Onward and Upward

Well things seem to be moving slowly in an upward direction. So far there has been no extreme change of fate, but things are looking up a bit. First thing yesterday the vet called to confirm a bladder infection, the easiest to fix issue of the possible problems, so hopefully a few more days of antibiotics and I can sit safely in my spot on the couch once again.

I was, soon after that, granted a sale of an actual necklace. Of course it was a one off, so that doesn't give me anything that needs making, but still a step in the right direction. I had some time to work on the white collar in the afternoon, but I still haven't made it all the way through the clover row. It's a monster of a design and takes far longer to make than any other element. I should, theoretically get it finished today and might even knock out the rest of the collar if the winds are at my back.

Then there was the trip to the eye doctor. With four of us, it took two hours to get everything done. The oldest child has also now followed into her parents footsteps with enough of a 'touch' of astigmatism to require glasses for the first time. Since we're both sight impaired, we've been preparing her for this possibility for a long time. Luckily it seems to have worked and she appeared to fine with it. She'll likely only need them when reading, but they should also clear up her headaches a bit as well, which she's looking forward to.

Since I had my eyes dilated and then tortured at the appointment I was pretty useless the rest of the day. I didn't even remember to get photos to spice up this boring blog post. I'll get back to work today and hopefully the Universe will be with me, assuring that things continue upward and I'll have finished collar pictures for you by Monday.

Well, That Was A Day

It was a long, but fairly interesting day. The first task after some extra quick schooling in the morning was a meeting with the youngest child's teacher for her benchmark assessments. She managed to not only impress her teacher, who sees her only a handful of times a year, but me as well. Child can read and spell like crazy and I was encouraged to speed her through her class assessments until something actually becomes new and/or difficult for her. Then when we got home we worked on an art project with clay and that was a pretty good time for both kids.

Then between all the the morning stuff and the scheduled afternoon trip to the vet with cat-who-pees-on-couch, I got back to work on the white version of the collar. I didn't get as far as I would have on a normal day just because of all the other things that needed to be attended to, but I should have time today to make a nice dent in it. I still have yet to sell anything this week that needs remaking so I'm focusing on this.

The trip to the vet was interesting as the cat's overall health indicated that it was most likely a behavioral problem which, aside from serious health problems, was what I was dreading because I figured there was no fix for that. Come to find out, there is a medical fix for that, kitty Prozac. We'll find out more today after the urinalysis is complete and other issues are found or ruled out. Either way, fun, but expensive afternoon.

Today's fun afternoon includes the family trip to the eye doctor. Luckily the children do not share my horrible vision, but if the adults have to go, might as well keep the kids in the habit as well. I leave you with a picture of the kittens, who are really no longer kittens, exploring the new cat tree the mother-in-law picked up for them yesterday. Here's hoping for a nice day of tatting and maybe a sale or two so I can pull myself all the way out of this funk.

In White

I'm in one of those funks again. I think most creatives must go through this sort of thing. I'd call it bi-polar, but I don't want to trivialize a very real and serious mental condition. It certainly behaves in a similar pattern though. There's a period of manic creativity with the happiness of working hard, compliments, sales, etc. Then when I finish a piece, there's this letdown followed by extreme laziness and funk especially when sales are so very slow. Everything stresses me out and I just want to push a pause button on everything, curl up in a ball and cease to be, just for awhile. Yesterday was particularly stressful, but there is no pause button and I'm still incapable of ceasing to work even when I don't really have anything that needs doing.

I spent most of the afternoon trying to take my mind off a dozen things I won't go into, by tatting up my new collar in white. I first made up some buttons and since I'm going to embellish this one, I started by adding a nice swarovski round to it.

The only great thing about tatting as a distraction is that I work faster. If I slow down I'm more likely to let my mind wander and that's when I get into trouble so I work at full speed. I got all the way though the base rows of the piece and I crocheted the button loops while tatting since this time I knew where they needed to be. I also added more pearls along the bottom edge of this section. I plan on adding just a few more to the final row. I fear too many and it will take away from the classic look of the lace, so they're just small details.

I've got a bunch of things to do soon that I'm not overly fond of doing. There's a teacher meeting in the morning, which isn't too bad, but I have to take one of the cats to the vet this afternoon and I hate doing that for so many reasons. Then tomorrow there's family eye appointments all while still keeping up with the schooling. I know it doesn't seem like much that should bother me, but when you want to pause everything for awhile, anything seems bothersome. It's all just temporary though, I should be back to what passes for normal soon enough. It does help to whine about it though, so thanks for reading.

