Chatty Tessie...

No.  That's not anything like a Chatty Cathy...

As I remember, those dolls couldn't make up stories and tell little white lies...

This morning I spent an hour or so in the back yard trimming rosemary and cape honeysuckle that were starting to take over the yard...

After I finished, I came in and sat down to do some peyote stitch beadwork...

It's been a while.  This is as far as I got.  Probably a bracelet when I finish.

Walter brought home lunch so I stopped to eat.  Big mistake.  I found that I really wasn't interested it doing more peyote stitch,

I started searching for something else and found an old notebook in with the poly clay.  I am not sure why it was there.  Nothing in it had to do anything with poly.

It was full of tatting ideas that I got from various places in the net.

I started looking through it and found a couple of interesting patterns....

I usually work from photos anyway.  I am not crazy about printed directions for tatting.  It's easier to just look at the pictures and count the stitches...

As  I was wandering through the photos and wondering why I actually copied some of them, Tessie wandered in...

She perched on the edge of the beading tray and asked, "What'cha doin'?"  I always get a bit suspicious when she asks that question.  Usually, she is trying to get me to talk about anything, other than what she's doing...

She wouldn't look me straight in the eye, so I knew something was going on. 

I asked her, point blank, "Where is everybody?"

She sidestepped... "Everybody who?"

"Zar, the Minions and Spike?"

She countered with, "How should I know?  I'm not their keeper!"

Then she quickly followed with, "What are you going to make for me?"

"Tessie!  What did you do?"

She still wouldn't look at me.  "I think that they all decided to go home.  What planet were the Minions from?  I think that they went back there. Zar and Spike are probably in the Tudor Trailer.  And I chose to stay here and keep you company... Now make me something new!"

I wonder how long it would take me to tat a hangman's noose?  She's asking for it... Again!

See you tomorrow.

Can I See That In a Smaller Size?

I finished Diane's challenge last night.  I haven't blocked them yet, so just imagine them completely flat and completely straight... Come on.  You can do it.  Thanks Diane, for the day of fun!

I talked Tessie out of the tiger stripes for the first one and she backed off to this lavender/yellow/white variegated tatting thread.

I have no idea what brand it is.  Most all of my fine tatting thread is inherited or thrifted.  Many times, without labels.

I had to start it three times.  I drew the pattern on Diane's card without number of stitches listed and I had to work that out as I went.

I think it turned out pretty good for a "flying by the seat of your pants" kind of thing.

I liked the pattern so much that I picked out the variegated peach/orange for my own.  Tessie is eyeing it greedily, but this one's mine.

Here you can see the pattern a bit better.  I started in the corner of the finding with a 3-3+(attached to finding)3-3 ring and worked my way around with a chain of 3-3-3-5 and attached to finding.  Another chain 5+(attach to previous chain)3.Turn and do another 3-3-3-3 ring. Then I reversed these steps until I reached the next corner.  I am not a pattern writer.  Just an explainer of what steps I took.

Since I was in a tatting mood last night, I pulled out a necklace that I have been working on.

This one is with #5 over dyed pearl cotton, around a pottery button that I made when I was in college.

I have three more buttons just like it.  Either more pendants or a shirt with matching buttons will probably follow sometime in the future.

The piece of tatting that you see at the bottom is a piece that my great grandmother made a LONG time ago.  I suspect it was meant for the edge of a pillowcase(real life sized).  It is an unusual pattern.  It's very irregular along the top.  Made with chains that slant to one side and tiny rings to hold it together.  One of these days, when I get brave, I am going to have a go at copying it. 

For now, I am happy with doing small pieces.  Three foot borders are for the brave hearted.....I am chicken.

Back to the real mini world tomorrow.

See you then.

Penguins and Parcels

I am very close to finishing the weaver's part of the Tudor cottage now.  Close enough that the Terrible Two have moved in and are taking over. 

Unfortunately, on the way, they stole the penguin's cookies....Something that one should never do.  The penguins will follow you to the ends of the earth to get their cookies back. 

