JANE EBORALL'S MYSTERY 2018 TIAS

Jane Eborall's 2018 TIAS (tat it and see)
Link:  http://tatitandsee.blogspot.com/   (look in the top right frame for day links)

DAY 1, Jan 21, 2018:   Ok, here's my day 1 work, with 2 pic/guesses:

Day 2, Jan 21, 2018:   My note and guess to Jane:  OH NO!   THOSE POOR ANTS!   This is taking a sinister turn.... I’m going to hide under the covers!

DAY 3, Jan 24, 2018:  As soon as I saw the pattern, I KNEW it was a chain saw sawing a log - but that's all I saw!   Then another participant, Sherri, caught a pic of FOXES sledding down a hill on a log sled!  With this new clue, I realized who it was that was using that saw! 

DAY 4, Jan 27, 2018 ~ My note & guess to Jane:

Last winter, our local zoo had a pre-mature hippo named Fiona, who has become world famous!   Last year, I saw your old TIAS for a hippo, I knew I had to make a Fiona of my own!    Now I see how silly all my previous guesses were, when all along, you were making the nice birthday surprise that Fiona loves – a watermelon!   You fooled me again, Jane!

DAY 4, Jan 27, 2018 ~ My note & guess to Jane:
Last winter, our local zoo had a pre-mature hippo named Fiona, who has become world famous! Last year, I saw your old TIAS for a hippo, I knew I had to make a Fiona of my own! Now I see how silly all my previous guesses were, when all along, you were making the nice birthday surprise that Fiona loves – a watermelon! You fooled me again, Jane!

Fall Leaf Earrings

October 18, 2017  Unexpectedly got some free time today (hurt foot!), so... Finished my La Feuille Frivole, design by J. Paulson and found in the free patterns here: http://leblogdefrivole.blogspot.co.uk/p/patterns.html I used size 40 Lizbeth#136 Autumn Spice thread & shuttle. Beads put on picots with tiniest crochet hook. 2 full knots after stem bead, with a touch of Elmer's glue after cutting off ends and smoothing down. They are not perfect, but the little inner leaves are so small, no irregularities are even visible to the eye - might be more so with a solid color

Sept 3, early Sunday, 4:30am


So, I happened to run across the tat-a-long from 2008 that Jane eborall did, and it was a hippo.   Since we've had a new baby hippo at our local zoo this year, and have enjoyed seeing it's videos as it learns to do things -so cute - I thought I'd give it a try.   Jane's tat-a-longs always push the envelop and force you to learn new things -hope I can keep up!   I had no idea at all how much thread, so wound 2 shuttles CTM with 5 arm stretches on each... we'll see.   Hmmmm...  I'm thinking I shouldn't have wound CTM, as I'm just making rings with no chains, so if I had not done that, I could have hid my first thread as I tatted the first ring... NUTS!   I am at the last ring, ring 6 and it is a split ring, so I need to re-visit how I did that on her last tat-a-long.  That will wait till tomorrow though, as it is 4:30am already!    I'm trying Lizbeth size 40, #114 Sea Shells to match her colors!

Sept 4, 2017 = Days 1-3 of 10 days:

I usually get a lot of tatting done when I'm having health/pain issues.   It keeps me from wilting and entertains my brain until I feel better, and can get up and work again.  It has been tatting time around here, with my fibro acting up, but yesterday(Sept 5) saw no tatting at all, as I had a tiny, almost invisible demon from hell insect, outside, stung/bit/I don't know what and injected liquid fire into my hand!

Sept 6, 2017 = Day 4, thru wily split ring maneuvers, a leg appears!    

You can download the pdf for one concise pattern, here: http://janeeborall.freeservers.com/Hippo.pdf http://janeeborall.freeservers.com/Hippo.pdf-but the day by day tat-a-long actually has more detail, as there is a graph for each day of a small area to do.

In the right frame of the page, under January, there are links to 8 pages of finished projects!

