Tatting elbow

Hey folks,

Ever since I caught tatting fever last weekend, I had been tatting up a storm. Tatting for me comes and goes. Sometimes I even forget tatting exists. Then my interest gets reignited and off I go.

For the past few days I had been sitting on my ass just literally tatting away. Yesterday I made my last tatted item and decided to stop. The fever was over. Besides my elbow was hurting and I do believe I have developed tatting elbow. I could also easily have hurt my elbow some other way as I am extremely clumsy. I hope the elbow stops hurting because it's my right elbow and I am right handed. Also every Friday, I go for my cardiomix class which has some sort of kickboxing thingy and I need a good working pair of elbows. (kickboxing sounds so cool rite? it's just crazy swinging of arms and legs)

So I was tatting rite, and I decided to make the items in my craftsy shuttle tatting class. This craftsy shuttle tatting class is taught by Marilee Rockley and there are 7 projects altogether. The projects build up your tatting skills. I will tell you what I think of this class later on. I signed up for this class around 2 years ago but I only made 1 item. It was the floret tatted earrings and I gave it away to my friend, Vivian who loved it. And I have a photo of her wearing the earrings somewhere on my computer but I have no idea which folder to look under. So...

Anyway, I thought it was time I attempt a few more items in the class. The first thing I made was the same floret tatted earrings. It is a fairly easy and straightforward tatting. This time I made them for myself. Nowadays I want to be very selective when it comes to making stuff. I don't want to make every damn thing. Like do you go shopping and then tell yourself, "I can make that. And that. And that." AND you actually make them? With so much clutter in my life, I want to make stuff that I would use. And that's why I took the trouble to buy stainless steel earrings findings. Stainless steel is not surgical steel so it's possible my skin will react badly. Only time will tell. When it comes to jewellery, I like it to have some gold, platinum or a gun metal look. I got really lucky I was able to find earrings findings AND jump rings in gold to match the golden beads. I think I'll rock these floret earrings.

 
Next project... I was very attracted to the classic edge bracelet and I used red thread with blue toho beads. Again, not a difficult pattern. It's just a lot of repeats. I can see myself wearing this bracelet for many years. For the closure, I used a toggle clasp. Can you tell I love this bracelet so much?

This next rhapsody necklace I wasn't attracted to at all. Now I said I would choose my projects carefully and not end up making something I won't use. But the instructions looked complicated and I had never done any tatting that had a mirror look. I attempted this project solely to upgrade my skills. Well, I must say I learnt a few tricks. But making it was a nightmare. It was very easy to make mistakes and I certainly made a few which I couldn't undo. All in all, it wasn't fun at all. Plus, it turned out quite ugly. Okay, it's butt ugly. I will never wear it. If I make it again using a thinner thread, I may like it more but I don't think I can go through another process of making it again.

I was excited to make this next bracelet because it's my kind of thing. It is fairly easy, lots of repeats and it used split rings. But after making it and trying it on, I see that parts of it tend to stick up. I tried to get them to stay flat but it just won't work. Somehow the sticking up part spoilt the look of the bracelet for me.

There was a parfait snowflake which I didn't make but I watched it mainly just to learn something. And there was another pair of earrings which I deemed far too ugly to make. But I sat through it as well.

Now I'm going to tell you what I think of the class but you want to take it with a pinch of salt because this is just my experience. First of all, I am a fan of Marilee Rockley, the instructor. I think her tattings are really gorgeous. But if I were brand new to shuttle tatting and I take her class on craftsy? I think blood would come out of my nose, my eyes and my ears. Maybe my head would explode. I think a lot of the fault lies with the camera person/producer/director of the class. When you want a close up of what she is doing and mind you tatting is very small and hard to see, guess what? You will get a front shot of the teacher from the chest up. Why? The point of view of the camera irritated me as well. Like stay with her hands, come on! Pay attention. Also, Marilee doesn't show to the camera the in-progress shots of her tatting nearly as clearly as I would like. I was able to follow the class mainly because shuttle tatting is not new to me. Still there were times when I had to replay over and over just to understand what was going on. This was especially true for the rhapsody necklace. So why did I enrol in this class? I was attracted to adding beads to tatting. I have tried bead tatting before and I learnt it from a book. But the process of learning from a book caused blood to spill out of my eyes, ears, nose and mouth and maybe my head exploded a little. So did I get anything out of this class? Yes, I achieved my goal of learning about adding beads to tatting and I am happy about that.