Also unfortunately, Spike is in charge of penguin wrangling.  He is not happy when someone lets the penguins out....They are very hard to corral.
On another front, a few days ago, Diane at "Lace-lovin' Librarian" http://lacelovinlibrarian.blogspot.com/ posted about some doodads that she had to give away to tatters.  We had to promise to take what she sent and add tatting to them and put them up on the net when finished. 

My pieces came in the mail yesterday.  They are perfect for miniatures.  Very pretty brass filigree.  As soon as I opened the envelope, I started planning....I have never tried doing tatting for minis...She sent the two in the photo.  I immediately started sketching plans for them. 

Another unfortunate happening....I seem to be using that word a lot today. 

Tessie was there when I opened the envelope.  Her eyes glazed over and she also started planning.  I got out the finer tatting thread and she dove in head first.

In the middle of planning, I had to stop and give her a new hairdo....It's all better now.  Anyway, I had to do it whilst she grasped the antique brass finding in one hand and, tossing balls of thread every which way, chose this one. 

Her explanation was, "It sort of matches my apron....Sort of".  I am not sure that will be my choice of color.  She already is talking about either hanging it on the wall or using it as a table mat in the weaver's cottage.  We shall see... 

She is hovering around me as I type whispering, "Type fast.  Then tat.  Hurry!"

Thanks again Diane!  This should be fun....First I have to go tie Tessie to a chair with tatting thread to match her apron.  That won't stop me from using that color.  I have several balls!

See you tomorrow.

Linen, Canvas and Lace....

April and Seth gifted me with a certificate from Dharma Trading company for Mother's Day this year.  It has taken me this long to get around to redeeming it...The package came yesterday.

Yes.  That is Tessie, sitting in the middle of two yards of 54 inch wide linen. It is supposedly 36 threads to the inch even weave,I am not sure how the count really is.  I will have to try it and see.  It looks to have a few more threads running cross grain that lengthwise. Whatever the count it is really nice fabric.  Tessie has been walking around on it planning what I am going to make for her from it. 

I thought that some of you might be interested in another item that I grabbed.

In case you aren't familiar with Dharma Trading Co.  They have been around longer than home computers by quite a few years.  They sell all natural products that are specifically made for people that like to dye, paint and otherwise decorate their own clothes and other fabric thingies.  They also sell dyes, fabric paints and other things to decorate the thingies with.

Anyway, this is their version of a Messenger bag. It's heavy canvas and ready to decorate.  I love all of the pockets.........The only trouble is, so does Tessie.  She announced that she can go anywhere I do with this bag....Unfortunately Nellie heard that and came running to join the party.

I bought it with the intention of tangling it.  That and the linen have to be washed before I do anything else.  That's when we find out what the real count is on the linen...

Can you tell that I'm playing for time today?  Monday, starting with the bathroom, on the far left of the house, I started cleaning.  I am doing cupboards, closets and everything else in between.

I figured that, if I started at one side and worked my way across.  I would finish with the workroom....The worst spot in the house.

So I promise to come up for air and let you know that I am still able to find the computer keyboard.  I will also try to get some mini-ing done too.

Yesterday at Wednesday Witches minis, I took along my tatting.  It's easy to carry and my friend Anne wants to learn.  Good intentions....I spent quite a bit of the time unraveling the kumihimo of one of the members that just started a couple of weeks ago...It seems that she fell asleep while doing it!  Didn't I tell you that it was a relaxing thing to do?  She must have kept going well into her nap! It took a big chunk out of tatting time.

Here are a few of the pieces of tatting that I am working on.  Tessie has her eye on the first black one.  It's way out of scale for her, but she says it looks like a sinister spider's web.The center of that one is a glass button.  The one by her feet has a Chinese coin in the center. The cream colored one has a three hole button that I made in ceramic when I was in college...Poor old button... The one on the far right is almost three inches long...Silver and would you believe that it is one of a pair of earrings that I bought at Walmart?  I can't imagine wearing two or them in my ears.  I would have trouble holding my head up and they would be clanging against my shoulders.  So, it is now a pendant.I may redo that one.  I should have put some beads on the tatting. Or maybe I will just leave it plain and put it on a kumihimo cord.

