Postie brings another give-away win!

Remember way back in October when Ambitatterous's had a Give-away  called Fractured Quotes "Knot-Tea Fun".
Wanda won the prize....and
I won an extra prize!
Just look at the beautiful ornament that she made for Wanda.

Ever since then IsDihara has been working day and night to make my gonna be wonderful ornament.
I did keep telling her that there was no hurry and she did keep sending me tantalizing previews.
I loved the anticipation.

And THEN the almost finished ornament was hit by catastrophe, a veritable tatting sunami........when it became part of an experiment by 'The Sprout' to see if it would float in tea......and it did!
I can only imagine her reaction!

So she had to start all over again.

BUT
LET

ME

TELL

YOU

that it was worth the wait. After all we all know that perfection takes a little longer!

It's absolutely stunning.

Here it is peeping enticingly from it's bubble wrap.

WOWEEE!!

The first thing that I saw was THE TATTING in MY Bracken Crunch....she really likes that!
She even sent some' bling' in case I thought it needed it! As if!

Fergeal and Tadgh rushed over and helped to lift it out....boy they thought that it was really heavy.
They tried to hold it up high, but they just couldn't hack it!

But it isn't heavy at all, it's a fabric covered polystyrene ball. They are just weaklings!

Let's take a closer look.

 

The finish is stunning with that lovely bow and hanger.

All round the edge is a blue trim with more tatting.

 IsDihara

I LOVE IT!

 

Transitions No 1 'ROY'

Way back when I first dyed Rainbow Bright.....I got a bright idea!

What if....

I took just 3 colours from the Rainbow and dyed them on their own.

I would be able to make the transition between the 3 colours much slower bringing in intermediate shades.

I was dyeing/dying to see what they would look like,

would I like them!

But time and other projects always got in the way..

Until now!

I finally got round to trying out Rainbow Bright Transitions, and here is the first one of the series....

code named ROY!

Now when I try out a new colour way....I dye a 15 yd skein.

From it I know that I can tat a Heart's Desire and a couple of Butterflies and that will give me a good idea if it will work. These are the best designs that I know to showcase a thread. The heart is big enough that the colours are spread out and don't fall into large 'pools' and distract from the design. The butterfly takes a yard of thread and so takes in all the shades.

So here is my ROY....trial.

 

Woweee!

That was pretty vibrant, I wondered if I liked it

but it grew on me.

So I got to thinking what does it remind me of ...

I can't keep calling it ROY, not a very dynamic name for a dynamic thread.

Now the funny thing about this series of threads is that they are not engineered....in that I haven't tried to represent anything in particular...just to play with three colours that are next to each other in the rainbow. So I now have the task of of fitting a name to the thread instead of the other way round.

The first things that I thought of were hot and fiery. I looked up furnace and they were the very colours in molten glass...but I didn't think that Blast Furnace was a very evocative name for a thread.

Next I looked up volcano...and yes it reminded me of molten lava, maybe Lava Flow would be a good name.

IsDihara of Ambitatterous is in cahoots with me over these threads. I sent her a sample pack to see what she would make with 15yds of thread.....and to ask...which ones she liked....what did they remind her of...and to think of names....not a very tall order!!

Wow did you see the gorgeous motif she is tatting with ChocoRaspberry...see it here. She even has me going thro' my tea stock, today it's black tea from Mauritius with vanilla flavour...gosh I expected real vanilla!!

Back to the job in hand.....she came up with great ideas...I loved what ROY reminded her of.....go look on her blog and also see what she tatted.

Then I showed the House Elf the Heart and asked him what it reminded him of. Now he remembers every flower and animal that he has ever heard of.....and this is what he said...

It's exactly like......ammm...ammm.... I can't remember!

But then he did remember

Lantana.

Now in my neck of the woods Lantana is a beautiful and desirable house plant coming in shades of red and orange and yellow, often all three at once. But in Australia (correct me if I am wrong) we found that it is a pernicious weed!

Well a little while later there was a cry of this is it and indeed it was.

Isn't that just something.

Spurred on by that beautiful photo I decided my thread needed to be tweaked just a little to make it even more vibrant to be worthy of its name

FLAME LANTANA.

When I had dyed several skeins of Flame Lantana and they were laid out to dry....I was besotted....they are gorgeous. the heap of thread blew me away.

 

I have to admit to being so excited and wanted something to tat that would do it justice....little flowers would do the job.

I found this design by Jon called Heart O' Daisies and couldn't wait to tat it....I have given myself a week off before I tackle my next TAT project.