Done

I had another of those, perfectly Monday, Mondays. Sure, it started out fine except for the mild headache that accompanied me all day long. School went well and I asked more folk about the collar necklace and received some more well thought out, opinions. The addition of buttons was a popular one, but I don't have any buttons around the house. Not only that, but I was really liking the idea of a completely cotton thread piece. So, I decided to crochet my own buttons and just add loops to the other side. It actually worked and people seemed to like the result so I dolled myself up a bit, got some pictures and listed the necklace.

I think it looks great facing wither direction. It either needs a low cut neckline, strapless top or I suppose it could actually work as a collar in the classic sense, layered over a high neck dress. I struggled a lot with pricing and naming it, but mostly pricing. There are quite a few tatters on the Etsy with classic collars priced so cheaply, I feel like they must be giving away their time. I mean I work fast and this took three full days of work to make not including extra design time, but I still felt bad about the high price.

So this is where the day went wrong. I got a message that a package hadn't yet been received and there wasn't even any tracking information on it. I know it went in the mail, but since it wasn't even initially scanned, I fear it was lost or stolen and I spent the rest of the evening hurriedly remaking the order for the very understanding customer waiting for it. This exacerbated that day long headache and I ended the day feeling very much like a Monday just worked me over.

I'm not sure what I'll get up to today since the new project is done and I haven't sold anything to remake in days. I was kind of thinking about doing the collar in white and trying out some embellishments, marketing it a a bridal collar. We'll see though, I might just take a little break since I always feel really letdown after I finish a big piece. At least it's not a Monday again, huh?

Almost There

Well this weekend was definitely a bit quieter than the one that preceded it. There were family errands to run and a Lowe's build and grow thing with the kids, but it was mostly relaxing and little tatting though I did get a custom order in late on Saturday that I worked on through Sunday.

The work I really got done was on Friday when I think I finished the collar design. I say think because I wanted to take a break on it over the weekend and come back to it today with fresh eyes. I thought about, perhaps, adding another element between the now large scallops, but I'm not sure it's needed. It's also likely that I will add crystals or beads hanging from the base row where there it a space created by the low clover sections.

I'm also working out how I want to do the closure. The easy way is just to add a clasp, but I was thinking about making crochet ties so it can be laced and worn backwards as well, tied in front like an old collar. I guess I've got my work cut out for me today figuring all this out. Any opinions on these ideas are greatly appreciated. Sometimes it's difficult to create in a vacuum as the kids aren't much help yet.

That's about all that I have planned after schooling. The custom order will be finished quickly and other than that order, the shop has remained quite calm. At least I had the chance to make something unexpected during the slowness.

The Collar Grows

I had a bit of an odd day. I remember when I used to work retail and I began carrying myself in a certain way that conveyed to people that I knew what I was doing. Unfortunately I couldn't turn it off and was more than occasionally accosted while shopping in other stores by other customers who assumed, despite my"street" clothes, that I worked there. Yesterday was one of those days. I fielded questions from a slew of people I have never met, communicated with nor even run across online that I'm aware of, asking for my help in areas which I am most certainly not an expert. It's like when someone asks you an easily googled question while they are sitting in front of a computer and you have to stifle a comment about them looking it up their damn selves. Yeah, it was that sort of day, very odd. I mean, I do try to be as helpful as I can, but shockingly I am usually pretty busy and low on patience.

The rest of the day was at least productive though. I decided on adding a couple of scalloped rows to the collar before the clover row. Since the piece is meant to sit lower on the neck, it is really long at this point so every row takes longer than I wish. My brain is already onto the next section, but my fingers are far from done with the current one.

After the scallops, I reworked the clover pattern again and once more after that to get all the lengths and proportions correct.  That gave me plenty of little sample pieces to double check the concept with the base row. Once I was sure it was going to work I started tatting the clovers starting at the center of the base to make sure that it lined up right. I could have just done some math first, but it's math, so I opted for the easy way out. I finished the clover row, but it did take the entire rest of the day so I don't have a picture of it.

There are still more elements I want to add to the piece. At the very least, there will be one more row after the clovers. Those old collars were lousy with elements and I want mine to be as well. Of course it will only be wearable in a strapless or spaghetti strapped top by the time I'm done because it is huge. I'm also tempted to hang some crystals from the small space created between the low clover and the scallops. I won't play with that idea until I'm done with the lace itself though. So much more work to do on this. At least it's distracting me from the slow shop.

Collar

Another smooth day of schooling. I'll probably stop mentioning all this schooling business as it fades into routine, but honestly I'm just so pleased that it's going so well already. I mean it is our fifth year, but I was afraid of this year as both the kids really get their workload increased, but they are rising to the challenge and I am determined to rise as well.

I sat about for a while after finally finishing that bloody mask I was working on when I remembered that I wanted to make something new. I decided that I had made too many pendant, earring combos recently and I certainly wasn't up for mask creation. I looked at how many bracelet designs I had and decided that what I needed was to try a nice large collar necklace. It's been awhile since I'd created more than just a simple necklace. It took forever to make up, but I've got just the base row of the collar done, a nice simple zigzag with a bit of a curve. The idea is to build one similar to the old classic collars with multiple elements, so I picked a base row with strength and stability.

