The charm of HDT

One of the wonderful and addictive qualities of HDT (hand dyed thread), is the unique and sometimes unpredictable results. The waiting is the worst part- you mix and wind and sort and soak and paint and wrap..... and don't forget the cleanup......and then you relegate yourself to 24 hours of curing time before you can start to see the results! And THEN you have to wait for it to dry! You'd think the nice summery weather would help that, but I usually dye at night before bed, which means I rinse (and that's a painstaking process too!) at night, so the thread hangs overnight in the cooler temps and sometimes is not dry the next morning. So it's really a two day process. And I spend the whole time fighting the urge to peek and mess with it or rinse it early. Painful I tell you.

But, the results are worth it. Sometimes they are heartbreaking, like the recent rounds of Oops threads, but sometimes the results are better than you'd hope. I've come to accept that there will be a small failure rate, inevitably there will probably be one skein of thread where there is a white spot left, but after much practice there are fewer and fewer.

My favorite results are the intermediate tones of color that happen in the overlap of different dye colors.... they mix in the threads in the most interesting ways. In this last batch of Vineyard at Dusk for instance, i used this color of dye that I got on clearance. It is called "gunmetal" and I tell ya, no matter how long or hard you mix it, it separates a little and does different things. It's unpredictable, a little like me :-) And in this batch, somehow a bit of dusky sky blue snuck in there, and I absolutely love it. (you can see it in the top right corner of the above picture. Inconsistincies are what make Hand dyed thread unique and desireable in my opinion, and I now consider them a welcome part of the process. and commercially available varigated and multicolor threads lack that sort of organic and alive quality. I have balls of lizbeth that I'll probably never use now that I am dyeing, and I still regularly purchase from other dyers. You can see personalities in our color combinations and I prize the threads that others have done.

So, here I am, thread and color and dye addicted. Dr. Vonthreadmore is pleased with my HDT propensities of course, and she thanks you all kindly for your encouragement and praise. She has become more humble as of late, and nothing pleases her more to see her work used and appreciated. We would both love to see the results of your use of our threads!

Krystle

Vineyard at Dusk

I am so thrilled at how this batch turned out! It is beautifully blended, sophisticated and wonderful! Dr. Vonthreadmore worked hard on this batch, and her efforts please me greatly.

I couldn't wait to try it out, so here is an action shot, one of my 3-d flowers. It will end up on a hairclip later this afternoon. Of course I would love to tat all day, but I need to go get a new cell phone as well as go to a birthday party..... so many other things to do! But this thread is going to call me name for sure. All day. I'll hear it from across town beckoning......

If it beckons you as well I have listed a small amount here. I only have Lizbeth 20 available in this batch as of yet.

Gone....

Usually my tatted designs hang out for awhile before leaving me, but this one sold just a few hours after I listed it. Of course I am quite happy about the sale, but the special ones can be hard to let go of.

This was tatted with some of the vintage silk thread that I was given, and some cool beads from Joann. Sometimes Joann comes through for me, like the other day when I stumbled on some Lizbeth there again..... grabbed a few ball s for DR. V who wanted very badly to work on her dye technique. Thankfully for her, most of the OOPS thread is sold and on it's way, she is saving some money to buy a cone of white Lizbeth from Handy Hands. She does have a small batch curing, that should be ready to show off tomorrow.

New Hand dyed thread, and a bargain basement

I've just listed my newest hand dyed thread endeavors in my etsy shop. Click here to see "Blues and Greens" (I wasn't feeling very creative in naming today)

Also, I have added a new section to the shop for various experimental threads and oops threads, click here to visit the thread bargain basement!

Live and Let DYE

Dr. Vonthreadmore has finally had her day. Well, a dye project is really two days of work......

She was up until about 3am this morning, after mixing 24 colors of dye, and dyeing just about every last bit of white thread she could get her paws on.

Pictures of the results are soon to follow, however I am completely exhausted after a full day of rinsing thread. Most of it is drying now and waiting to be wound into the pretty skeins. Dr. Vonthreadmore was kind enough to supply me with many new colors of size 10 which I have been hankering for, but there was a substantial amount of trial and error thread. I think she has traced the problem to a mixing ratio....... either way, some of this thread will soon be liquidated via ETSY so we can get some more and keep refining our technique.

Ta ta from The tatter and the DR!

Inspired.

One big bonus of being asked to do a custom design is that you end up going over several ideas in your head about how to best accomplish it, so I am now knee deep in necklace mode, and this is the first off the shuttles.

