An Easter Egg for you!

Happy Easter to all my blogging buddies.

I can't remember if I ever showed you any of my Easter eggs made way back in 2005 when I was in egg decorating mode. I don't think I did even tho' I got the collage photo ready last year so here it is, you can click on it for a closer look.



I can't remember where I got the duck design from but the rest is my own, for what it's worth! The flowers are in a pretty Altin Basak/Oren Bayen.

Just cracked open a dark chocolate bunny to have with my morning coffee.....just a couple of little bits, honest. The chocolate is so thick that I had to hit him hard...poor little bunny.



I am thinking of you all as I eat him....mm!

To celebrate Easter I am drying out a new dye colour CHOCOLATE so you might expect to see a delicious chocolatey treat soon. Does that appeal??

At this stage I am afraid that I cannot keep up with all the lovely yummy dye colours that come from Yarnplayer and Lady Shuttlemaker so I am just doing what I like and I will check later with them to see if I have stepped on their toes...which I must not do! I am not even looking at their colours today in case I should be influenced.

More Blue Lagoon and a fab award.

Today's piece of Blue Lagoon tatting is another of the Julie Patterson bookmark series (see previous blog posts for more).



Again it is tatted in size 20 DMC Cordonnet special and it does that wonderful trick of having the different coloured flowers on opposite sides of the stem. I love it.

But, but, but, way better than this is the beautiful award given to me by TattingChic.
It is the Rennee Award designed and given out in blogland by Bella Sinclair.
This was my first visit to Bella's blog and I was blown away by the talent.

This is what Bella says about the award...

This one is meaningful to me in three profound ways. Firstly, it was created in honor of Renee, one human being who has made such a difference in the lives of many just by being. Her honestly, wit, intelligence, and grit are a tremendous source of inspiration. She can elicit raucous laughter and guffaws in her banter, and then turn right around and offer the most heartfelt, gentle words of wisdom and emotional support. She is a spreader of love, simple and true. And her love is infectious.

Secondly, this award was created in collaboration with one of my best friends, Ces. She is, in Renee's own words, truly original. She is an incredible artist, both in pen and ink and paint. She is fiery passion with a gentle hand. She is laughter, fun, joy, intellectual stimulation, a sister. The concept and design of the award belong to Ces.

Thirdly, this is a brand new award, and I have the pleasure and honor of spreading the seed, watching it grow. I hope it finds its way to those who are like Renee: the acorn, a small package becoming a tall and sturdy oak giving more acorns, becoming tall and sturdy oaks, giving acorns…




Isn't that beautiful.

Thank you so much TattingChic you are a true acorn and through your blog you have grown into a majestic oak and I see tatting acorns germinating in blogland because of your enthusiasm. I hope that my tatting acorns will grow as well as yours. I will wear it with pride.

This award has no rules about passing it on. If I could pass it on to you Chic I would and also to the tatters that you have nominated.

I shall pass this on to just three tatter's blogs. Firstly to someone who I have watched bloom as a blogger, as a tatter, and comedienne and now as an artist. Carol you always entertain me.

The second one belongs to Steph who loves to tat animals like I do. Her skills as a tatter of size 80 thread and her colourful combinations never cease to amaze me and her enthusiasm is catching.

Thirdly to Singtatter whose blog grows more glorious by the day. Her design skills are blooming as are her ATC's...another thing that I think is going to be very big in tatland soon.

Blue Lagoon Spinning Wheel

Yup! it had to be done!!

The ever popular Spinning wheel Glass mat By Mary Konior was crying out for me to tat it in Blue lagoon and it didn't disappoint me. It's a very easy (as long as you concentrate)pattern. Very easy to make a mistake too and I have made them all!!

This one was tatted in size 60 which I am beginning to love. My stash of 60 comprises entirely of my HDT so I do need to make more solids to give me a choice.



Tatted in 60 it's tiny! measures only 3 1/2 inches compared to almost 5 inches in size 20, it would be minute in 80, but I can understand why people like 80. Tatting in finer threads really does look much more intricate and lacy. I am beginning to feel that tatting with 20 is like tatting with string and 10 is positively like rope!

Blue Lagoon Season!

