Adding the WOW factor!

So far so good

I LOVE all of my new pendants.

But

I thought....

I need Earrings to match....

well obviously!

I have both of Marilee's Jewellery Books...

Boutique Tatting,

Tatted Jewelry.

Having  uumm...hd and aaaa...hd as to which I should do first....
I settled on Carnival Earrings from Tatted jewelry...listed as a beginners project.
so here goes....
Next pendant in RAINBOW BRIGHT My all time Favourite of My Threads.
The Pendant 

....and the earrings....

This is one of those WOW moments...
I love the way the colours just follow one after the other,just the way that I intended them to.
The red Wonder Bead is gorgeous  too....
....The Set

The pendant need a red Wonder bead in the center, I think.
Lovely to wear.

Remember the pendant that I made in Sweet shop....in the very first of these pendant posts?
Well that colourway got the earring treatment too.
You actually already saw me wearing them on my Birthday Canal Boat trip.

Finally my third favourite thread is Berry Burst...so here goes....

....which also strangely enough goes really well with what I wear....
the silver beads against the dark thread simple glow against my skin.....
.....and with the earrings is just gorgeous....

I used Swarovski Bicones and top drilled Swarovski drops and gosh do they sparkle!
This was the very last of my Berry Burst so you can guess what I am dyeing now!
See you soon with a new colourway I have to show you.

Even MORE!

This pattern was so addictive......I have given them to all my relatives and friends and still can't stop!!

Some colourways are working better than others .

Just personal preference and what I have to wear them with.

 Everyone I gave them too had their own different preferences,which was cool.

Next up was Gina's Tequila Sunrise.....

 This time I used silver lined transparent beads and they really made the colours zing!

So that's what I have used on all the colourways since then.

 Next to tat were the ChocoRaspberry family( made to make your mouth water)!

We already saw Raspberry Ripple with Vanilla in the previous post.

This looked really lovely with another 'random' T-Shirt from my ever growing collection!

You can now see how the beads add zing.

But the next two in the ChocoRaspberry Family would look equally well.

All the colouways seem to come to life against skin!

Raspberry Sorbet...

and......

......Raspberry and Chocolate Mousse.

Come back soon to see my all time favourites

More pendants

After the first few came a rush of pendants......

next up was my Vanilla Sky with 3 Cut Crystal beads.....

 

This looks lovely worn with a plain Lilac T-Shirt.

 

This was followed by.....Raspberry Ripple with Vanilla

and Silver Lined Pink Beads

 

........and Coral Reef with Silver Lined Royal Blue beads

....and Apple Blossom with Silver Lined Pink beads.

More of these coming your way soon.....until you are sick of them....I just couldn't stop trying different colours.

Tatskool Tats!

Yup, you finally get to see some tatting!

Way back in the summer I fell in love....

with a new design.

It came to me via the Online Tatting Class, and is

by Petra Tornack-Zimmermann.

She has recently published her book 

Happy Occhi.

A book of square motifs.

The design that I fell in love with is Sonnenschein....it has certainly been my sunshine.

Thank you so much Petra, your book is on my to get list.

The very last one that I have tatted is in my favourite colour of all time...

Rainbow Bright of course.

But lets go back to the beginning.....

.....the very first one that I tried....

...led me to shout...

PENDANT

BEADS!

Because it had such eye catching negative space.

The second one had the beads but it just didn't have the WOW factor.

 

Nothing for it but to try my HDT .....

SweetShop was my first choice...oh how I love this thread.

The beads are 3 cut crystal and they sparkle so much.

Sorry didn't quite get the colours right, better in photo below.

Oh! SweetShop why do I love you so much.....

because you go with everything....

....for instance, I randomly (as if) selected a T Shirt and woweee...look at this...

isn't that amazing?
More pendants to show you soon.

Starting from NOW!

A while ago Miranda was trying to tempt me back into blogging. I told her that I have done so much and have so much to say that I don't know where to start.

She said:

START FROM WHAT YOU ARE DOING NOW!!

I guess she was right.....but I may work backwards a bit too!

In July I finally mailed my TAT Artisan Package......

.....it had only taken me 7 years....

Oh my goodness,I couldn't believe that I started it in 2005,

where did the time go to.

I remember chatting with Gina about it...only seems like yesterday.

I hope I made her proud of me.

It was a kick up the backside from my Lace Guild to get it finished and produce another certificate for them, that finally did it.

