Easter Eggstravaganza 8!

Tatted Easter Eggs by Kirsten Wind Hansen

Egg number 8 ......

was a pain to tat! All those twisted chains.

By the time I had them finished I had had enough.
It's just the same as No 7 but twisted chains and another layer of them.

Sorry but I haven't repeated this one...yet...tho i do think it would look pretty in different colours.

This is in Flora 20 and the whole egg is a bit too big for me at 3.5inches top to bottom.

Looks pretty tho' now that I see it on the screen.

Easter Eggstravaganza 6!

Tatted Easter Eggs by Kirsten Wind Hansen

Egg Number 6 looks pretty basic when tatted in one plain colour.....

.....but when tatted in a variegated thread it zings.

It's Lizbeth 20 in Caribbean and matching Turquoise. The toning silver lined turquoise beads really sparkle even tho they aren't faceted.

The pattern tatted in one colour takes about 3.6m on the shuttle and 2.5m on the ball.....unless you want bigger picots.

They measure about 3inches top to bottom and I think would be nicer in a finer thread for my tree.

Easter Eggstravaganza 5!

Tatted Easter Eggs by Kirsten Wind Hansen

I must admit that when I first got this book I was not all that struck by it. A lot of patterns looked much the same as a lot of other motifs only blocked to be egg shaped!

But once I got into tatting the patterns numerically instead of cherry picking my favourites, they began to grow on me and I wanted to give it a fair go! I won't have time to tat every design several times as I would like to, but I will tat as many variations as time allows.

I hope it won't be quantity rather than quality!

No 5 looks pretty ordinary until I began to tat it and then its beauty hit me.

Even my trial is lovely.

I should have scanned this against a black background before I stiffened and shaped it.

I suppressed the desire to take it in reverse to see what it would look like!

Mmmmm! I thought what about making this look like an egg with the yolk in the center and the white on the outside.

I made the picots graduated to make the white a bit more fluffy.

But it's not egg like enough....thought process gets going....why not give it and eggshell.

Cool idea...so I got out an egg and compared it to my new selection of browns in my Gingerbread range.......and Cinnamon won.

Added some beads to fill in the yolky center a little.

Changed the stitch count of the yolk quite by accident...wondered why it had little peaks in the middle and added an outer round of cinnamon chains.

Now I need to know what it would have looked like if I had tatted the correct/original stitch count!

It looks so like a cream Easter Egg

I LOVE THIS BOOK!

This design has so much more potential to explore.

The outer round of chains finishes it off to perfection.

Stiffened and shaped....but not the third one

As as addendum to this....my lassies were tatting this design (from their books) when two of them shrieked 

'Oh No'

They had both joined the rings together in the inner round. One of them hadn't got very far, the other had several rings made and was blowed if she was going to untat!

We told her that it wasn't a mistake, rather a new pattern!

She went home having got this far...

.......and returned two weeks later with this little beauty.

Isn't that lovely and the mix of yellow and orange beads is beautiful.
the little Easter chicks were impressed too.

Easter Eggstravaganza 4!

Here comes Egg No 4 from Tatted Easter Eggs a great little book from Kirsten Wind Hansen.

Trial in Flora 20.

Second one in Lizbeth 20...Autumn Spice and Salmon with gold beads.

This one has one less repeat of rings and chains because I miscalculated my thread amount....looks nice tho'. Smaller that the first one as well because Lizbeth 20 tats up smaller.

Shaped and stiffened they look rather odd!

These are definitely going to be flattened!

Most of the eggs would look great in a finer thread.

Easter Eggstravaganza 3!

On to Easter Egg No 3 from Kirsten Wind Hansen's book Tatted Easter Eggs.

First try out...

Second one...

...in Flora 20 Orange and my Wedding Teal Blue and little goldey brown beads. Wowee! doesn't it look different.

Easter Eggstravaganza 2!

The second design the the book Tatted Easter Eggs by Kirsten Wind Hansen is very much like the first one.The difference being the addition of an extra ring at the base of the egg and josephine knots all around the edge. 

Great practise doing josephine knots. I prefer to use the second half stitch for these and to pass the shuttle around the thread after every  five half knots.

First trial looks like this ....