Day 1:   http://tatitandsee.blogspot.co.uk/2008/01/day-1-of-first-tat-it-and-see.html
Day 2:   http://tatitandsee.blogspot.co.uk/2008/01/day-2.html
Day 3:   http://tatitandsee.blogspot.co.uk/2008/01/day-3.html
Day 4:   http://tatitandsee.blogspot.co.uk/2008/01/day-4.html
Day 5:   http://tatitandsee.blogspot.co.uk/2008/01/day-5.html
Day 6:   http://tatitandsee.blogspot.co.uk/2008/01/day-6.html
Day 7:   http://tatitandsee.blogspot.co.uk/2008/01/day-7.html
Day 8:   http://tatitandsee.blogspot.co.uk/2008/01/day-8.html
Day 9:   http://tatitandsee.blogspot.co.uk/2008/01/day-9.html
Day 10: http://tatitandsee.blogspot.co.uk/2008/01/day-10-last-part.html

August 27, 2017  I started this one, the day after I finished the last one.   On the last one, I started the first center ring normally, doing FS/BS tatting. Because there was a definite back, I could not turn it over and so mine came out going in the opposite direction. The 3 ring row came out frontside, and the 6 ring row came out on the backside (needs rods). So this time I started the first center ring with rods and thought it would change that, that the 6 ring row would be frontside, but no, it's still backside. 

So, I went back to what I tried and forgot how to do in the first glass mat - making my picot joins from the back (side thats away from me) when I'm tatting on the wrong side - so my joins come out like they are made on the front side and the blip is on the actual back side. I like this.  I may decide to make a video of how I'm doing it.

This is so stupid... I'm using size 20 Lizbeth in 603 Ecru and 691 Mocha Brown Med.   So.... it won't show well on a brown table, because the brown rings will disappear... and the ecru is like an off white, so it will disappear on my white coffee tables!!!!!!

About half done with this, and it's going well, but have been distracted by a hippo pattern, so Sept 3 am hours, are doing that - more in next post.

Me thinks the pattern pic in this book is photographed the back, as mine swirls in the opposite direction. But perhaps I wouldn’t know which was upside down, if not doing frontside backside tatting…. on the other hand, it felt backward when working the pattern too. Not to mention it gets weirder when you hit the DNRW on the ends. I just look at my center rings and see which way they are facing and it’s easy to see if I’m on front or back. I took a pic and reversed it with the mirror image function, to help me tat it easier. But, I find I need both pics, because it’s in short rows instead of rounds, I have to have a front and back pic for when I’m working from either side. 
I notice I may run out of thread on the shuttle, so decide to do a shoelace trick while there is still enough on it to finish the chains. So I measure what it seems to need about 6” a ring and add about a foot for the new shuttle, and use the original for the chain. Well, the old shuttle chain thread began to get scarce and came off the shuttle and I had to tie the end back on to the ball so that I could work it up to the last inch…. or should I say the last HALF of an inch!!!  

That was literally all I had left and for the first time in my life I had to cut, tie and glue my ends! 
I somehow thought mine wasn’t coming together enough, after I made the last 9th ring, and thought I’d have to add a wedge, but now, I didn’t. Unfortunately, by the time I realized I wasn’t adding a wedge, I had already not joined the 1st and 9th center rings together and had to tie the picots. A bit fiddly meeting the picots on the last last row’s rings and beginning rings together, but do-able with folding.

Lizbeth Size 20 Thread in 154 Wildflower Garden

August 18, 2017  I got some new thread and needed something to release some pent up anxiety, so started a project I've had on the list for quite some time.    Seems the pic in the book is face down, and so when I look at it, it is backward from mine, which is crazy feeling.   I made a mirror image of it, to help my brain no wig out....   But, as you turn it over back and forth, I find I need both pics.

Most tatting is in normal rounds and so the picture is not a mind boggler when you look at it (or the diagram).   But in this case you are building arms to a spinning wheel, and so they need to go the same way you are working or it all gets topsy turvy feeling.

The pattern is Spinning Wheel Glass Mat, from Mary Konior's book Tatting with Visual Patterns.

Size 20 Lizbeth, 154 Wildflower Garden.   I will put my updates in this same post, rather than string them out, which gets confusing.    I'm using  1 shuttle and ball (CTM).   You can see how when on the right side, mine is swirling the opposite direction.   I will say that if I weren't doing frontside/backside tatting I could just turn it over, but I really do have a front and back.