It was a LOT of hard work to get my pieces looking as good as I wanted....you know that I am that cursed thing..(I blame being a Virgo!)....

....a perfectionist....

......cant help it, I just had to do the best that I could possibly do.

 Yeah! Passed with flying colours.
Just received my TAT MASTER pack and.....
Oh My! this is a whole new set of challenges. Tatting places that I have never ventured into!!

See you soon to show you some TATTING!

70 ROCKS!!!!

Yup! It's Official!

Being 70 really does rock (if you let it).

I must admit that I approached being 70 with some apprehension, after all every one knows that that's REALLY old!

Hubby was none too happy last year when he found out that he can't hire a car anymore!

With the wisdom afforded to me by my grandson(see my first post on being BACK) I decide to enjoy being 69 ......but now that I AM 70 then I will enjoy being 70 as I will never be 70 again!

My funniest Birthday present was from my cousin's wife to whom I had told grandson's tale.

Mmmmmm!

I heard a true story while I was away.........

......young lad was taken to Great Grandma's 94th Birthday party.

He was most impressed and blurted out.....

"Blimey! 94 and you're not dead yet!"

I remember when I was at school and we discovered the lines on our hands and their meaning, and I seemed to have a short lifeline! I always had a suspicion that I might die young.

Well now at 70 I don't have to worry about dying young anymore....that's one good thing(about the only one I can think of!).

So I determined to hit 70 running! in the hope that it might not catch up with me.

Partying with as many family members that I could visit in 12 days....preferably those who were older than me to make me feel a young sprig.

So after my exploits on a barge in Lancashire, we went to Cheshire and then down to Norfolk to see my cousin who was 70 a whole two weeks before me.

His wife as well as giving me the coaster had made me a beautiful hand stitched card.

Don't you just love it when people go to so much trouble.

They also gave me a copy of our family parties...every Christmas at Grandma's.

 

That's me and my cousin leaning against the piano. We reckon that we were 11.

Grandma is on the right. She must only have been 68 and yet she was always sooooh old.

Back to the ferry in Wales all the way across England, We looked for a nice place to stop half way and hubby suggested Stratford. Oh YES I thought.

I was asked by Kathy in a comment (yes I Loooooove your comments, they make it all worthwhile) if it was a coincidence that I visited Jane on her Birthday. The answer is no, not at all.

It wasn't actually ON her Birthday, it was a week after mine and a week before hers.

When I emailed Jane to suggest we met as we were both going to be 70.

She replied (seems that both her brain cells were out for recharging! (sorry Jane couldn't resist that)) and her BC3 was concentrating on what it does best......that she had forgotten that it was my Birthday, had even forgotten that it was her Birthday and had certainly forgotten that she was going to be 70!!!

But that it was a great idea to meet.

Back home there was time for just one more party with my tatters.......especially as one of them had a Birthday coming up, the same day as Jane.

Hubby couldn't understand why I would want another Birthday Cake so long after my Birthday!

This one a real girly cake befitting my age!

Talk to again soon.

'The Alternative Tour'

We met at 10am at the American Memorial and spent a delightful 3 hours in Jane's company.

She looked SPLENDID a true Tatter bedecked with Tatted Jewellery, which revealed itself little by little as the morning progressed.

I couldn't take my eyes off her stunning brooch on her jacket. 

First stop was Shakespeare's Birthplace.....

Can you see the market across the road......enough to make your mouth water......

Cupcakes are THE IN thing.....used to be called Butterfly Buns in my youth.....my mum made them and they were so yummy.

There is one thing that I must tell you about Jane....

Stratford is Jane....

Jane is Stratford!!

What she CAN"T tell you about Stratford can be written on the back of a Bus Ticket!!!

Born and bred there, her family history goes back hundreds of years....

I bet they even knew Yorrick!!!

The buildings in Stratford are STUNNING..

She takes us down by the River Avon.....

Wow! Look at that....a first for me A Medlar Tree (Mespilus germanica) has been cultivated since Roman times......I wonder if I can grow one as a Bonsai!

This is the new Swan Theatre....opened in 1986.....in we go.....

unfortunately we couldnt go into the auditorium....but 

oh my! there was a feast of displays to see.

Jane is a fount of knowledge on things that we would have missed.

I can tell you that for someone with only 2 brain cells(+ BC3 which is reserved for tatting designing!) She sure knows some stuff!

