Tatting Thread

So Girl Far From Home was working on one of Mary Konior's tatted collars from Tatting with Visual Patterns.  She was bravely using some green in size 80 that we inherited from an elderly lady's stash.  It seems that each time the girl would get a bit done, she'd go to tighten a ring and the thread would snap.  I suggested that it might be because the thread was size 80 or it might be because the thread is old.  I offered to purchase some green in size 20 to replace the troublesome thread.  I knew that Lizbeth size 20 thread is available in a couple of stores locally so I went on a hunt.  Here are the greens that were available locally - none is even close to the green she had, but maybe she'll like one of these?  Or we can get some online in either size 20 or size 40.  (These greens are left to right - 684 Leaf Green Medium, 152 Christmas Green Mix and 683 Leaf Green Light).

I also found this pair of threads - the color of the turqoise thread is just a bit greener in real life making this look like Girl Far From Home's favorite pink and green color combo.    (These are 107 Tropical Fruit and 688 Seagreen Dark).

And then I saw this lovely bluish turqoise and the variegated pinks with turquoise.  I fell in love and they followed me home.  (These are 130 Island Breeze and 663 Bright Turquoise Dark).

(If you are unsure of the accuracy of my photos, check the Handy Hands Tatting website for their color chart.)

Now Off to Tat my shuttle motifs!!!

The Solved Mystery of the Gnomes and the Finished Hat

I have to say that I really hate the way Blogger just keeps changing things with no rhyme or reason and no explanation.  I wish they'd either quit changing things or explain how to use the changes they make.

Here are the earliest photos of the mystery project.  No, it wasn't a purse, or a butterfly, or a knitted worthers, or an olive, or mittens, or pigs with wigs, or spiders, or a colorful sweater or easter eggs.  It, well actually they, were these darling little No Home Gnomes by Phoeny.  They are meant to keep a girl company in that great wide world where she is far from home and family. They are adorable and pretty easy to make.  I think the girl far from home liked them,  see her post below to see them in their new home with her!

And here is the hat for the girl far from home.  I think that the hardest part of making this hat was her deciding which hat and colors she wanted.  The hat itself was not difficult to knit and didn't take long.  I cast on Thursday and finished the knitting Saturday night - wove in the ends this morning and now it's done.  I love it - it feels great on your head and it's an unusual style and shape.  I actually followed just one chart on this hat although I did flip the S's in the colorwork - they were backwards in the original pattern and since this is for Miss S, it only seemed right that they be forwards.

The hat is Cone #1 from 45 Fine & Fanciful Hats by Anna Zilboorg (whose work I adore!).  The yarn is 4 different colors of Galway Worsted.

These last two pictures were taken indoors under artificial lighting and the colors are not accurate.  But you can see how nice the hat is going to look and the girl far from home's head.  And it's a very warm hat because of the stranding - two pieces of yarn for each row makes a thicker hat.  

Now, on to the mittens, also using Anna Zilboorg's patterns from Magnificent Mittens and Socks.

Geography Class-The Mystery Revealed!

This is my favorite building on campus. It's Botetout Hall. On the first floor is security and the Post Office. I visit this floor daily, looking for packages. Packages are so exciting! And on the second floor is the dance studios, where I go for dance class. I love dance class! It's so challenging and rewarding. And it looks like there's something on the railing of the second floor. What's that?

Sure enough, there's something there... What is it? Wait, I'm going to go follow them.

They walked over to the Spring House were they slowed their hurried pace to see the fish. I just caught up to them before they sped away again. Man, they can walk really fast for such short things!

I caught up again as they sat on the railing in Beele Garden, back behind DuPont Church. They weren't moving at all, so I tried to creep up on them. I must have stepped on a twig or something, because as I got close, they jumped off the railing and sped away. Those little guys can really run!

They got away to somewhere in the Garden, but I couldn't find them, so I gave up.

As I was walking to the library, I heard them chittering at each other and spied on them from behind a bench. They were so loud that I thought I might could sneak up on them if I was quiet.
I did! I had to grab them, and they tried to fight me off with their walking sticks, but when I got them, I explained that I just wanted to see them. I think I might've convinced them. They introduced themselves as the No-Home Gnomes, and I told them they were welcome to stay with me, if they wanted.

As we walked back to Randolph Hall, we three all told about ourselves, and they seemed very interested in college and staying in a dorm room.

I showed them the room, and they liked it.

Yeah! That's geography for you!

We have Cast On!

