so very very quiet - and then new shuttles arrive

It's been quiet in here for so long then suddenly two posts come along at once - although that's only because I forgot to click the Publish button last time :)

I have some new shuttles and a new tatting friend. My friend has short fingers like me and was finding standard tatting shuttles too long for her hand so she's defected to needle tatting. That led me to start searching for some smaller shuttles as my smallest shuttles are Silent Tatter which sadly are no longer made.

 These are the shuttles that arrived this week - the one on the left is Bloodwood from OldtymeWoodWorks on Etsy. The paler two are both beech from TattingLaceJewellery also on Etsy.

 

 Although they are very similar size and overall shape I didn't really get on with the bloodwood shuttle. The shuttle shape being different to what I'm used to makes it harder to tat and this was more obvious with the bloodwood one because it is heavier due to the metal parts that hold in the bobbin. I got on the best with the shuttle on the right.

 And here are the beech shuttles with the butterflies tatted with them.  Anyway I'll see what my needle-tatting friend thinks - maybe I can tempt her back to a second try of shuttle tatting!

 

Distractions - crochet peacock feather

I'm easily distracted :) For the last year or so I've been distracted by crochet and learning to knit. Latest distraction - this lovely crochet peacock feather motif found here (and it would help if I remembered to click the Post button!)

shuttle shopping

I've been lying in wait on Jane Eborall's etsy shop waiting for the new batch of pop a bobbin shuttles to arrive. Successfully popped a without-hook shuttle into my basket and paid for it so I've managed to get exactly what I wanted. They've now been on sale for less than 10 minutes and more than half have gone! - only 7 left out of 19 or 20 or so.

Tenuous

Only the most tenuous link to tatting...


 Recreating Edwardian and Victorian clothing is the reason I got into Tatting.

Less tenuous is this one which is the only image of tatting that I found on the Getty site when searching for Tatting.



What I was actually doing on the Getty site was searching for pictures like this as I'm part of a historical presentation group that will be doing a lot of First World War displays this year




Apologies to anyone viewing this using something that doesn't like HTML frames but that's the terms of using these images from Getty.

60 inches and counting

After the 46 inches of tatting in size 40 thread for my mob cap  I've gone back to the same #16 variegated brown thread that I was using about 16 months ago and made 60 inches of tatting in a shorter time. 

I'd forgotten how fast tatting progresses with this size of thread although with a thicker thread you can't get as long a length on the shuttle so the joins come up faster -  I get 8 inches per bobbin using my silent tatter so that's usually at least one join per evening.

This is probably going to trim a Victorian-style skirt as I have another length in the same thread and pattern from when I was practicing consistency with the other piece from 16 months ago. The only problem is that back since then I found I had to reduce the tension in my tatting in order to get rings to close when using size 40 thread which means there's quite a difference in the widths of the old and new pieces. so I'll have to make some special sections where I deliberately change the tension over the space of a few inches to link the two pieces together, or tat enough this time to go all the way around the skirt and use the other piece somewhere else.

This thread is called Puppets Eldorado and is made by coats.

This weekend I've also tatted around 2 jewellery findings but I haven't finished off the loose threads yet so those still need to be photographed.

Tat It And See day 10

Day 10 of this year's first TIAS. So far we have 2 pieces but still no idea what it might be.

If you don't know what I'm talking about,  the Tat it and See blog is here: tatitandsee.blogspot.co.uk

Baby bonnet with tatting

Now that the gift has been given I can post a better picture...

The edging round the front of the bonnet is a pattern from Mary Konior's Tatting with visual patterns book.
The butterflies (one on each side) are from a Japanese book.

The baby is only about 3 weeks old and this bonnet is for 3-6 months so it'll be a while before I see it modeled properly.