If you are new to shuttle tatting there are lots of youtube videos available. Like tatted treasures and she is just one of many. Marilee offers some free tutes too. See here. Tatted treasures as well as Marilee use the traditional way of holding a shuttle. I think most people who can't tat have problems with the traditional way of holding a shuttle. There's a youtube instructor who teaches another way of holding the shuttle. I tried it and it's a lot easier to get. Try it here. She has over a hundred tatting videos but they are silent ones. There are English instructions so if you can get used to the non-verbal...p.s. she has crazy nails too. I have tried switching to this new method of holding a shuttle but you know what? My muscle memory automatically uses the traditonal way.

Tat's all for now.

Tatted Pendant

Last night I shared this tatting-in-progress pic on my Instagram (projectsbyjane). Now I know me well. Many of my in-progress work end up forever in-progress. Have you looked in my tatting container? It's horrible. Tangled thread and so many in-progress motifs. The problem with tatting and also with crochet? All that stupid end threads you have to hide. Ugh.  All my in-progress tatting just need the end threads hidden!!!

Well, instead of finishing up all my old in-progress tats, I made a brand new motif - with a black and red Lizbeth #20 thread. A lot of tatting are variations of doilies. You know who doesn't need a doily? Me. They are dust trappers and with so much stuff in my home collecting dust, the last thing I want is one more dust trapper.

So my tatted doily is my new pendant. This tatting is easy to make. You know what's the hard part? Putting in the two split rings. Ugh. Is there an instrument out there to do this insanely difficult task? I had to do it with my eyes closed for fear the rings would fly into my eye.

I made a few small mistakes with this tatted pendant but they were so minor I didn't feel like unpicking and fixing them.

I only have a few necklaces to choose from and I picked this surgical steel chain because it is not too thick for the delicate pendant.

I found it hard to photograph my tatted pendant in my balcony. So I held it in my hand and stuck it out of the "window". There's no window, just an empty space with window grilles which I had pushed to one side. As you can see, I have a maker's hand. Crinkly and slightly rough and my hidden index finger has a forever peeled skin look.

I wasn't entirely happy with my shot so I tried something else. I let my hand dangle out of the "window" and got this shot. Too bad the wind made the pendant move around.

To prevent the pendant from flying around, I leaned as far out as I could and placed the pendant against the wall outside my flat. With my right hand, I fumbled with the setting and took this shot. And that was when I realised if I had been more careless I could very easily have plunged to my death because I was leaning out of my "window" and with my exceptionally long torso combined with my large head, it would have no chance against gravity.

Alright, back to more tatting. (I've got tatting fever) and I promise to stay away from my open balcony!

How to stitch a tatted motif to felt

One of my readers, Christel Goh wanted to know how I stitch my tatted motifs to felt. This post shall address that mystery.

First, notice how tatted motifs have little loops which are called picots. I use these to sew my stitches.

From under side of felt, insert needle and come out just inside the top of the picot loop. Insert needle into felt, just outside the same picot loop. Pull thread taut and you will see the little stitch you have made will hold the picot in place securely.

I usually anchor all the outer picots first making sure the motif stays flat. Next I anchor all the picots in the center.

Sometimes you may not have enough picots to anchor the motif securely. Another good place to make a stitch is where the two chains meet (semi-circles).

Lastly, the most important "trick" is to choose a thread colour that will be blend in nicely. I also double knot (sometimes triple knot) my thread in the beginning and end.

This is another tatted brooch I made this week. It's a little larger than my usual ones as I used yarn lace which is thicker. It is 2.75" in diameter compared to my regular 2". So many picots! I had no trouble anchoring this motif down.

Ten things in August

Hellooo!

Some of you must be pining for me by now. Its' been a rough August for me, my friends. If you must, I will go into details. If you live in Singapore, you'll know it's the Hungry Ghost Month. I think it's from 7 Aug to 4 Sep. So it ain't over yet. I don't want to rant about it. Alright, I do. The bottom line is during the days when there is major burning of incense paper, my sinus goes nuts. N.U.T.S. And I don't recover fast so when the next batch of burning comes along, my sinus is still in recovery mode. So my sinus gets sicker. This year, my girl too could barely breathe. She ended up with an infection. She had to do the antibiotics route which is very hard because I have to break the tablet into half or she won't take it. My thumb is very sore now. My son who usually gets very bad sinus attacks was quite lucky and did not suffer much except for one day when he had Geography exams and he had a sneezing attack and he had no hanky or tissue...This festival is a yearly thing. We'll just have to ride it out. It's almost over. There should be one more big burning day for the close of the festival. I plan to take refuge in an air-conditioned shopping mall. I only fear nighttime burning because I gotta go home and sleep.