Oh!  Thanks to you that answered my question yesterday.  The tree is definitely a Texas Mountain Laurel.

I still wonder if the hospital, where it is growing, knows that it is poisonous???

See you tomorrow.

The Hurrier I Go, The Behinder I Get....

Today, you only get a tiny bit of mini-ing.  I went to the mini meeting this afternoon.

This morning I had this mess on my bed.  That was the largest surface to spread out the boxes.

I am sorting through the plano boxes with needlework and beading supplies.  I am to the point that I can't find anything again.

This is only a fraction of the stuff that I need to go through.  Before I am finished, I expect to be cross eyed or blind from sorting tiny things.

At minis, I worked on some needle tatting for a while, but I find it hard to keep up with the conversation and count stitches at the same time.

These three pieces are done with buttons in the center, with over dyed thread.  They will eventually become some kind of jewelry.

That is, if I can get them away from Tessie.  She wants to hang them on the walls.

After I gave up on the tatting, I moved on to more gourd baskets.  The one that I was working on is by Zar's feet. 

I actually got three rows done on that.  It must be some kind of record. I don't usually get that much done at the meetings.  There is always too much food and talk to concentrate on minis.

On the left is one of the whole gourds marked and ready for cutting.  In the center is the bottom half of one of the gourds.

The one that I was working on has a hole in the bottom, where the neck was before I sawed it apart.  I will put a base under it of either leather or card.  Sometimes, if I am ambitious, I even coil a bottom for them.

Anyway, so much for minis...Not a  record day.  I will try harder tomorrow.

See you then.

Sofas, Tables and Tatting....

I spent last night struggling with Tessie over what kind of sofa she wanted....She is still searching.

So while she is doing that, I decided to go on and build a new table for the breakfast nook in the bay window.

If you are interested in doing one of these, there is a tutorial for the whole thing here. http://caseymini.blogspot.com/2008/04/tabled-for-today.html I made the new one so that I could take off the top cloth. I am not sure that I like the pink and white check. Neither is Tessie....She says, "It's too girly!"I am still finding it difficult to take photos of the kitchen. With the light, it is too bright.

Without it, it is still a bit on the dark side. I will keep at it. Hopefully, I will get on to the sofa for tomorrow. I will approach Tessie with a whip and a chair and get her to choose one.

On to the tatting part. I am a winner! Pamela, at "Tatting and Other Nonsense" http://totusmel.blogspot.com/ had a drawing last week. I won one of the prizes. It came in the mail yesterday. This is it! A beautiful necklace. It is one of her many original designs. She makes all kinds of fabulous jewelry, masks and other pieces. They are on sale in her Etsy shop. If you are interested in seeing more, go to her blog. From there you can get to her other site on Etsy. Thank you so much Pamela! It is perfect!

I am off now to go sofa shopping. There will be a tutorial as soon as Tessie makes up her tiny little mind!

See you tomorrow.

Tennessee Spinners and Calendar Art....

The only minis that I worked on today was cutting up gourds, to see how many baskets, large and small I could get out of each one.

I knew that each of the small Tennessee Spinner gourds would yield three, if I was lucky. Incidentally, the Tennessee Spinners are sold on Ebay if you are interested. I can't give you the name of a particular seller. I haven't bought any from there yet....

Each gourd has lots of seeds inside. I am going to try to grow some, once it gets a little warmer.

As you can see, the top row in the photo is all one gourd. It gave me five pieces to work with. Two will be large the other three may work for mini. We shall see when I start coiling.
Here's a close up of the smaller ones. The steps are, wrap a piece of paper or tape around the gourd and cut on the line that you draw. Then drill holes about 1/8" apart around the cut edge.

Stain the gourd or paint it if you wish. Sometimes people just wax them with paste furniture wax. I prefer them darker.

I will continue with the rest of the instructions as I go.

The reason that I didn't get much done today was, I had to run some errands and visit the baby person that has been added to the family.

Tessie was very happy with a couple of the things that I did. I went to the mini museum and renewed our membership. This year,when the membership was renewed we got two calendars. One for me and one for Tessie. Very cool.