I must admit that the additional ring at the bottom really foxed me! Try as I might to remember to make it after I had tatted the one above  I forgot and on the second attempt I still forgot! So the ring is stitched on with fine thread.

For my second one I was dying to use my new batch of Raspberry Ripple with Vanilla...

 This one does look prettier in real life....hard to capture. this one is tatted in size 30.

I did stiffen and shape these...

This shows the colours much better.

Thank you so much to those who took the trouble to give their opinion on whether to shape the eggs or not. I tend to agree that they would look better flat hanging on the tree and have flattened my no 1 eggs.

Funnily enough when I asked my tatting lassies for their opinion every one said 'shape them' and are going to shape theirs.

In size 20 they take about 3.75m on each shuttle.

Easter Eggstravaganza 1!

Happy Easter to all my friends

I intended to start writing this series of posts well before Easter but as you all know time runs away so quickly.

This is our last tat day and one of my lassies brought us all Easter chicks from her trip to Holland.

Gorgeous aren't they?

IsDihara asked if we have special chocolatey goodies for Easter here.

We have the usual Eggs, either  shells only or filled with cream/toffee etc. Also lots of Chocolate Bunnies and Chicks. 

Back to tatting.....this year I resolved to tat something from the multitude of tatting books that I have never used

This time it was the turn of another of the wonderful books published by Akacia

Tatting Easter Eggs by Kirsten Wind Hansen

There are 24 designs in this inexpensive book. Black and white photos and great diagrams but the minimum of instruction for each design...except for the instructions at the beginning of the book.

I intended in my own silly way to tat my way through the book in order starting at number one and finishing at Easter or when I ran out of enthusiasm...which ever came first!

 There is one design which particularly takes my fancy and my friend urge me to skip ahead to it.....should I, will I...

So Staring with 

Easter Egg No 1

Once again I am doing trials of all the eggs in the same thread...I love doing that...not only to it let me work out how much thread to use when I use my good stuff...but it lets the design show through on each different pattern.

Once again I must say

PLEASE DO NOT USE MY PHOTOS TO TRY TO TAT THE PATTERNS

A LOT OF TIME AND EFFORT HAS GONE INTO DESIGNING THEM
PLEASE IF YOU LIKE THEM

BUY THE BOOK

This is where I show you my first mistake!!!

I made too many rings in the central section, didn't realise until I was this far round in the outer section and wondered why it didn't look right!

 

Memo to self...look more carefully at the diagram!

Second try in a pretty melon and light green Flora 20

Third one is in a cherry coloured Flora 20 with Robin's egg blue Flora contrast and Rainbow Ruby beads size 11. The beads made the whole egg come out a little larger.

For my fourth egg I used my latest dye batch of Berry Burst HDT. I had been asked by a friend in UK to dye this again. It's quite difficult to dye due to the intensity of the colour, getting even and complete penetration of the dye is difficult and it has to be perfect for me!

The beads are purple lined the thread is size 30.

The eggs made in Flora 20 measure about 2 inches.

Thread used was shuttle , 3.6m and Shuttle 2.2 m when using all one colour.

There will be more eggs in Berry Burst later .

It's very much a summer fruits colour.....raspberries,redcurrants,cranberries,loganberries and strawberries, add in the purples of bilberries and blackcurrants and then the blues of blackberries and blueberries.....gosh making my mouth water again.....how come my dyeing seems to be mainly about food!

I stiffened the eggs on a polystyrene egg and hung them on my tree.

I am not sure if I like them shaped or not...what do you think?

This is day one of my Easter Egg tree....the real eggs on the tree I showed first in 2009 follow the link to see them....not sure if I ever showed you the others.

Two more Teapots!

My Tat Lassies brought in two more finished teapots that I don't think you have seen.

Both are Martha Ess's Shamrock teapot.

This one in a very pale green and a medium green, very pretty.

This one is very dramatic, with a very dark green contrasting with my Daffodil Dell HDT.

Apple Blossom time AGAIN!

Remember my Bonsai Crab Apple Tree.....the inspiration for my Apple Blossom HDT way back in 2008...gosh looking back at that post I had forgotten that it looked that good.

By 2009 it was only a shadow of it's former self.

2010 and it had survived the Bonsai Table collapse of the Autumn of 2009.

