince-nez dangling from the tail. I started with the little pince-nez ornament and worked my way to the other end. Since I didn't have enough thread to add a chain between the rings, I worked it as ring only and wrapped the other end of the thread around the bare thread and then hid the end in the last ring. It was fun to make. I like the idea of the reading glasses reminder dangling outside my book so I think I'll play with this idea a bit more.

Ice Cream Cone Revamped

Don't panic if you are looking for a missing pattern from my sidebar. You'll still be able to find most of them at Georgia Seitz's online class website. I've been wanting to make some major changes to many of them and, since summer is a great time for ice cream, that is where I've begun. Here is a picture of my new and improved ice cream cone in the flavor 'Confetti.'

Test Tat of Heart's Honor

Here is my test tatting of Wanda Salman's Heart's Honor Bookmark. Her pattern was extremely well-done. I really like the design and enjoyed tatting it up. Thank you, Wanda, for allowing me to test tat for you.

Baby Booties Premiere

While I managed to get these listed at the Etsy shop a couple of days ago, I forgot to share them with you. Many hours have been invested in designing this pair of baby booties over the past couple of weeks. I wanted something very dainty so I worked with size 80 thread and this is the results.

Tatknot joins Etsy

I'm really behind in reading your blogs and I've neglected the hanky edging for a couple of weeks now. That is because I've been busy working on my plans to join the Etsy community as a shop owner. My family and friends have urged me to do it for a long time and I finally had the time to get moving on the project. I've created some new designs and revamped some old ones. I'm very excited about the project. For now, I'm listing only tatted pieces, but I've designed some other types of projects over the years that will eventually make their way into my shop.

Setting up an Etsy shop is much more involved than I expected. There are many decisions to make, and that was bogging me down. However, I think I've figured out the basics and my listings will be going up throughout the day.