happy dance.....happy dance!

I'm doing the happy dance! Look what has wandered over to my house.....


Workbaskets! Yaya! I've never seen any before. I didn't know that they were that dainty size!

I am now the proud owner of over 40 copies, the dates ranging from the late 60's to the late 80's. I have yet to go through them all, they came from some Grandparents I have in NY. My mom's dad and his wife are the best at sending what I call an "everything box". Two boxes came today containing the workbaskets, as well as some videos and books for the little ones. They would send the best stuff when I was little. One year they sent some packages of plastic ants...I think my poor mom was finding them for years. Maybe we got a little carried away, but hey, what else does one do with plastic ants....other than hide them in the laundry, and in the teacups, and the pantry, and the drawers, and wherever else we could reach....

Anyone else Stalking Handy Hands lately?

One of the best things about making Jewelry is that you can make some the night before to match an outfit. These are made with Yarnplayer's Garden Party, first batch. It's too bad that you can't see how pretty the beads are in this picture. They are Top drilled bicone Swarovski crystal beads.

Something I have descovered---by incorporating a soldered jump ring at the top makes them swing better than attaching them to the earwires by a tatted ring. I just do a Lark Head Picot Join where I want the jump ring on the last round.

In reference to the title of this post, I have been checking in at Handy Hands, waiting patiently for the new colors of Lizbeth to arrive. It's probably a good thing that they are not available yet though. I need some ETSY sales before I can have any new thread. We are pinching budget pennies here in expectation of buying a home, so any purchases would have to be from my creative budget. I tried a showcase on etsy, got tons of views and hearts, but no takers. In fact, I better make a sale soon....I'll owe fees next month and paypal is empty at the moment :-)

A tattingland tour

Come and join me as we wander our way around the globe, to the natural habitats of some talented tatters. These wonderful folks took part in the "tatting space" blog challenge. Starting with Heather, who seems to migrate her tatting space regularly, while interacting with another indigenous creature.

Next we find Ladyshuttlemaker, and I'm sure that we all agree that she needs to start selling timeshare to her space. A whole room? That's what dreams are made of.

And I tend to agree with Ladytats, tatting is always better than cleaning. Always.

Gina has a shiny new blog to go with her lovely, and well supplied station. This "Best Press" is an intriguing item.

Another member of the Tatting-before-cleaning club, Lace-lovin' Librarian has previously hibernated in her space after an injury. I say it's not messy at all! Just lived-in :-)

Shirley has a tatting dresser that follows her around it would seem, but I can't locate her blog right now! Please do point me in the right direction Shirley, your blogger profile won't come up!
(found it! http://shadetreeart.com/?p=293)

Here at morduededentelle (aka The space between) we find a pristine looking spot with a view that would make any tatter sigh........

And finally, Sally has promised me to inspect her sisters tatting space and report back on her findings. We all want to know how Brain cell#3 likes things organized, right? (Note: Sally has added her pictures to her blog as well now)

My little zone can be found two posts down. I did get a few comments on the "neatness" of my corner, however it's all camera trickery I assure you. Look closely and you will see the baby laundry beside the chair, and the pile of burp rags below the tray table.



I hope you have enjoyed the tour as well as the challenge. I have a few other ideas for fun games to play, so stop by again and join in the fun anytime! And please do comment if I haven't caught your challenge post yet. I'd love to add them too!


Edited to add new sightings:
Tatforfun has recently aquired another room in the house and is sharing it with her hubby's guitars.

and Tatskool shows of her space that has been tidied up a bit after curtain installation.

Charlotte at quiltification posted pictures of her most recent place-for-tatting in lieu of further confusing the other train riders.

And as always, brain cell #3 is way ahead of us all! Jane posted her space a month ago. Forever one step ahead!

I also wanted to recognize this tatting spot - Aileen has a very special tatting "bag".

enlightenedbyangels also has a tatting spot,

And joyintatting has joined in the fun too.

No longer a UFO

I went on a rescue mission this week, to finish this-

The pattern is Springtime from Tatters Treasure Chest. I started this before Meirah was born, in fact part of the last round was done while I was in early labor with her. The thread is Yarnplayer's Roses. The last round is Scarlet that she dyed to match this colorway. The reason this ended up as a ufo is, I was so eager to conserve my precious hand dyed thread, that I kept putting too little on the shuttle. I think I had to add thread three times on the last round! Got frustrated and left it at the last spot that needed thread, like two inches from being finished. Anyway, it's done now, and I think it will head off to the memory box for new baby Meirah. After blocking of course. I don't really have anywhere to put a doiley around here, so I don't know why I make them.

High five to all who participated in the blog challenge! I had so much fun traipsing through blogland on a tour of lovely tatting spots. I found a few that I'd love to vacation too... (ehem Sherry!) Soon I'll do a post with all the participants so you can have a guided tour.

Blog challenge!

I must say that I absolutely love the little community we have going here. I thought maybe it might be fun to play a little game to get to know eachother more. Here are the rules.

