Wednesday's Inspiration

This is the start of my sons heirloom piece of tatting. It measures six inches square and I will be doing four of these joined together to make the final piece.

"I have arrived. I am home.
In the here, in the now.
I am solid. I am free.
In the ultimate I dwell."
_____ Thich Nhat Hanh

I Am So Happy

Oh it feels so good to finally be able to get some tatting done. I cannot believe how much I have missed being able to pick up the shuttles and escape into the creative world of tatting. To watch as delicate lace magically appears from my moving hands and to feel like I am accomplishing something even when I am relaxing in front of the TV.

This is the start of the second panel for Robert's heirloom piece. It is a bit tedious but I know he is going to love it when it is finished.

Heirloom Center Piece

Well it is finally finished the first square of what will be the heirloom centerpiece. I think the finished piece will be four squares, more if I have the thread, possibly some kind of fancy border. We will have to see how it goes. I hope to have more tatting time in the next couple of weeks as the past few weeks have been busy doing samples for classes I am going to be teaching and testing some new thread, which have been fun to do but your big projects fall behind. I am going to be teaching a tatting at a local seniors center in July and am booked again to teach in October. It is always nice to see more people learning to tat. It is even more fun to teach seniors who have always wanted to learn what there Mother or Grandmother did not get a chance to teach them. Happy tatting everyone.

Life Is Full Of Bumps And Bruises

Well I am working on Robert's heirloom doily/runner. It is the Pattern called the Grid from Tatting Patterns and Designs by Gun Blomqvist and Elwy Persson. It is tatted in YarnPlayers Fern HDT size 80. As you can tell I have not made a lot of progress since my last post but with good reason. Since Gregg and I have been decorating our bedroom a lot of odd jobs where put on hold and I have been trying to get them caught up. In the middle of this I had two falls and I managed to cause a hairline fracture in my foot. I am now hobbling around in an air-cast and although this gives me time for tatting, with the pain I am in I just do not feel like concentrating on it. Hopefully this week will be better and I will be in a tatting mood as I would hate to see all the time go to waste.

The Start of Roberts' Heirloom Piece

Well we have finally finished the work of redecorating our master bedroom. I must say it looks very rich now that it is decorated in Royal purple, cream, gold. When we get all the artwork in place I will have to post some pictures to give you all an idea of how you can paint your walls a very dark colour and still have a room that looks very elegant. The best part was the bedspread we got for the bed was on sale for $212.00 when it regularly costs $720.00.

This is the start of the Heirloom tatted piece I am making for my son Robert. It is the Pattern called the Grid from Tatting Patterns and Designs by Gun Blomqvist and Elwy Persson. It is tatted in YarnPlayers Fern HDT size 80. If you have not had the opportunity to tat with some of YarnPlayers HDT yet I would highly recommend that you treat yourself to some as I can guarantee you will not be disappointed. It adds a whole new flavour to your tatting. I am making one small change in the pattern and that is I am rotating the center of the motif one picot as I like the way it lines up better. Let me know what you think if you are familiar with the pattern. I would be interested in your feedback.

Matching Dolies and Heirlooms

This cute little Party-Time doily is a match to the larger one I made and posted about a little while a go. It is the second in a set of doilies I am making for our front sitting room furniture. It is made following the pattern, Party-Time Doilies from the book Traditional Tatting Patterns edited by Rita Weiss. The thread is YarnPlayer's Tourmaline HDT size 80 which is my all time favorite thread.

Now I am going to take a break from the doilies and set to work on a heirloom project. I made the following heirloom doily for my daughter a while a go.

At that time I promised my son I would make a heirloom piece for him. Well he has picked his pattern and when I showed him today that I had started it he got excited and now he can't wait to see what the finished project is going to look like because I am taking a small pattern and adapting it into a large piece of tatting. It is going to be tatted in YarnPlayers' HDT Fern in size 80. It is really nice to have children that appreciate the tatting that I do. I know that they value it as much as I do. Well time to tat. 

Heirloom Doily

I was asked by a fellow tatter if I could take a picture of the doily with a common item to give a better perspective as to the size of the doily. I am happy to oblige. The pencil in the picture is a new , standard soft lead pencil and I hope this gives everyone a better perspective as to how big the doily is. My daughter is down to visit for a week and she got her first look at the doily and she is very pleased with it. Now she just has to wait for it to be passed down to her.

Heirloom Doily

Following some helpful advice from Sharon I have taken a new photo of the doily that gives it much better representation. I don't know why I didn't think to photograph it on a white background, it sure makes a big difference. Now you can see the true colours of the thread and better detail.

The Making of a Heirloom

I am a firm believer in the value of the strengths that we need to pass on to our children to help them grow up to be well rounded adults. One of those strengths is that they know that they are loved and are reminded of it often. This is the reason that I wanted to make this heirloom doily for my daughter so that when I am no longer around she will have a reminder that her Dad loves her.

This doily is made from the pattern available from the online classroom here and is made with YarnPlayers Fern Hand Dyed Thread size 80. The doily is 17 inches across and took 11 skeins of HDT to make. It was a big project to work on but after seeing it done, it was well worth it. My daughter is coming home for a visit this weekend and I can't wait for her to see the doily. Now my son has asked when I am making one for him but he wants a rectangle shape.