Transitions No 2. OYG!

Remember my first post about my Rainbow Bright Transitions. A month and a half ago ROY turned into Flame Lantana and wowed you all. Well it wowed me!!

Finally OYG is finished!(Orange,Yellow,Green).

Just in case you don't remember and haven't looked at my ROY post....this is what it is all about.

Take 3 adjacent colours from Rainbow Bright...exactly as they are....dye a 15 yds skein, tat up a heart and some butterflies......look at it critically.....to see what does it remind me of.......look for photos to inspire me.......and then decide what I should do to make it into a WOW!!

SIMPLE isn't it!!!

Well it's much more fun....and if it isn't fun then I don't do it.....with IsDihara testing and looking up what it reminds her of.....even if I do tend to go with the idea I first thought of!!

So what did my first tatting look like!!

Well I thought that it looked promising..but what did it remind me of??

Our first thoughts were citrus...oranges and lemons....well at least something tropical.

But the green was wrong for citrus leaves. Looking at it I could see that Rainbow Bright Green had drifted and become a blue green..that happens sometimes..I will correct that.

That blue green can also be seen in Rainbow 'Lite' Sweet Shop...but I actually quite like it as the' lite' green looks like mint and is edible!!

After we dismissed Citrus the next thing to explode into my mind was Daffodils...it just shouted Spring at us.....and we needed Spring!!

Off to the internet for us to find Daffodils to see if I was right.....lots of gorgeous images....one of them appealed to me so much that the name of the thread was born.

Daffodil Dell

http://www.pastelwood.co.uk/SMALL_P_GALLERIES/Cheshire/pages/sp044-ep-daffodil%20dell.html

I couldn't get this beautiful image out of my mind, two badgers drinking at a little pond with a host of Daffodils behind them. What could be more idyllic. I also noticed that the foliage was a blue green....Daffodils really are like that.

I also chanced upon this site.....a little village with woods that were named Daffodil Dell. It was even more nostalgic for me as it was very near, less than a dozen miles from where that I lived as a teenager and is where my son will be getting married later this year.

So I set my heart on finding a Daffodil Dell to photograph and to bring it to life in thread.

But Spring was still not Sprung and there was not a Daffodil to be seen.

I had to bring my Daffodils to life from memory...and then go out and see if I was right.

My very favourite ones are those with a orange trumpet...and the Narcissi which have creamy petals and an orange trumpet....in my garden they flower after the main golden Daffodils have finished.

Finally this last week....Daffodils were out in all their glory.

The first one to catch my eye was close to where I live. Gosh..and I only had my camera phone with me.

Last week we went on a trip to Northern Ireland and my passion was to find my Daffodil Dell.....or at least lots of different Daffodils.

Oh there were Daffodils in abundance, I only had eyes for them.....do please excuse my enthusiasm and all these photos.

First there were the dwarf Daffodil/Narcissus Tete á Tete with a long trumpet and backward facing petals, and really tiny.

What could be more perfect for a Daffodil fanatic's Tatting Tea Tuesday than a Cup Of Miniature Daffodils.

 

Then there were the beautiful large creamy petals with a short filly lemon trumpet.....

  

...the large showy golden daffodils with a long trumpet....

Still searching for my imagined Daffodil Dell this was the nearest that I got ....a beautiful woodland planting in a country estate garden.

But what did I spy in there....but the most intense orange Daffodil that I have ever seen....

...golden petals...short frilly trumpet.

Back home my garden was coming to life ...and an orange Daffodil that I had forgotten about...

with a longer trumpet in much more subdued colours. This really shows what I was trying to achieve. You can see the subtle change of colour with the orange getting paler and paler until it blends with the golden yellow.

On the trip we bought miniature Narcissii for the garden....this one is called 'Jetfire'..backward facing petals and a long medium orange trumpet.

This all gives me a much clearer impression of what I want to achieve......a gradation from a rich orange.....lighter until it becomes a golden orange...turning to golden yellow...through to a more buttercup yellow....getting lighter until it blends into a light green and finally a rich dark green.

For my second trial of OYG I used a new pot of dye...a ready made orange to give a bit of zing.....tatted some butterflies and LadyShuttlemaker's Hope butterfly....

...... while it does look nice in the tiny butterflies....I took an immediate dislike to the orange for my masterpiece!!  The green was not what I wanted either. The green in the Hope butterfly for the chains is a Flora mid green.....I really like that, so I decided to make that green for my Daffodil Dell.
What works best for me is to keep the number of basic colours to a minimum and mix all my colours from them...then they are sure to harmonise.
By trial 4 I had exactly what I wanted. IsDihara can tell you how much I agonise about getting it just right.
So ta da...drum roll
here is
Daffodil Dell

Compare it with my original test piece....

....and Daffodil Dell just zings with umph!
When we got home, I potted up my miniature Daffodil/Narcissi purchases into a hedgerow basket of willow...made when that was my one of my passions.
So a good test of Daffodil Dell would be to see how it looks among real Daffodils!

I LOVE IT!!
Warning...this thread is BRIGHT!

One more thing.
It occurred to me that while Daffodil Dell is a stand alone thread....that there may be times when I wanted to put it with a green thread for my chains to represent the foliage.
Therefore I wouldn't want dark green in my varig thread.

So I designed another thread with just the flower colours, it goes through the colours to a very pale lime green so is still OYG!....and is called.....
Just Daffodils.

I tatted Julie Pattersons design in it with Flora Green for the contrast.

I LOVE THIS ONE TOO!

Let's see this one among the Daffodils ....

Last but not least... I tatted Jon Yusoff's Heart 'O Daisies again in Just Daffodils and Flora.

WOW!
Spring is here in Tatskool land!

More 'Hope' for TTT.

Sitting down after a busy day at the shops...with a cup of Dragon Fly Brand Roobois and Vanilla. 

Bought a Butterfly T-Shirt... with lots of bling...wonder why I went for that one!

I tatted another 'Hope' Butterfly last night and its virtually perfect....I managed a much better curve on the antennae.

Front view.....

Back view

Isn't that pretty.

The threads are SweetShop and Forget-me-not. makes me want to tat it withe every SweetShop Solid!

My tip is to leave a little space at the beginning of the first large ring, between it and the antenna, that you can lock join into easily.

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.

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!!