1. Go get your camera
   
2. Take a picture of your "tatting space" be it tatting corner or the bag that you carry with you, as it is right now. No moving or removing anything! (that would be bad tatting karma. you don't want your threads mysteriously tangling do you? )
   
3. Post your pictures and whatever commentary you see fit on your blog.
   
4. Leave a comment on this post after you have done so, so I can post a listing of all who are participating , and we can all tour eachothers tatting space.

I love to peek into other people's tatting space and spy out all the cool organization ideas, and pretty things that happen there. Now, if no one takes my little challenge, why I guess I'll look silly. Oh well.

Here is my tatting space!

In the picture above you can see my glider. It pulls double duty for nursing the little one as well as tatting. You can also see the cabinet which is supposed to completely contain my tatting nonsense, the blue thread box on the floor which shoud be in said cabinet, and the tv tray that has also taken up residence there......The ten cent tour of my current projects- some yarn for a hat for the two year old, a notepad for designing, lots of tools and helpful things like pliers for earwires, the ott-lite I stole from hubby, a baby monitor, and various balls of thread that need to head back to the box.And here is the box! Full of Lizbeth and HDT, with some vintage in the little brown box. I keep pieces that are more than a yard left over in the little red giftcard tin that you can sort of see in there. Funny thing, I realized this morning that I don't have a single ball of ecru any more. Such a funny word isn't that, "ecru". whoever came up with that? One of the great mysteries of the universe I suppose.

Well, thank you for joining me in my tour of tat corner. I hope you might have fun with this little challenge. ta-ta!

So what have I been up to?

A short while ago I hinted that I had something new in the works. After waiting on supplies I have finally had time (after almost two weeks) to put it all together.

Taa-daa! Resin! Now, I haven't been able to photograph it as well as I'd like, but here are my first pieces of resin encapsulated tatting. these earrings above have tiny little flowers, only a half inch or so. The largest piece I was able to encapsulate is below, maybe you'll recognize the thread Marilee,

It's the lovely garden party hand dyed from Yarnplayer! Thread tends to look "wet" once in the resin, but I still think the colors are amazing. The resin was a fairly simple process. The hardest part has been finding bezels large enough to be able to put something larger in. It's a ton of fun though, and is a way to give the tatted pieces some structure. They are safe and sound in there for sure! I'll be posting them on etsy if you want to see more pictures.

Well, the girls are set to wake from naps soon. So tatting time must come to a close! Ta ta!

OOpsie!

Sigh. I don't know if you can tell in this photo or not, but after whipping these up real quick this afternoon I realized that I used two different beads! One of the drops is oh so slightly more yellow. You wouldn't notice if someone was wearing them. Sigh. I could remake one earring I suppose, but I decided to offer them at a discount on etsy. Maybe they will make someone happy.

I suppose that's what I get for trying to tat with this little distraction laying around.Here is my chubby little smiler again!

Addictive!

I've found myself strangely addicted to the chain rosette. I was awake at night and came up with this plan that I really like. For some extra bling there are Swarovski crystals. I call the pattern "garden Jewel earrings". These went to etsy but I'll be ordering some more beads for a pair for myself.

Below is the set that went off in the mail today for my little sister's birthday. She will be 22 I think. Makes me feel old. I guess that Jewelry making has become addictive as well, I just can't seem to find the desire to do any other tatting at this time. The little things rattle off the shuttles quickly, that right there might be the magic ingredient.......I like to be able to finish things once in awhile. :-) I do have a new idea up my sleeve, the supplies are on the way to my house this week, so stay tuned for some more experiments! I decided to save the thread dying project for a later more sane time, so hopefully this will quench my desire to do something new and exciting. Gotta spice it up now and again. Right?

Still tatting!

Mom has gone back home sadly, but I am happy to report that she left with shuttles in hand! (insert evil laugh here....) Maybe it's her competitive spirit, maybe she couldn't resist all the juicy colors of thread, either way it's one small step in my plan for world tatting domination!

We had a great time, and she was a great help. The first few weeks with the newborn were hairy, but she has made that transition from "newborn" to more of an infant now. I thought she might be more work than her sister was at this age, but she is growing and becoming just the sweetest baby ever. And she always smiles for mommy and saves me the best coooing sounds. And she lets me tat every once in awhile too! What a great kid.

I was in the mood for something different, so thus came the purple flower. It's a pattern that gained popularity on the blogs some time ago, Anyway, the purple was my first attempt at it, done in some size 50 HH. It was kind of hard to keep it even at that size, so further attempts shall be done in size 20. The other doodles came from my facination with this technique of the chains going around and around, messing with repeats and stitch counts. I haven't done it before, honestly I'm not sure I like how they look in a design all the time, (with the exception of Martha's teapots :-) but they sure are fun to tat. I was thinking of doing something to make a pendant of some sort, we shall see. Right now I'm back into my TAT projects. I got fed up with one of them and took some time off but now I think I'm ready to get moving again. I really want that cool little pin after all!

Baby Meirah smiling on her new quilt from Nana!