Next I started looking at old collars to decide on the next sort of element and while I'm still working that it out and I picked this one for either the middle or bottom row. I won't use it as is, too many picots for one and the size is wrong as is, as well. I suppose that's where I begin today, working on re-imagining this two level clover section. I certainly have my work cut out for me with this. It would have been much easier to just modify an existing collar, but I wanted my own with the feeling of the past and my own, hopefully unique voice. At least I have something to show you for awhile as I work this out. Here's hoping it does, in fact, work out.

Thanks

First of all, I want to thank a few people who sent me messages and left comments regarding my oldest's writing issue. I mean I knew she wasn't alone, but as I related those messages to her, I think it really helped. She is a bright kid, but absolutely afraid of failing. I am happy to report that she skipped right off to write in her journal after schooling and was quite proud of herself. I'm sure we've by no means gotten completely past the issue, but this was certainly a step in the right direction.

In fact all of schooling was quick and easy yesterday even though we had science experiments at the end, or maybe it was looking forward to those that kept them in such a compliant mood. Either way it was a good morning.

I didn't sit down to tat until after lunch so I still didn't manage to finish the mask I was working on. Hopefully I get it wrapped today. I am starting to feel the need to design something again. I don't know what, but with the slow sales keeping me from having the production work to keep me busy half the day and schooling taking up the other half, I'm feeling creatively unfulfilled. Of course I would be just as happy to have a big order to work on. So I guess what I'm saying is I'm getting bored with half my day again and I need tatting to come to the rescue. I suppose I'll just keep working and at some point something will click.

Argh

You know how some weeks have Monday's that feel like Monday's. Yeah, it was one of those. There was laundry to do and clothes to mend and glorious moment of child melting down over a simple school assignment. The oldest hates writing. It's not that she isn't creative or smart, there's just some sort of road block between her head and the piece of paper that causes severe anxiety. There's nothing for  it except to keep pushing until she breaks down, writes and then realizes that it wasn't so hard in the first place. Of course by that time I'm ready to have a breakdown too. Oh well, the best way out is always through.

To take the edge off after schooling was wrapped, we went outside and collected flowers to press. We had gotten these presses on clearance at Michael's a couple of weeks ago. I love doing projects that they have to wait a long time to see finished. In our crazy, instant gratification world, it takes effort to teach patience, but they need that skill so very much.

Of course the side effect of this rough morning was a laziness took me right over and while I started to tat a mask, I barely made a dent in it. No sales and little activity online at all furthered my laziness. Not to mention the odd weather. It was hot, cloudy and by the evening we had a good old fashioned thunder and lightning storm, which we never get. Maybe I was just overheated and confused.

Today, I really am going to try and get that mask made up after schooling and hopefully my return to productivity will spur a couple more sales so I can stay productive. Here's hoping anyway.

That Was A Surprise

What a weekend. No, really, it was quite a departure. Friday was quiet. School went quickly and then the kids spent the afternoon with their grandma, so I played birthday acquired video games. The rest of the weekend is where is got interesting. The husband pulled off a surprise birthday...I'm going to go with get together. In fact, the kids were in on it and though I thought something fishy was going on, I really didn't think he would have gone this far.

I have to tell you, I feel pretty darn lucky to have what I do. I mean, sure I'm not rich, surrounded by hundreds of friends, nor famous and I certainly have dozens of small things to whine about, but what I do have is wonderful. I have a small handful of friends and family who are wonderful, honest, supportive, funny and just the right amount of...let's say odd, or maybe crazy...how about off. The point is I love them all and they gave me a great Saturday with legos and Doctor Who toys, food and lot's of chatting.

I spent most of Sunday recovering, but there were a few small orders over the weekend, so I worked on those as well. I also put together my Ghost Train Lego set. It glows in the dark. I only managed to get one picture that looked alright, but it's much bigger and cooler than just this one section.

So today, we're back to the school week and I have one mask in queue that needs to be remade. I was going to do that on Saturday, but the best laid plans and all that. So I guess my birthday wasn't low key after all. Now I just have to remember what age I am when people ask and move on with my year.

Aftermath

Well, it was a pretty low key birthday, mostly no key actually. Just a normal school day, peppered with happy birthday messages at random moments throughout the day, thank you for those. We had a large science experiment set for yesterday and that took up a lot of extra time, but at least it was interesting. By the time that was done I had received one order that needed making and so I spent much of the afternoon tatting up some custom colored earrings. I only wish the color were better on the photo so you could see how much these remind me of peppermint candies.