She still is not paint free in the hair. Zar did the best that he could. I am afraid that I am going to have to step in and do more.

On the way home, spur of the moment, I stopped at 22 st. Antique Mall. I benefited on this stop. I found a tatting pattern book from 1944 and a full box of #5 Perle cotton in black. That was a color that I needed. I am almost out of 310.

The only problem with this book is the bright red nail enamel on the cover....Now Tessie wants some. She is crazy if she thinks that I am going to sit down and give her a manicure. She would have it ruined in 10 seconds flat.

She will probably benefit from it though. There are some really neat patterns for edgings and some small doilies that she could possibly use. Those will have to wait. I am going to absolutely, positively, get back to the townhouse bedroom tomorrow.

See you then.

I'm Revolting....

This morning, I couldn't take another shingle or brick. I have been house bound for the last three days. So I revolted! I went to the antique mall. All I got was two old handkerchiefs and those weren't even exciting enough to take photos.

So, when I returned, I went in a completely different direction. I decided that I needed to take an inventory of the Christmas sock situation. All year long, I knit. One sock here. A half a sock there....

I cleaned out the knitting basket, where I store all of the half done socks.I found these five pair in various states of unfinished-ness...I know that's not a word, but it describes what I found. I am not saying which socks go to whom. That way it will still be a surprise. Kind of.


Then what happens? Tessie has to be a blabber mouth and show you what is still in the sock basket. Rats! Foiled again!

Just for that, I decided to change courses again and clean out the tatting box...

Darn! There, I found all of these pieces in various states of undone-ness...I am, after all, just practicing. I am getting better at needle tatting. I am now to the bead adding stage!

Having not tatted for years, I am remembering it quickly. In fact, my bead knitting box has now changed into a bead tatting box/bead knitting box. Notice that the bead tatting box comes first in the title...

My only problem is, Tessie keeps following me around and telling on me. This time she sat in the box of thread and kindly pointed out, "There sure is a lot of thread left in here. I could use a couple of doilies and maybe a bedspread or two...". Somehow it always come around to the task of making something for her.

Don't tell her that I bought the hankies for her. I am not happy with the stiffness of the dress that I just made her.

But since I have vowed not to do any minis today, I can't tell her that or I would be breaking my vow.

I am going back now and finish at least one pair of socks. That's my goal for today. The second pair from the left only need a toe knitted. I can at least do that much before Tessie finds the hankies. Wish me luck!

See you tomorrow.

Snap, Crackle and Possibilities

Don't tell anybody. I haven't done any minis yet today. I am rediscovering tatting. Eventually I will get it down small enough for minis. Right now I am just practicing....

Tessie will let me continue as long as I keep making things with smaller and smaller thread...I am not sure how long that is going to last, so I am cramming as much as I can into each hour of the day.

Right now I am experimenting with Valdini #8 Perle cotton. It is hand died and very pretty. I saw some photos on the net of new ideas with buttons and old ones with beads. I got as far as the buttons. Sorry, no patterns so far. Maybe when I get down to mini size.None of these pieces are finished and I am not even sure what they are going to be, but it is fun to work with.

Now I am down to the one on Tessie's feet. It is done with Flower Thread, which is a bit finer than the #8. I still have a way to go to the mini size.

You may be asking yourself what a bottle of copper colored nail polish has to do with tatting....I was experimenting with that too.

The reports aren't conclusive yet, but that is the "possibilities" factor. I found it this morning at Walmart. Take a look at this.
It is a new kind of nail polish that is "crackle" finish! You have to have another coat of polish under it before it will crackle, so I am going to have to do a bit of experimenting. It comes in lots of colors, including black, gray and metallics. It is put out by "Salon Perfect".

I am thinking that it has mini possibilities....This is just over light blue, but if it was over black or if the crackle was black over some other color, I am thinking that it might be an easy way to achieve an effect of aging....We shall see.

Meanwhile, I am taking the afternoon off to see if I can get smaller with the tatting.

See you tomorrow.

Two Six Year Olds, Together....