The old Art Deco features that were retained from the old building which was destroyed by fire in 1926.

Ticket Office.....and.....

....marble staircase.

Everywhere there are displays of costumes from the Shakespearian productions.

It is impossible to stop taking photos!!

A huge room has displays of everything that you could think of relation to putting on a production. Men's Costumes, Women's Costumes, Wigs and make up, Footwear and Armoury...the list goes on.

Thats not even showing you any of the stained glass....and...and

Pheewee! time for a coffee in the Riverside Cafe. It was Sunday in late September, the temperature was 20 Deg C,the sky was clear blue and the sun was shining, it could have been July.

mmmm! now I remember why I stopped blogging. It takes such a lot of time, hope that it's worth it!

Sitting peacefully.....notice I didn't say quietly Jane takes out her tatting...of course she does....I would have too.

But wait....what can we see emerging from those fingers of gold!   It's a secret...promised I wouldn't tell!

But look what else can we see....

Stunning earrings....matching the brooch she gave me.....

.......equally stunning bracelet.......

....last but not least as her jacket fell open....this was the 'piece de resistance' for me.

Jane you are a class act, so happy to have you as my friend  :-)

Hubby can't stop talking about how much he enjoyed 'The Alternative Tour'.

It's been a long, long time!!

Yup.It's been a LONG,LONG Time!!

since I.....

.....wrote a blog post....

.....read many blog posts....

....chatted to so many of my very special blogging and tatting friends.......

met a real live tatter

IN THE FLESH!!!!

So last weekend...a whole week ago now, I finally got to meet one of my tatting heroes!!

(I know she will protest about that).

And

it was just what I needed.....a poke in the ribs to get back blogging again.

It's not as if I have been doing anything different, been tatting up a storm, working on my TAT Artisan, been teaching, been dyeing, been traveling and been getting older!

OK get to the point Tatskool !

Who did I meet.....well if you read her blog you will already know!

It's Jane Eborall...yeah!

Jane was just about the first person that I ever communicated with when I discovered that tatting was alive and well and on the internet!

I remember that she replied and asked me to send a photo so that she could see who she was talking to!

In the last 10 years at least, emails have zoomed backwards and forwards between us, often many times in an evening when we were both on line sitting back relaxing....she will say relaxing what's that??? You see I know her pretty well.

But we had never met even tho' she is the nearest REALLY FAMOUS  tatter to me!

The last couple of weeks have been really special as I had a big birthday to celebrate....

My little grandson is 4 and a pillar of wisdom.

earlier in the year he started pre school at a super new Steiner School.

His mum was walking behind him as he chatted to another boy...

'How old are you' he said,

'3 was the reply...but I'm nearly 4!'

to which grandson said..

'you must enjoy being 3,you'll never be 3 again!!'

And so following his advice I determined to enjoy being ****** as

I'll never be ****** again.

Thus I set forth to party for all I was worth, to eat drink and be merry in a 5* Hotel in the Lake District (canapes in the music room and all). Steer a canal boat down the Leeds to Liverpool Canal....

 

.......birthday cake in the open air...the breeze blew out my candles!

......... tie up where we pleased.....

....walk to Frederick's Ice Cream Palour to choose from 58 flavours and endless shapes of cone,and eat the biggest Ice Cream I ever saw.

Luckily our Narrowboat was still where we left it!!

........ Later to meet with family that I hadn't seen for years.

Especially good was getting together with a cousin who is just two weeks older that me...got to drink his champagne and eat his cake! and with two great friends whose birthdays are just after mine.

Jane was one of the latter so I finally pinned her down and she met me.

As we waited for her....hubby was concerned...'how will she know you'...

'she'll know me alright'...wasn't I wearing tatting after all!

Saturday evening in a pub in Stratford on Avon we were talking tatting...yeah!

I gave her a pendant that I had tatted (much more about that coming later).

I had asked her to bring some tatting and she produced a bag which she tipped put onto the table of the most stunning brooches in a multitude of colours.and asked me to choose one. Hardest decision ever.....and I seemed to be drawn to one of my favourite colours...blue.

 

Here we are. a couple of happy internet mates....

Jane suggested that if we didn't have to leave TOOOO early in the morning, she would give us the 'alternative' Stratford On Avon....Shakespeare Tour.
YES PLEASE.......more about that soon.....