I want to say it hasn't been a nightmare throughout August so here are the 10 things I did in August which were pretty happy ones.

1. Sleeping

a lot. Mostly medication induced ones. I really enjoyed the sleep. I slept more than what a human needs. I slept in the morning. I slept in the afternoon. I slept at night. I couldn't sleep all day though. Tried it once and it didn't work.

2. Eating

a lot of junk food. (and I didn't care)

Such as these prawn crackers.

And these macarons which gave me a 5 day migraine. Okay, I will stop taking dairy products. They're killing me. But. So. Delicious. Darn it. Now I want to eat CAKE. Speaking of which, surely one can make non-dairy cake? Recently I ate some Japanese steamed cakes and they did not contain any dairy. Tasted out of this world too.

Oh, and these salted egg yolk fried prawns.

It was a yummy month.

3. Tatting

made a comeback in my life. Completed my very first tatted earring. This pair went to a friend. The next pair will be for me. That is if I could get hold of real surgical steel ear wires. Yes, I am sensitive in the ears as well.

4. Beading

a cabochon pendant. I only managed to spend two very short afternoons on it and this is my progress. I hope to complete it by Chinese New Year NEXT YEAR. Yes, this one's for me.

5. Bag Pattern making

finally saw some progress. There is a really steep learning curve for the new software but I've managed to pick up enough to get going. I'm starting to feel optimistic and confident. Hopefully I will get one pattern published by end of the year, if I'm lucky. It is a lot of work. A lot. Some days I wanted to scream and I just had to walk away.

6. Watching

every episode of Broadchurch. I thought David Tennant and Olivia Colman had very good chemistry. Can't wait for season 2.

Strangely got very into the Great Australian Bake Off. I really like both judges. I thought they were really classy. And who else thought they are such poets with their critique? I mean, when I eat bread or cake, all I can say is yum, good, fabulous. I secretly believe the male judge has a thing for the winner. He looked so in love with her every time he's near her. The male host annoyed me when he kept on and on hugging one of the contestants whenever she teared up. Which was a lot. I mean, come on mate! Get a cold shower before the show.

7. Reading

real books and not craft books.

Such as these. I've seen the movies. Wanted to see if the movie is true to the books.

8. Running

after a very long break due to a pain in the right foot. It was a good run but I couldn't do it again due to all the smoke and falling sick. But now I know I can run. And I don't think the pain will ever go away. It's an aging thing. Aging sucks. Why must people age? Why? Why? Why?

9. Feeling

very relieved the kids' Term 3 exams are over. Now for the final one in Term 4.

10. Instagramming

every day. Believe it or not, I've been doing this since June. Influenced by ElephantIsLove. Each day I take a photo and what I photograph is related to a prompt.

This is an example of what an August photo prompt is. It might sound like a silly game to some of you!

Here are my August pics. If you have instagram, you can find me @projectsbyjane. If you don't have instagram, you can still view my pics on this blog (see sidebar for instagram and click on the images; don't be scared) or at my facebook (look for instagram tab).

That's it. See you in September!

The Truth About Owls

Hello Internet people,

Yes, it's been a while. Basically, I had nothing worthwhile to blog about and that's why I've not blogged. I know some bloggers who have the energy to blog everyday and I admire their passion. I, on the other hand can be classified as a lazy blogger. I blog whenever.

So what's up with me? Well, first of all, my sleep sucks. I've been unable to have a proper sleep through the night for a couple of weeks now. So I have to have 2 sleeps a day. One awful one and a fantastic nap in the morning. So that pretty much took away many of my hours. I really hope I can get back to sleeping a normal 8 hours a day like every other human being on earth. It's exhausting when you don't get the right kind of sleep.