Here 'tis.....together with another butterfly and some flowers,

So what do you think?? If you pop over to Fox's Blog you can see how excited she is with the sample I sent her. Dying to see what she makes....sooooon!

  

'Fraid you will have to wait a while for Transition No 2, these things can't be hurried, perfection takes a long time!!

TTT.Fergeal gets a present!

Remember me telling you that there was something extra in the giveaway package from TypsTatting.

Well

It was a little square package wrapped in tissue with a letter attached,
I was just reading the letter when up popped Fergeal by my side.....I swear these leprechauns are psychic.
He read the letter over my shoulder and then hopped down to examine the package.

 

The letter read...

This little quilt is for the leprechaun in your life.

For the cold nights and  sitting watching the television.

To share if he wants or just to enjoy!

He had it opened in an instant, he laid it out on the floor and popped under it.

Isn't it just gorgeous. he wants to say a big thanks to TypsTatting.

A couple of little voices were heard to say.....

did we hear that something was to share...

And before you could say leprechauns knees, they were under the quilt too.

talk about cozy!
And then....
He had another idea....
Lets try it over our knees sitting on the sofa..like Typs Tatting meant.

And then he had an even better idea....
Instead of getting under it, let's get on top of it..
it would make a wonderful carpet! and make my little space so cosy.

 

Just look how the colours match my sofa, he said, she must have seen my sofa before!

And so that was his decision, he called the lads to bring some more chairs and a tea table and some tea,

and they did. They all sat down to enjoy Tatting Tea Tuesday, Tadgh was all ready to pour the tea from Fergeal's BEST teapot.

  

lets take a birds eye view

isn't that just perfect for a leprechaun party.

But

along came my friend Jackie

with her tea service!!

  

Isn't that just something. It's from Martha Ess's Teapot book, she is just such a clever designer...and Jackie is such a clever tatter.

The set is sitting on the top of my coffee cup.

Well the lads heard about it and in an instant they had cleared Fergeal's tea set off the table onto the floor and demanded to have Jackie's one instead!

The lads were over the moon....but it is tatted in my Coral Reef HDT and Fergeal says that it just doesn't go with his decor!!
Now he wants me to make one to suit his colour scheme....any ideas....not that he is going to get one anytime soon!
The three lads think that their life is going very smoothly at the moment and wish to continue to be kept in the manner that they have become accustomed to!
HUH!
As for me, I finally completed my 7th TAT excercise  on my 4th attempt and even that one has one ring slightly bigger than the others....I just know they will spot that and knock a mark off... drat. My 3rd attempt was perfect apart from a  mistake of monstrous proportions. I just can't do it again.
5 more projects to go.
So no tatting of mine to show you today.

More from the postie!

Postie man brought me something nice this week, more than just nice...really nice.

My Giveaway prize from Typs Tatting.

Of course I had to run round the house like a mad thing trying it out.

First on the new chest of drawers in my 'posh' guestroom!

 

A perfect fit but the colour was not great as the room is cream and burgundy.

On to my guestroom no 2...the one I call toy town!

This room is decorated in primary colours so it looks good in here.

When I had a patchwork quilt on the bed it would have complemented it even better.

Today the bed looks like this..

You can just see the runner by TypsTatting on the shelf next to the bed....the shelf is on top of an extra folding bed.

I expect that you are intrigued by the mural on the wall.....that's why I call the room Toy Town! Grandbaby will love it.

Way back in 1988 we were making major changes to the house with the result that sonny boy's bedroom became a bathroom!! so he moved into the guest room and did his own thing...painted all the woodwork red  for a start!

Our daughter was at the time allowed to paint on the walls....well encouraged in fact and he helped her to paint this on his wall.

She calls it Flying High.

When we decided to turn his room back into a guest room last year, daughter told us to paint over it...son said....over my dead body!!!!

so we didn't!

I love it.

Unfortunately when I tried to wash it after all these years I found that she had painted it in poster paint and will just wash off!!

On the wall at the end of the bed he made a cork pin board and a display for his mug collection. Now resting in there is my tatting display board...something to admire while you lie in bed.

Here it is in case you haven' seen it before.

Next to it is one of her paintings....yet to be hung on the wall.

There was one more thing in the package for TypsTatting but you will have to wait until Tatting tea Tuesday to see it!!!

Tatting Tea Tuesday!

This is my first Tatting Tea Tuesday post so best to start with the tea.

A few weeks ago IsDihara of Ambitatterous asked what's in your tea cupboard, following on from the showing of her tea cupboard by Heather.

My tea cupboard is no where neat as theirs and is stored in a couple of places...kitchen and excess in my dye studio...close at hand!

So I had to get it all out and arrange it....I think that I still missed a few. 