Back to thread dying again......I didn't mean to dye Blue Lagoon again so soon............................but.........................look what my friend Jackie brought along, her work in progress....



....we had both just got Karey Solomon's book Here Be Dragons................................
we were all so wowed by it that it was a while before I suddenly realised that it was my Blue Lagoon thread!...not that it used much thread!

It did really show the beads off tho'.

When she brought the finished article laid upon green velvet.....well what can I say!



.....and so I HAD to dye more of this thread!

Blue Lagoon is I think one of my successes, it's a 'lite' version of my Coral Reef (coming back soon) with the very gentle subtle colour changes that I like.

Then of course I got to looking to see what I had already made with it.....and the first things that I found were my Blue Lagoon Doileys..so I just have to do a recap from my earlier tatting posts.....just look away if you have already seen these!

The first was Eleanora by Iris Neibach....



...and then came Cornelia also by Iris Neibach...both from her book Tatted Doilies.



This was tatted in size 60 a size that I am beginning to like more and more....I never thought I would move away from size 20.

Of all the things that I have tatted (that I can remember at this moment in time) I think this is my favorite.

I love the way this pattern works out, isolating the groups of rings. I kinda think this looks like lots of little lagoons in the ocean. I dyed a deeper blue colour to make a good contrast round the lagoons.

I think this thread works best with a strong contrast to show it off. This time I am dying stronger shades of blue, turquoise green and turquoise blue and I think these will give quite different results....not enough time to try them all tho'.



What else did I tat with this thread...my usual Hearts Desire heart by Susan Fuller and lots of Tatman's Icthus's.....


These show the difference between Blue lagoon and Coral Reef really well...but none of the photos really bring out the beautiful pale turquoise green. that I love.

I have Blue Lagoon in sizes 20, 40, 60, 80 and 100 so have no excuse for not tatting more.......show you the new things that I have made another day!

Teapots,teapots!

My big envelope of Teapot books arrived today...what heaven. LOVE the Maltese teapot and the Celtic one.
What more can I say today.......much to busy drooling!

Teapots will be pouring out!

If you haven't heard about Martha Ess's new book Tea is For Tatting, then you had better hurry on over to her blog to read all about it.



I believe that it is selling as fast as hot tea after a Christmas swim!.

I was so lucky in being asked once again to test tat for her...always a pleasure.

As usual Martha has put soooh much effort into the designs for this book.

My first assignment was to test her Shamrock Teapot...now I wonder why she asked me to do this one...answers by post only written on a bar of plain chocolate!!

Oh my was this a lovely one to tat.
I chose a variegated lemon thread from Flora in size 20 and a rich shamrocky green.





Anybody who has the book if you contact me I can tell you how much thread I used.

Then would you believe she asked me to do another one..oh bliss. It was the Country garden teapot named so aptly by Tattycat.

Martha's sample was tatted in a beautiful array of colourful flowers. Now I always like exactly what Martha has done so I determined that I should do something different this time and so I chose a colour scheme to tone in with my newly updated guest bedroom.



The result was I think stunning.
The threads are varig lemons for the outline and Flora 20 shades, plus varig Altin Basak and the beautiful flower spray is in Yarnplayer's Roses (my first time using this). There is even a teeny little flower in the spout in my very own Raspberry Sorbet.



I was so pleased when Martha decided to tat another teapot in toning colour scheme in purples and put it on the cover of her book. the green outline makes it really look like a country garden...now why didn't i think of that!!

Again I can tell you how much thread to use if you contact me.

I wonder if this will be my favorite teapot in my book.

My tatting friends are so much in love with Martha's work that I had to pre-order 5 copies for them way before she finished it, when they had no idea what else was going to be on the book.

We just can't wait!!

International Tatting Day

This is the first year that I have been able to celebrate International Tatting Day with my tatting friends.
I stocked up with lots of chocolate Easter Bunnies and rich chocolate cake and they brought chocolate too...so we were well and truly chocolated this morning.

Here they are



only one of my happy smiling very dear tatting friends was missing.

What are they tatting do I hear you ask.... if you can't see it on the table, I will tell you in a couple of days....we had already eaten most of the chocolate and drunk all the coffee in case you are wondering!!!!

Told you I was hooked!!

Yup, scrapbooking has captured my imagination.