I also have plans to remake the bridal necklace in black and do another in white. So I have plenty to keep me busy......not to mention that dye project that Dr. Vonthreadmore has been Dyeing to get to..... lol !

It's away! And a giveaway....

The bridal set has been mailed with much in the way of good wishes for it's safe and timely arrival in Estonia. Above, yours truly is modeling the choker. If you'd like to see the pretty pictures of it before I get around to posting them here, you can go to my etsy shop and check the sold items.

And as far as the giveaway......head over to my facebook page, and check it out!

http://www.facebook.com/krystledawne

Catching up on listings

Today's productive tatting time was spent on the continuation of the custom bridal choker, as well as catching up on ETSY listings. I get crazy before a show and make a bunch of stuff, then it takes me a week or two to get it listed online. :-)

My precious little headband model held still just long enough for a winsome photo of her looking out the window sporting on of her headbands. I included this pic in the listings to show what the headbands look like when worn.

Poor Dr. Vonthreadmore has been on hold for two weeks as I keep not having time for a dye project. I have very little size 10 thread, so I will have to buckle down and let her get busy for the sake of more baby headbands.

My first Custom-er

Much in the way of craziness has gone on since my last blog post, but things are settlin down a tad and I can breathe easier I guess. One of the big changes around here is that we have a houseguest for the summer. A co-worker of my husbands is in need of a temporary place to live, so we offered our "playroom" with the futon, and he is helping toward the extra costs.....and he does the dishes several times a week. I was a little nervous about the whole setup at first, but everything is working out well. And, did I mention that he does dishes?

In the way of tatting, I scrambled last week to get ready and do another craft show. It was small but I did sell a few things, and made some contacts and got lots of interest. One idea that came from my mad get-ready scramble, is a simple treatment for tealights. I don't know if I'll sell them or not, but the idea was there so I did it just to work it out.

Here is another piece that was finished for the show, and it will be listed in the shop this afternoon.



In related news, I've had to be honest with myself and realize that I will not be able to sustain doing every craft show that comes my way. I have too many things going on in life! So I will probably do one more this summer, and then start working ahead for the holiday season and do one or two more shows.

In unrelated but exciting news, I have been comissioned by a fellow esty seller to make a set of jewelry for her traditional wedding in Estonia! I know that's in Europe, but I am going to pinpoint it on a map just for kicks. Anyway, this is my first custom request on Etsy, so that explains the title of this post. I will show the finished set once the wedding is over, but I am scrambling to finish it this week because of the expected shipping time....the wedding is in just a few weeks.

Needle tatting? My observations.

Why yes, I am needle tatting.

Now, there are nay sayers and boohooers about needle tatting, I personally learned needle tatting at the same time I learned shuttle tatting.

Initially I had gone back and forth between the two methods, but I eventually landed on shuttle tatting as my primary way of tatting. I find needle tatting to be softer in feel on a finished piece, and it is also easier to work in larger threads with a needle (at least it is for me). It definitely lends itself more towards the larger pieces that Totusmel is so well known for. Shuttle tatting I find to be more precise, there is a lot of tieing or SLT's in needle tatting, and working with two shuttles accomplishes that more cleanly, and the transitions are more exact.

My recent foray back into the world of needle tatting was initially inspired by Jessica Spaulding and her 3-D flowers. You may remember seeing a picture of her in my shuttlebirds post, anyway, she was gracious enough to share her instructions with me. Her method involves making rings that join together, and then they spiral around and you tie it together with a bead to finish. Very simple, gets the job done quite nicely. I like the flowers to be larger on the clippies I was making, but I was running into a problem with the final rings being unweildy when tatted large enough to make the size flower I wanted. Also, I couldn't figure out how to get her flowers to finish nicely without the bead. I was thinking about making some baby headbands, but I am wary of putting beads on an item that small fingers may try to pry apart. So I thought about it for some time, and eventually settled on a different method of constructing the flowers that uses chains instead of rings, and I am needle tatting them with size 10 thread to achieve the size that I want. Pictured above, you can see a finished baby headband, as well as another large pink flower, and a smaller flower done in size 20.

So yes, I do believe that needle tatting is a wonderful extention of the art of tatting, I would encourage all to try both and see what they like, even if it is only to see and understand the differences and similarities. I think in the future I may post some comparisons, but that will wait for another day. children must be fed!

Dr. Vonthreadmore sends her regards, she is patiently waiting for me to find the time to wind her some thread......