Analalea Tat-a-Long July 2017

I am working on the pattern Test Tat-A-Long from here (link below).  The steps are done with pictures, and when opened, some words.   Note if you are to cut thread after each rnd or leave it, very important.:
https://www.facebook.com/AlenaleaTatting/

My first start wasn't completely right, I could only get in 4 rings, while everyone else got in 6 for the middle.  I thought about squeezing the rings to elongate them, but resisted, and so only 4 fit.  I tried again and this time left a small 1/8" bare thread space after each ring, and it made the center larger, and all 6 petals fit.   Had a bad storm and did the row 1, the 6 petal one my LED lantern light.

The one that worked for me happened to be in vintage #70 thread, Star 103 Med. Pink, and for rnds 2 & 3, I used Star #155 Tinted White, Pinks & Greens.   Don't cut off the thread on the 2nd rnd, you just keep going around for the 3rd.

I finally finished rnd 4, which thoroughly kicked my butt. It’s full of all kinds of defects, but I was determined to finish and perhaps learn something that would increase my skill. I’m not sure I learned anything, except that need a lot more skill(!), but I DID finish!  I made it even harder than it already was, by deciding to make the chain that joins to rnd 4 the same color as the ring.   Usually, you change thread source between ring and chain.   If you keep the same, you have to use the shoelace trick to get the ring chain back on top, after reversing for the chain.  That left a little extra blurp in the thread, which was messy to me.    Fortunately, rnd 5 is an easy one, I will be happy to relax and do it!     Here is my complete first 4 rounds/rows.

RETURN TO TATTING

POSTED July 23, 2017.   Been a very long time since I tried to use this blog. One thing that bothered me before was the smallness of the pics, but it appears that is better now. Lots of projects have been completed in the meantime, and I'll have to just muddle my way thru them here.

My intro into the tatting world: Many years ago… early 70s, I went to a tatting class of about 2 classes. It was funny because I was looking for the room with the tatting class and saw a class with all women in it and thought it had to be it. I went in and asked if it was the tatting class and they all laughed and looked at me like I was an idiot and said it was the accounting class. Well, anyway, took that class and made a cross bookmark that I gave away to hubby’s grandmother. I used #10 thread, with my metal bobbin shuttle. So years later I find the shuttle and decide to use sewing thread to try to make another one, because I thought that would be more like tatting thread, which one couldn't find anywhere, and no internet then. The thread would get little kinks in it, and if I popped the thread, they would pop out. But there was this one fatal kink that looked like the others, but when I popped it, the thread snapped! We had only learned the very basics – rings, chains, picots. We hadn’t learned how to add thread, or fix mistakes! I went screaming into the night, not to return to tatting for 40 some odd years.
 

Dec 2015, I was poking around in my hoarded up craft room and found the practice piece from that old tatting class and my shuttle:
 

As I picked up the shuttle, I was horrified to realize my mind was a complete blank, absolutely nothing was coming back to me! I realized I was pretty much starting from scratch and it was not at all like riding a bike (it doesn’t necessarily come back when you try it again, like bike riding does). So, I needed to just practice my stitches, and wanted to actually make something while doing it. My shuttle had tiny red thread on it (how'd that get on there?), and I knew I needed something larger, since I was back to beginner status. I thought and thought, about what I could put some #10 thread on so I wouldn't have to unwind all that tiny shuttle thread, and came up with wooden ice cream spoons, sewing bobbin, or pinch type clothespins, and made the simple butterfly from: http://www.tattedtreasures.com/2011/09/reading-patterns-and-making-projects-part-1/

 I took my time practicing the stitches and making them well, before I tried to make the cross again. Other's were making a snowflake from: http://teridusenburystattletales.blogspot.com/2014/09/tatting-snowflake-pattern-wheel-of-fortune.html?m=1 - but I didn't want to do a real project yet, where I might get stuck.  I wanted to keep practicing the little I knew till I was comfortable, and not sweating over simple stitches .
 As I looked at the pattern, I began to see an 'angel' in the edge of it, and decided that's what I'd do:


Learning to tat again from https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1F0C9E52018DDB0B and trying little motifs/flowers here and there, I was finally ready to attempt my cross again. I was able to find a cross that was so similar to the one I made in another workbasket mag, which I could no longer find, but the only difference was, this one had picots (silent t, sounds like pee ko).

It was in WORKBASKET V19, N.4 - JAN 1954, PGs 26 & 27. I like picots, so went with it, and finally made my cross, this time in size #70 vintage thread, found loads of that on ebay.