This is especially for IsDihara!

mmmmm that's a lotta tea....so what do I actually drink.....

 Roobois for lunch and..... Roobois with Vanilla for my 4 O'Clock cuppa......after dinner,  Peppermint or Pukka Three Mint,thats peppermint, spearmint and field mint......bedtime cuppa may be Camomile,Honey and Vanilla or Organic Mountain Honeybush..(or better still Hot Chocolate made with soya milk).

I rarely drink Indian tea, but if I do it will be Morrocan Mint or Mango Indica or Vanilla Tea especially the real vanilla ones from Mauritius...(when I remember that we have them!!)

There seems to be a bit of a vanilla theme here....does that explain anything to you!

Especially for this post I tried Melon Grape and Aloe Vera....it was ok.

The tatting......that's still under wraps...I have finished my 6th project for Artisan TAT......halfway 6 more to go.....they are getting harder as I do the ones that look 'easy' first!!

Another book, another thread.

I treated myself to yet another book and it has just arrived....

......and woweeee! it's a smasher!

It's one of the few tatting books where every design is shown in full colour.....at a reasonable price....

and boy does she love colour. I could sit  am sitting and drooling over these designs for hours.

I don't know when I will find time to tat any..

I MUST NOT BE DISTRACTED FROM T.A.T.!!!!

BUT

I HAVE BEEN DISTRACTED!!

When Miranda wrote and asked me if I would dye a lighter version of Rainbow Bright for her.....I thought

mmmmmmmmmmmm!

Every time I dye Rainbow Bright I am bowled over by the vibrancy of the colours....when it is wet!

I keep increasing the strength of the dyes....bit.....by.....tiny...bit

and now she wants me to make it paler!!!

and not just a little bit paler....she wants pastel!

Pastel she will have ......

I have made it lighter......little....by....little....until I thought...

That's pastel enough.....for me......could be paler but I wanted it to have enough colour not to be too pallid........

and so I had to give it a test run!

With any new thread I never know how it is going to look until I tat with it.

EVERYTHING looks pretty when it's twisted into a skein,

but tatted up some just don't do it for me.

Shuttles wound for Susan Fuller's trusty Hearts Desire which is just the BEST for seeing how the colours work........as they just flow on after the other along the chains........

and I was bowled over from the very first stitch...

IT'S GORGEOUS !

I sent a wadge of photos to Miranda and she said

That's exactly what I had in mind...

that's one happy camper....

well two actually...if you count me!!

Want to see it.....what a silly question!

It's difficult to show you how pastel it actually is so I will put it next to the heart in Rainbow Bright.

Here are the skeins....

Well my mind went into overdrive and I had to see what the solids would look like...

It was like going into a sweet shop and finding a display of jelly sweets sprinkled with sugar!

Red had turned into ROSE

Orange had become APRICOT

Yellow is now  LEMON

Green has become MINT

Blue is FORGET ME NOT (what sweets do we eat that are blue!!)

Indigo is now LAVENDER

and Violet is PARMA VIOLET

So Rainbow 'Lite' Sweet Shop is born

Wowee! Thanks Miranda I am blown away, hope your thread gets to you soon.

I am dyeing dying to know what you all think!

If you would like the solids just shout! well no whisper would be better, send me an email.

BTW My peace Project posts have been transfered to my other blog. 

Norman! Animal Number 33, Rooster!

I have been working away on Jane's new year TIAS (Tat It And See)......I had a little hiccup half way through when I had other things that needed to be done......so I didn't get it finished until the whole thing had finished and I saw the end result.....Norman...as Jane has called him.
Go here to find out what a TIAS is all about and to see all the other Normans.

Here is my Norman in his own personalized outfit. (Irish Norman!)

 

He is very proud of himself and considers himself to be Cock of all he can see.

Until there was Super Norman...my second attempt.

 

Now Super Norman was hanging around surveying the scene....

when who should come along but Norman....

 

OMG said Super Norman ...you are small, what have they been feeding you on!!

Well now would you believe that both of these Norman's were tatted with size 20 thread!!

Norman is tatted in Coats Floretta 20 and Super Norman in Coats Red Heart...with Flora 20 for his head dress.....isn't that amazing!

This is a fiendishly clever pattern ...how does she do it!

If you would like to know thread amounts, here they are ...approximately.

Tail feathers.....1.75m on each shuttle.

Body.       Sh1 3.25m.       Sh2 2.55m

Head dress..Sh3   1.25m

Would you believe it but I haven't tatted an animal since Sep 2008. The Rooster is No 33 on my list of Tatted animals in my original challenge.....whooo hooo!