I have to confess I'm rather scared of owls. I know me hubs will say I'm scared of many things which is not untrue but totally mean. Let's be honest. Owls come out at night. That's creepy. Owls live in jungles. That's scary. Owls have weird beady eyes and since they come out at night, seeing the eyes at night would be super terrifying. Owls are loners. That's disturbing. Owls are associated with darkness, sorcery and evil. So my question is. At what point did these brilliant textile designers turn these creepy birds into such adorable creatures on fabric? I mean I love owls in fabric print. I would fork over money for it. Just look at my latest zippy pouch. It has an owl. It doesn't look evil. I even sewed little running stitches all over it.

I made this large zippy pouch for myself. See, I have a large wallet so it needs a custom-sized pouch.

Perfect size. My sister, Elaine gave me this owl print many moons ago. I made a few items with it in the past and I have a little bit left and I'm thinking of making it into a wall organizer.

Speaking of birds, does anyone eat quails eggs? I usually just boil them in water. My kids really dislike removing the shells. Surely there must exist an instrument to remove quail's eggshell.

Here's some Singapore news. Since the election in early May, two ex-prime ministers have resigned from the cabinet. If this sounds puzzling, basically what happened was after the ex-prime ministers stopped being prime ministers, they continued to be ministers in the cabinet, namely Senior Minister and Minister Mentor. Of course the big deal is that one of the two is Lee Kuan Yew whom many credit with transforming Singapore from a poor village to an economic success. He's 88 this year so that's a good age to retire. But he still holds an important biz post so I don't think it's a full retirement.

In other news, residents living in a block of flats (not mine, thank goodness) discovered that a dead body was found in their water tank. Gross, right? Worse, they had been using the water - drinking, laundering, showering, mopping and all. What fascinated me hubs about this story was that our water came from water tanks. He thought our water came from water pipes! In my old home, I could actually see the water tanks on the roof. So I knew water came from water tanks there but in my current home, I cannot see the roof at all so I really have no idea where my water comes from. My question to you dear readers: Where does the water to your home come from?

If you are on my facebook page, you'll know I've been tatting. Well, I finally managed to finish couching my tatted lace to a piece of fabric. Couching is tedious. There must surely exist a simpler method. My tatted lace is rather crude. But I'm improving.

Lastly, if you're on facebook, you ought to read this or risk getting your facebook profile yanked. As of May 11 2011, facebook has made changes to guidelines pertaining to contests, promotions and giveaways. If you're wondering why you no longer see giveaways announcements on facebook, here's why. If you can't access the link, it's because you are using facebook as page. (If you are reading this post from facebook, when you click on the link, you may have to click on 1 additional link "go to facebook.com") Go here. See you.

Wonton Drawstring Bags

When I first saw a picture of a delightful simple round drawstring bag with tatted edging in Beeton’s Book of Needlework Consisting of Descriptions and Instructions by Isabella Beeton found at Antique Pattern Library. (Tip: Don't try and print the whole book. It's a lot of pages.)

I knew I had to make it. Just 2 round fabric, sew together, turn right side out. Sew 2 circles for casing and add the tatting edging. Ha ha, ha.

Tatting, what's tat? (pun, get it?) Tatting is an ancient art done by people who had no television or computer or internet. Now, people who have television, computer and internet turn to tatting because it's a challenge and all that "impossible is nothing" propaganda.

Tatting, it turns out is not for the patience impaired. It took me hours to finish the simple rings. All my picots have different sizes! Finally sewing the edging to the edge of the bag numbed my fingers and every nerve on my arms. I'm never making another tatted edging again. For the cords, I just crochet a simple chain stitch. (Fingers can't feel anything by now.)

When I showed the finished product to my husband, he said it looked like a giant wonton.

White Wonton Bag with tatted edging

Colourful Wonton Bag with multicoloured cord

The numbness in my fingers and arms slowly left and having recovered sufficiently, I knew I had to make another wonton bag.

Okay, okay. When I was making the white tatted one, I was overcomed with ambition to make dozens of wonton bags. (I don't know why. Okay, it's called obsession.) So I had jumped the gun and cut out 2 round fabric from my tropical island fabric collection. Therefore I had no choice but to make another wonton bag.

This time, I left out the tatted edging. (I wasn't kidding. Absolutely no more tatted edging. Ever.)

For the cord, I braided 3 different coloured yarn using my braiding machine. The braiding is done like how you would braid your hair. I love the braid. When I grow up, I want to be a braider.