This is the beginning of the hat for Miss S . . . I'm happy with it so far, how about you?


Took a nice drive up into north Georgia today.  Had to go check on the buildings on the land because I'd been told that one of them had some water damage and rot going on.  It turned out that 3 of the 4 had water damage and one had not only a hole in the roof but critters in the attic.  They are all going to need to have some work done on them.  Thankfully, I found someone to help.  On the way up, I stopped at Jaemor Farms and bought some Apples, some Sweet Potatoes and some fresh Apple Blueberry bread (for breakfast, yum).  The also had lovely peaches - Tina bought some but I already had some here and muscadine and scuppernong grapes.  Lots of other fresh fruits and several kinds of apples - can't remember what these are, sorry.

Miss S will help me figure out what to do with these sweet potatoes when she comes home, I'm pretty sure!

Decisions have been made

Ok, so Miss S and I discussed and perused and discussed some more and checked Ravelry and finally came up with the final mitten and hat patterns last night.  I've spent the last hour (ok, maybe more like two and a half) putting the charts into my Intwined and playing with the colors.  I am now ready to get the yarn and needles, and start a gauge swatch.

Here is the hat she picked:

I like it much better than the one with the bobbles.  I'm afraid that I just don't believe that bobbles belong on a hat (well, maybe a hat for a really little kid, but Miss S is not really little).  If you look closely, you'll see that part of the design is a backwards S (look near the top, the red pattern on the black background).  There is actually another backward S below that in the yellow, but it's hard to see in this picture.  I decided that they should not be backwards so I turned them around and adjusted the pattern ever so slightly to make them fit.  Hmmm, Maybe I should have made the second S, the yellow one, into an F?

The hand part of the mittens will be from this pattern.  The part of the pattern that is pink on the mittens in this picture will be black on my mittens.  The background will be stripes of the three other colors we are using.  (Red, Yellow and Blue)

The cuffs will be these cuffs but with black where the brown is and our three colors as the stripes - in the same order that I'm putting them on the body of the mitts.  And, just in case you don't recall, here is a picture of the yarn we are using.  These are going to be some bright and colorful accessories!!!

If there is enough left over yarn, I might make a stranded colorwork scarf for Miss S - using the same patterns that are in the hat and mittens rotated throughout the scarf.  That is, of course, if I still feel like doing colorwork after I knit the mittens and hat.

Troublesome Tatting Tuesday

Well, I've done a lot of tatting but haven't accomplished much.  There's been trouble . . . trouble with a capital T.   First, I have totally fallen in love with the idea of having a tatting shuttle decorated with my very own tatting.  I just think that would be such a lovely thing.  And wouldn't it be cool if I could have one made for each of the girls?  An heirloom type gift from their mother but that might wait until I'm a more experienced tatter.

(Just in case anyone reads this blog that doesn't already know about the Tatted Shuttles that Chris Hinton of the Shuttle Shop is making, you'll find more information here:  The Tatting Forums, and specifically on this thread.  And there is still more on Anne Bruvold's site where she has an information sheet and several patterns for motifs which can be used to make the shuttles.)

So I started on one of Anne's patterns.  It was going well - it's an easy to make pattern with nothing tricky in it.  I was using size 20 lizbeth in black and a multicolor that had black in it.  I did just fine until I joined the last two rings and made a stupid mistake.  I still could have finished it but I didn't really like the colors well enough to make another so I decided just to abandon it.

Then I decided to try the "Tatted Shuttle" by Elizabeth Zipay.  Again, it's not a difficult pattern tho it is a little more intricate than Anne's pattern.  Well, I didn't get very far at all before I messed it up and couldn't go any further.  I was making it in thread that I knew was going to be too big just to see if I could make it.  I think I could have if I hadn't done something stupid.

Ok, enough with the mistakes and false starts.  I decided that I needed to go back to something that was a sure bet, something I could finish quickly and not worry about messing up.  So I grabbed my faithful Mary Konior Tatting with Visual Patterns and turned to the bud fragments and made this rosebud.  It worked just fine.

Unfortunately, it was a brief respite from the bag juju. I stared a bookmark that called for self closing mock rings just to see if I could do it and didn't even get to the SCMR's before I messed up.  At least, I'm pretty sure I messed up . . .

And Finally, for Miss S - two more hints, one a perfect picture of the gift but something must have been on my camera lens when I took it - oops!  I am still not seeing any guesses from you.  I mailed the package to you today so it should be there by Thursday or Friday and when it arrives, I'll reveal the mystery to the rest of the blog readers!!!