After my last post I had several lovely comments (please keep 'em coming chaps...or I might stop blogging!!) saying that I could use tatting as embellishments.

When I came home from the course it was like something had exploded inside my head, tatting could adorn my scrapbook pages..it has a purpose!!...but not only that...scrapbooking could maybe be a way to show off the tatting itself!

I immediately thought of my Coral Reef thread and the photographic story behind it culminating in my Coral Reef doiley.mmmm but will I ever do it. So much better than having it languishing in a plastic sheet. Terrible I know but I just don't use doileys.

It's very lucky for tatting that I can incorporate it in scrapbooking or the death knell might have sounded for it.

I find that I can only do one craft to the best of my ability at one time and this has resulted in the end of so many crafts that I always intend to go back to!

Scrapbooking is much harder than it looks unless you are a naturally brilliant person...which I am not.

This next page.. based on a layout that I learned at the class has taken me two weeks to finish and resulted in a huge addition to my stash.

First you have to choose the background page..it is amazing when you try a photograph out on different backgrounds, each one picking out a particular colour in the photo.

The true demented scrapbookers have a page colour and embellishments in mind and go out and buy an outfit for the baby to coordinate with that colour!!

Crafting always tends to make me panic buy...as in beads and threads....as if another chance to buy will never come along...so that I will have a selection to choose from.

The you have to decide on a layout to display the photo and for the placement of supplementary decorative sheets. Then there are the embellishments and the title and the journalling so that you will remember ( and others to come) what that photo was all about.

So wait no more here is my 3rd page done on my own (mostly)!



It's a pity that you can't see the sparkle on the letters and the flowers and the diamante in the middle of the tatting embellishment on the flowers..Yup just a tiny bit of tatting this time.
I had to go and buy new letter stamps as scrapbooking needs large bold letters.
The background paper has a tiny stripe that you can't see.

I am blown away at how beautiful this page looks, good enough to frame, and how I will remember that day when grandbaby was just 4 days old.

Bookmarks are springing up!

I have had Julie Patterson's pattern for her Spring Flowers bookmark for a long time, but it wasn't until I saw Christina's working of it on her blog (sorry I can't find the link), that I was inspired to try it.

It was so worth doing....

My first one was in Flora 20 in bright, bright green and lilac, and then one in one of my early HDT trials Lavender and yellow.



It turned out to be addictive seriously addictive. One of those things that makes me think...what would it look like in these colours and with a different tail.

I like this pattern a lot..probably because of it not having picots..it has a lovely clean crispness about it and it's very easy to do once you get the right tension. Make sure to make picots that are not to small between the petals of the flowers so that the flowers lie flat.

So I rummaged through my colours....little bits that were not long enough for a big project ...and what did I find but lots of short lengths of Rainbow Bright!!

Now I swear that after my marathon tat with this colour for all of Jon's snowflakes before Christmas...I said that I never wanted to see Rainbow Bright again!!!

But I was wrong....this colour never ceases to amaze me!!



Just look at the way the flower colours on the two sides of the stem repeat themselves, no matter where I start. And so I was hooked again!!
Here you see different greens, flora and Rainbow Bright solid green and different tails featuring, spirals and lock chains. Click on the picture to see the detail.

So didn't I have to go out into the dyeing studio and dye lots more Rainbow thread...so it's official



is back!!

This time I have dyed it in sizes 20,40,60,80 and even 100 to suit even the finest tatters....and a few solid colours too, 'cos I love them

Now I am going to go and do lots more tatting!!!! lots!

A heart for Laura

I have tatted this heart for my good friend Laura to wish her well.

The design is hers and is called Victorian Heart...a very good name I think.



It is tatted in Flora 20 and took 1.4m on the ball and 4m on the shuttle and measures 5cm across. the colour is a dusky pink....not very inspiring so lets have some computer generated colour variation to see what it would look like.



Mmm! yummy colours, I love doing this it's like making a selection box...and talking of selection boxes I just received a yummy one from my son for Mother's day...so it's tatting and chocolate for me this evening.

Happy Mother's day to all my fellow tatter mums and very best wishes to mum, tatter and friend Laura...I love your design.

The weather today is perfect, warmish and sunny..just like a spring day should be.
Doesn't it just make you feel good.