Playing with the Starflower

 See!! I really have been tatting!  I've been so busy already with school that I've barely had any time to get on here and read through the blogs.  I do miss being able to see what everyone is working on though.  It is my last semester though, so with 4 Biology classes... I have my hands full :o)

But, I have made time to work on a few things. These two, the one above and the one below are two of the ideas that I've been playing with.  I know that my Starflower design is very basic and maybe slightly "boring".  But, these are far from it, well, atleast the top one is far from it.
I would like to provide the pattern, but I'll either need to make arrangements with someone who is proficient in drawing diagrams/ writing up patterns.... or wait until I can work on it myself. 

Update! This is looking like it may get done sooner than I could have ever dreamed.  Thanks to someone awesome.  Look forward to this one. :o)

This one below, is fairly simple,at least compared to the one above.  If you would like to do it, then the pattern is simple to give you.  The basic pattern is still the same. If you noticed, on the original pattern, all of the stitch counts are the same between each of the picots with the only exception being the half number of stitch directly above the clover.
This means that you could easily enlarge or decrease the size of the pattern.  (By varying the number of stitches between picots)

With this one, I was running out of thread, so I made it into more a square, but it would look nice as a five pointed motif as well. :o)

On a more personal note:
Livi and I got haircuts!  We donated the hair to Locks of Love.
Here is Livi's before and after pictures.  Isn't she sweet!

 

I haven't taken my picture yet.  But I will take one and share it soon.

These beauties arrived in the mail last week from Umintsuru!  Her package also included a sweet note of condolences for our now departed doggie. Thank you Umintsuru!! This was such a sweet gesture and I truly appreciate it! <3

"Baby Shoes" Update

So, in my last post I said I was putting together some tatting for "baby shoes" (really they are closer to a barefoot sandal)

Here is the tatting that I'm hoping that will be liked:

The flower is in Lizbeth size 40 Dusty Rose Lt, and the pattern was  modified from one of  Dangela's in her book Occhi-Patchwork. 
The leaf is Frivole's leaf pattern, but I modified it as well to make it a little bit longer.  The thread on that one is size 40, I dyed this one myself to a seafoam color.
I also glued the leaf onto a small piece of seafoam dyed cloth so that it wouldn't be "hollow" ?

I got the idea to glue the tattign onto the cloth from Linda Davies.  One of her flower patterns calls for gluing to a light fabric.  I thought that was an ingenious idea. :o) 

New Tatting Books, TIAS, New Friends and Baby feet!

Well, first off, school has started back officially!  I've got a full load so I will be blogging and dyeing less for the next few months.

I did however get some new books, so I am sure that I will squeeze in some tatting. :o)

 

I did manage to tat this little flower based on the flowers from Mary Maynard's Ring of Flowers.  It's in size 100 Rainbowlicious. :o)

Here is my progress on Jane's TIAS.  So far, my method of adding new thread each day has worked out well. :o)

 Here are my new friends from Mandy's Scribbledolls shop!  Aren't they the sweetest??

 Can you believe it?? I actually tatted with white!!!!  It shocked myself!!  But, it was for a reason!  This is size 80.  I'm working on some tatted flowers for a friend's baby's feet.  So, that's the reason behind my choosing white. :o)

I was so inspired by Marilee Rockley's Jubiloso doily that I'm attempting to do a woven/ celtic add on to my starflower design.  This is how far I have gotten:

This is a prototype of what the tatting on a baby foot looks like:  (Thanks goes to Mandy for letting me use her darling daughter Summer's feet)

Isn't it adorable??  I'm considering adding something along these lines to the Etsy shop. :o)

Have you ever mixed size 20 with size 80 and size 100? I have!

I ended up with 3 different sizes of rainbowlicious for myself.  When I went to do another flower using the first three rows of Marilee's Jubiloso doily, I couldn't decided between the three sizes.  So, I used all three!!

I started with the size 80 second round.  I started with the intention of using some size 80 purple for the other two rows.  However, thin thread will not last too long and be too dainty for FABs.  At some point I had the great I idea to use the size 20 for the inside, since it would hold up to being taken on and off a button.

After I had the first two rounds tatted, I was still thinking about adding just some size 80 purple to the outside.  But, how boring would that be, huh?  So, size 100 Rainbowlicious is on the outer round. :o)
I think it's darling!

 

I did another flower with the Watercolor Sweetheart (MJ!), like I did in the last post, but this one has beads. :o)

And another in Dark Rainbow... except, this one, does NOT look good with this extra leafy background. (which I will mention later on in this post, keep scrolling )

Oh yes, much better on it's own!

 

This one tatted in "Madder Tatter" also looked better with out the leafy extra, but would also look better with a different colored felt background. 

Now, that leafy extra... how do you feel about it?

 The pattern is Jon Yusoff's from Elegant Tatting gems, Almas.  I really like it!  I modified it a little to make a square, and I messed up one on the left.  Mess up on these are not a big deal since they are supposed to be leafy extras though. :o)

I am looking forward to Jane's TIAS!  I have decided that I will do mine in separate pieces with what thread is left on my shuttles at the time. It should make for an interestingly colored piece when it's all said and done. :o)

FABs are listed!

Well, I got some FABs listed!
Of course, I hope to get many more made up and listed as well, but this is a good start. :o)

Here are some of the newer Starflowers that I tatted to list:

This one is really fun!  It's tatted in my new (size 40) Watercolor Sweetheart Messy Jess!-y, but I added size  20 sea-green light with alternate thread method.  (I *think* that's how you'd say it)

Here's a close up of the outside chain: 

Pretty right?