Tessie and I are two of a kind....Usually. Hopping from one project to another one is normal for us.

This morning, as I was eating breakfast, I realized that today is the 28th and I haven't even started copying names down from the comments for the drawing. Procrastination is sometimes my middle name. So.....I went to work. I kept getting off track, looking at your blogs.

I have many more entries than I thought I would have. I realized that, if I want to do this right, it is going to take more time than I thought it would.

Tessie kept herself busy for the first hour with the tatting that she started yesterday. She decided to get serious and work on something that would go with her hair....Orange naturally, I mean the thread not her hair.

When she tired of that, she came in and tried to distract me for a while. When that didn't work, she glared at me and said, "You are NO kind of fun at all! Lots of emphasis on the NO part. She stomped away and Went and found the bargello pillow that we started a couple of days ago. She did about a half a row of lighter pink.

That took up another hour and seven minutes. Then she came back and tried the whinging and whining routine...."I'm bored...There's nothing to do...."

I replied with, "Tessie, I am very busy. See all of these nice comments? I have to read them all and make a list for you to draw from."

She watched from her place atop the dictionary.

Then she asked, "Can't I just close my eyes and pick from the names on the screen?"

"No Tessie. There are well over 100 comments and you can't see them all on the screen at one time."

With that, she disappeared again. After the next hour, I took a break and ate lunch, then I went to see what she was doing.

At least she is consistent....Meaning that every time I saw her she was being her typical six year old self.

This time she found one of the baskets that I "lost" somewhere when I was preparing for the talk on baskets at the museum.....Hmmmmm....Maybe she will finish it. I am still out of basket mode for the present.

As for me, I am not being a six year old, but I don't think that this is going to get finished today. I don't know what I was thinking when I said I would close the drawing one day and have the results the next. It just isn't going to happen.

I thought about extending the deadline for entries, but that wouldn't be fair. I am, however going to give myself a little more time. I just can't have it done by tomorrow.

The results will be up on Thursday morning bright and early. That's a promise. Stay tunedI have to go pull Tessie out of the workroom now. She is looking for something else to do and making a royal mess of it.

Then I am going back to putting names on little slips of paper, between time out for housework, laundry and other mundane happenings. I think that tonight's deadline should stay where it is, but I need more time to finish.

See you tomorrow.

No More Snow....

OK. I finished the rug. It isn't perfect, but then it's the first one I have done on that loom. I may have to dig out my large beading loom. Better tension and more room to play.

Please don't say anything to Tessie about a larger loom. she will want wall to wall carpeting!

I blocked this one with the steam iron and she grabbed it. She refuses to put shoes and socks on, so a rug is just the thing for her cold feet.

She put it under the loom, where her feet are when she's weaving. I made her drag it back out so that you could have a look at it.

At one point this morning, I found her sitting on the bench of the loom with her feet snuggled down in the roving basket. Anything to keep warm.

She slept through the snow and if I hadn't shown her the photos she would not have believed it happened.

After I finished the rug, I went to put things away and found her sitting in the tatting box.

She found my great grandmother's tatting shuttle and wouldn't let it go. It is mother of pearl and she likes the puce in the coloration.

It has been a long time since I did any tatting. Whilst I had the box out, I had to show Tessie how the shuttle worked.

Then the needles. She likes that better.

Her hands are too small to use a shuttle, but the needle version is easy and all of the knot tying is done right on the needle itself.

It is actually a bit faster to do also. If you are interested in seeing someone doing it, there is a YouTube video that shows a woman doing it close up. She is really good at it. There are other realted videos on the same page.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtMR_XtTvTk

The piece that Tessie is holding, she didn't make. I did. She is trying to pass it off as her own.

It took me about half an hour to make it, because I didn't have a pattern. I was just fooling around. I am not sure if it will turn into anything or not. It's just fun to play with. Besides, if I finish it, I would have to clean up and put things away. Even playing with needles is more fun than clean up!

I am going to go play some more now. If anything comes of it, Tessie will be sure to show you and tell you that she made it with her own two little hands. Just humor her.....It's better that way.

See you tomorrow.