A Hint and Some Decisions

First, here is one more hint in the ongoing mystery.  Miss S you are going to have to start guessing . . . or I'm keeping everything.

Now it's time for some decisions.  Here is the yarn.  The yarn is meant to be made into a hat and some mittens.  There will be plenty left over and that might become a scarf to keep a neck warm.  But first, someone has to decide what the hat and mittens should look like.  Yes, we did that already but nobody marked which ones were chosen and I'm not sure I still like the ones I liked many months ago when this project got added to the queue, so maybe other people have changed their minds too.

This was the hat originally chosen.  It's got what looks like nupps or bubbles on it and it's only three colors.  It's not for me, but I'm not sure I like this one anymore.  Somebody made this exact hat on Ravelry and you can go see it here.  I'm posting pictures of more of the pictures of hats from the book - 45 Fine & Fanciful Hats to Knit by Anna Zilboorg.  You can also go look at the patterns and pictures of projects made from this book in Ravelry if you want.

The Cones:

The Egyptian Hats:

A couple of Onion Domes that I thought would work well with our yarn:

Now, on to the mittens.  Those were from the book Magnificent Mittens and Socks again by Anna Zilboorg. You can visit the patterns and projects page for that book on Ravelry too.  I know we were going to use the cuff from one pattern and the hand from another but I can't remember which patterns we had chosen.  I think this first pattern is the cuff we picked:

I like these mittens entirely and would be happy making them as they are with our chosen colors.  But here is another one that I also like a lot:

And here are some more that I like or like bits of:

And here is a pair with a separation between the forefinger and the rest of the fingers - in case you need to point at someone:

And, if you prefer not to have the big cuff that goes over the bottom of your jacket sleeve, here's a pair without it.  We can always make any of these without the cuff if you want.

So, take a gander at these and let me know what you think.  Take a look at how the completed projects look on Ravelry too because sometimes that is different from the photos in the book.

Terrific Tatting

I've been playing with my tatting today (and yesterday a little).  This little butterfly is called Hope and is a pattern by Lady Shuttlemaker.  You can find the pattern here.  It wasn't difficult, but I think I'll make a few little changes to adjust the pattern to my tatting the next time I make it.  I like the way it's outlined with black and the color is in the middle, so I might just make another one tonight.

This little dragonfly was posted on Umi & Tsuru's blog a few days ago.  I thought it was interesting and different and it didn't look too difficult to me, so I printed the pattern and decided to try it.  It wasn't too difficult (sorry about the bad picture tho), and it was kind of fun.

I found the pattern for these little butterflies here - it was created by Monica Mancenido.  It's easy, quick and kind of fun to make.  Two of these little guys are going to be part of the mystery project - or are at least going to go with the mystery project.

This is actually the most exciting tatting I've done recently.  The rings on the bottom are just plain ordinary rings.  The rings on the top, the ones with the picots are Self Closing Mock Rings.  Yep, I taught myself how to do them. I decided that I really wanted to make some things that require the use of Self Closing Mock Rings and I really needed to figure them out.  And I did.  Now I'm going to make my September Bookmark using SCMRs!!!

And since I know you are waiting for today's hint, here are two!!!  Nobody has figured out what the mystery project is yet, but maybe this will give it away!!!  Two clues in one day should make it easy peasey!!!!

Tomorrow is Knitting Monday and I have a project all ready to start . . .

Ok, One more hint . . .

Since nobody has guess yet, I'll give you one more hint.  I'm afraid the big reveal won't happen till Wednesday or maybe Thursday, unless someone guesses first!

I had to run out to the hardware store for these today . . . that's your hint.

I also broke one of my needles today.  It was one of the Bryspun that I really like - I think it was a size 6.  I guess they aren't very expensive, so it's not a huge loss, but it still makes me sad.  I think I can find a use for the points tho . . .

My shade loving water lily is still blooming.  This is a second day bloom and I think you can see the hint of pink at the ends of the petals.  If you look closely, you can see the seedlings under the surface of the water - one of them has lime green leaves.

And I found some guests partaking of Steve's parsley.  I had been waiting all summer for them to show up but they just arrived about a week or so ago.  Aren't they pretty?  There are about a dozen of them, most but not all smaller than these two.  I've been overrun with Gulf Fritillaries but haven't seen that many Swallowtails this year.  Nice to welcome them back, even if it is kinda late in the season.