BUT this year it looks superb.....sorry to bore you with even more photos...but I couldn't take my eyes off it. We had such a hard winter....but it must have suited this little chap....either that or it has loved being on the NEW Bonsai table.....sorry I still haven't got round to showing you all about that achievement....but I will...eventually!

Sadly it's now past it's best, but how glorious it's season is.

I must, I must dye more Apple Blossom thread, it was just gorgeous.

I am having renewed enthusiasm for my little trees in all this glorious weather.

Meeting The President!

Yesterday our President came to town for a very special event.

 I have told you about...and shown you photos from our dearly beloved wildlife park lots of times.

We are one of the top 5 tourist attractions in the country...and we are SUPER.

The conservation elf is on the Board of Governers so we got to be invited guests.

It was very much a whistle stop tour for a very busy lady...we were lucky to have her.

She came,met everyone, toured the park...

on one of out tourist trains.....this is the other one,especially loved by the children....like me!

She gave a superb speech....it was touch and go if the rain would hold off..

she couldn't believe how much freedom and space the animals have.

The park does a wonderful job. liitle Rua the baby red panda is going off to start a new life soon and hopefully help to make more red pandas!

Next she unveiled a commemorative plaque alongside beautiful bronze cheetah sculptures.

This is just in front of the new entrance/extension...on the park side. cant you see the curtains in the first photo? the people who work in the offices have cheetahs just outside their windows...real cheetahs!

The extension also includes a new gift shop/cafe complex with outdoor seating. Just opposite is a new enclosure with Meerkats and Mangabey monkeys, which can be enjoyed along with a cup of coffee.

Look at the stunning natural woven fencing.

She shook hands with so many people and posed with little children who had had their faces painted and their mums.....and me too(shook hands that is!)

Sorry that I can't show you lots of photos.....

but here she is elf chatting with the conservation elf.

She was so genuine....we are so lucky to have her as our President.

Sadly she had to leave after only a short visit and we all had to continue the celebrations without her.

A ride on my favourite train and a yummy buffet and a walk back past the animals....

can you see the Ring Tailed lemurs who enjoyed the day too?

Super, super day.....we will be back to the estate on sunday for the annual Rare and Unusual Plant Sale...and on Easter Sunday with the grandson now two and a half who adores all things train!

Goodies Galore 2!

Next to show is a box of goodies from Ridgewoman in New Mexico.

A while ago I won a give-away on her blog for guessing the origin of the name of the gorgeous pussy, Pippa who is the star of her blog heading.

The box itself is a gift....

.....before the excitement of wondering what it contained....

I couldn't even remember what the prize was...but I think it was some HDT and a shuttle.

That HDT sure looks nice.

It is Yarnplayer's Sugar Maple dyed on Cotton Floss, that's a new experience for me.

There was also Yarnplayer's Forest in size 50. One of the very first colours that I got from her to tat geckos. That's a while ago!

OK I will open the box and show you the contents...

....drool over all those goodies...I did!

The shuttle is one of the new Boyle plastic post shuttles with a pick....going into my collection (and to use sometimes for pleasure of course).

Two lots of ribbon, great for mounting tatting on to make bookmarks.

3 eazy bobs...is that how it's spelt..it doesn't have the name on the bobbin....another new novelty to try.

2 lengths of very unusual beads...for jewellery and a bag with more beads in..little hearts and some findings.....a ball of Valdani dark green floss...will go with the Sugar Maple.

Oh and a ball of Lizbeth 40 in lemon yellow....that's already been used for one of my latest projects.

Almost at the end.....for Feargal there was a Serape for cold nights round the camp fire. Donnacha gave this up without much of a fight!

Tadgh says wherever you are Feargal...eat you heart out 'cos he saw it first!

Did you see the gorgeous tatting at the front, a snowflake and a medallion for the Serape...how how we loves to get our hands on someone elses tatting.

Oh so pretty.

Finally there sitting on top of the box on the Serape is the cutest little bear.

It's turquoise from a mine in Arizona and is a fetish 'mmm maybe with mystical qualities' common in Indian decoration. Can't read where from it looks like S.W.Arnes  but couldn't find that on Google.

She said that she had fun stuffing the box and she sure did stuff a lot in there..it was like Christmas again.

Thank you so much.