This one is in a special colorway I did for myself to see if the colors would work.  I plan to do some more of it when it gets closer to summer.  It looks like a summer colorway, don't you think?

I may have shown this one before, but maybe not.  It's with Karey Solomon's HDT with 15/0 green beads around the outside.  It's so pretty! :o)

ALSO!!!

If you were a Secret Santa Giveaway winner but have not received your thread, please message me!

It's been SOO crazy around here and I have this strange horrible  feeling that not all of them made it out in the mail.  It's one of the horrible side effects of trying to do too much at one time!  I apologize to anyone that hasn't gotten theirs yet, I promise that it was not intentional!

Watercolor Sweetheart, a new MJ!

First, I would like to thank everyone for the kind and thoughtful comments on my last posts!  They were much appreciated!  I've been trying to stay busy so that I don't get to upset.  I need to get some more relaxing in before I start back to school on the 17th.

Now, I have a new Messy Jess!-y (MJ!) to show!  This will be my last colorway for a little while.  I ran out of size 20 thread and it will be a little while before I get some more.  I may however do some size 40 only colorways.  I've been having fun using my messy dyeing method to dye some fabric and t-shirts and I've been experimenting with some fun combinations.  (An afterthought- That is actually how I knew that these colors would look so wonderful together!)

But, anyway, this one is really pretty.  It was another one of the harder to photograph colors though.
It is mostly pink with highlights of seafoam.  Where the seafoam and pink mix are shades of purplish gray.
It's so pretty!

Janet told me that my MJ!s look like they were watercolored, so I named this one Watercolor Sweetheart.  It just looked like a "sweetheart" thread. I don't know why.

Of course, you've seen this Starflower design of mine many times before.  I really like it.  This one, I did the chains as BDS, and made them slight shorter.  But, then the whole motif is slightly abbreviated.  Instead of 6-6-6 for the smaller rings, they are 5-5-5, and the bigger rings 5-5-5-5-5.  Then the BDS is 8 BDS - 1BDS
I play around with the number of ds between each picot depending on what mood I'm in and how big I want the flower to be.

I've been playing with the idea of making a larger piece made up of Starflowers, I think it would be pretty.  These here are Livi's Ballet Shoes (January 2013's), Azalea Md, and Turquoise Lt.  

Then, of course, the other is "Watercolor Sweetheart" from above.  

So, I've been thinking I might sell  some my Starflowers and Button Hairclips in the Etsy shop or possible my Storenvy shop.  If I did though, I think I would change thing acronym from MOB to FAB.  So instead of Motif on Button, it would be Flower Around Button.  I think this would create a better selling angle, or make them sound more appealing. :o)  I'm sure that there aren't too many non-fiberartists, and maybe even nontatters that would understand "motif".  I could be wrong, but at least when it comes to searching for a hairclip, flower hairclip, and fabulous hairclip would be entered into my search bar before Motif Hairclip.

What do you think? 

New Years Resolution 2013

I don't usually get into the whole New Year's Resolution thing, but for 2012, I am going to make a point FINISH things!  That may seem like a weird one, but it is my goal to finish more projects than I start!  I have quite a few that were started and abandoned and this is the year of getting things done!!

I started this challenge of mine before I even made the resolution to do so.  January 1st, I spent the entire day (practically the entire 24 hours of it) finishing The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.  It is a  really good book, but I never gave myself time to just sit down and read it.  I've been working on it for months, but had only gotten 25% of it read.  But, I finished it and then allowed myself to watch the movie. I'm glad I did because the book provided so much more than the movie did.  I don't watch movies that have books that I want to read.  It gets annoying since I'm so bad about finishing books.

Of course, some things, like finishing a project or finishing a book, are fun.  These things make you feel good.  They get you pumped up about finishing more tasks.
But then there are other things that you decide to bring to a close that break your heart.  These are not good decisions to put off because they hurt the individuals involved.  I had the unfortunate opportunity to make one of these decisions.
My sweet dog Toodles had been trying to tell me for quite some time that it was her time to go.  I didn't listen for a long time.  I nursed her, spoiled her with table food (just to get her to eat), I let her inside and let her sleep in the garage even though I wasn't supposed to do so.  But it just breaking my heart to see her in so much pain, so yesterday we had her put to sleep.  I know it was the right decision. We got to share 16 beautiful years with her.  She was such a good friend, a good protector, a sweet sweet treasure.  But, I am so glad that she passed on in my arms, wrapped in love rather than possibly suffering alone.

This one is actually an old one, but hopefully you can see the love.

This is the most recent picture of her sweetness.  I took others, but to me they display the sadness and pain.  This one is though is priceless.  She had been deaf and partially blind for quite some time.  Her sniffer worked wonderfully though, so she had to sniff EVERYTHING!!!

I miss her terribly, but I do take comfort in knowing that she is no longer in pain.

To bring this post to a brighter side, I do have some tatting:

This is the first three rounds of Marilee Rockley's Jubiloso doily.  I had originally planned to do the entire doily, but this so cute and I think it is finished as is as a MOB (motif on button) for Livi's hairclip

When I took this picture, I remembered that I had tatted Jon's Sweetheart medallion so that I could put it around a button. I think I showed the motif in the last post, but I forgot to mention that I had altered the center for this purpose. :o)

The extent of my altering included not attaching to inner rings to one another, but rather attaching the their middle picot to the base of its neighboring inner ring. This created a smalled button hole in the middle. :o)