In all, I got just a few orders and half of them were patterns, which would have been fine with me except etsy recently launched a new toy, Shop Dashboard. It shows you at a glance, real time stats compared to the day before and last year on the same day. I had forgotten what an amazing sale day I had last year. So once compared to a ridiculously successful day, yesterday was a disappointment. I am going to have to be careful with that dashboard, or it's going to depress me something awful.

The evening was capped with Indian takeout and fancy cider. I was filled with joy when the children liked the choices we made for them and delighted when they tried my spicy dish and liked it. Their reactions to the spice were classic, amusing and basically made my day. It may not have been an exciting birthday filled with gifts and grandness, but it was good.

So here we are at the last day of the first week of school and think we're going to make it. I've got a couple of small things to remake today after schooling and then I guess I'll spend the rest of the day playing the video games I got for my birthday, that is of course, unless I get something fresh to make.

Another of 'Those' Days

Yesterday was mostly routine save for a teacher meeting in the middle of the day, but even that was nice and familiar so I'm starting to feel a little more relaxed about the school year. Don't get me wrong I'm still worried about the increase in work load for both me and the kids, but it's all doable. I didn't get any orders during the day though, so it was just spider tatting in the afternoon. Hopefully I can think of something else to occupy my time going forward because August has always been a slow month in the shop for me and I've no reason to think this year is going to be any different.

Every year I debate internally about whether or not I should mention, celebrate, or even bother with my birthday. Then I generally fall back on the old habit of at least mentioning it so that I can dull that 'I feel old' sensation with happy comments from friends. Of course I should be glad to be see as many birthdays as I can, but I still remember when I was the 'young' tatter in these parts and that just isn't the case anymore. Which is, again, a good thing, but I am going to still lament getting older until I reach that magic age where I can be proud of it. That exists right?

No special plans today though, except my standard birthday sale, which is 25% off in the shop with the code 'HAPPYBIRTHDAY25' because selling things always puts me in a better mood. Otherwise I still have kids to school and laundry to do and that feels about the same as yesterday. So here's hoping for something interesting.

Lace On The Televsion

Yesterday almost felt like it was back to our old routine. There were fewer complaints and while school still lasted longer than it used to, it went much smoother and while I taught, I received a nice order which gave me my task for when the schooling was over.

I spent the afternoon remaking a choker that was sold and I even remembered to take a picture of something to punch up the boring old blog post. Since it's something I've made before, I just went with the nice, abstract photo so there would be some lace.

Speaking of seeing lace though, twice in the last week, I have spied tatted lace on the television. First as I was watching the season premiere of Hell on Wheels. The preachers daughter, who I suppose it the preacher now, had a large tatted lace collar. Funny that with my exposure to antique patterns, I recognized it easily and it appeared to be of vintage or antique origin itself. I know I've seen that same one in an antique shop myself.

The second sighting was a bit odder. I was watching The Daily Show when the joke was made the John Stewart was mistakenly hosting The Doily Show and behind him was a large image of a tatted doily. I think the last time I saw tatted lace on the television was an annual airing of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, as one of the toys for the island of misfit toys sports a tatted collar. So, weird tatting week then, huh?

I'm done remaking from yesterday, so here's to another morning sale to give me a pleasant afternoon. Otherwise it's spiders, spiders and more spiders.

Spiders

What a day, what a day. I mean the first day of school is always a bit of a challenge, but add a two hour park day interruption, laundry, extra instructional email newsletters and a dozen other small tasks and the day seemed to stretch on forever. The kids were pretty good about doing their work, only mild complaining, but there was a lot more of it. As I prepared for today's lessons, I realized that the middle of the week will be worse. Don't worry, I'll stop complaining once we settle into the routine which should be in a week or so.

I did get some tatting done in the evening though as I needed to decompress. I knew I couldn't handle anything big and a trip to Michaels over the weekend reminded me that Halloween is getting close. Okay, sure it's still over two months away, but that's close enough to start tatting spiders right?

They're easy to make and they help take my mind off everything else. I have listings already created for these and a couple of spider jewelry pieces. I deactivate them after Halloween every year and then just pop them back up again when it feels like it's time. So they'll likely reappear in the shop later today.

I don't have any orders in queue and I don't think I'll try to get up to anything big since my tatting time has been reduced to just a few hours in the evening, so today will likely produce more spider-lings. I just make them until I have a nice pile and then hope a few people out there feel the need to decorate with them. Here's to day two then.

Day One

The Universe was really with me this weekend. First, a dig through my thread netted a ball of the thread I needed for one of the custom orders. I didn't remember ordering the shade, but that's not really a surprise as my thread collection is fairly epic at this point. So I was off making the pieces for that order when I got the mail and low and behold the supplies that I didn't expect until Monday were here as well. The tracking said Monday, but who am I to complain. I spent most of the weekend working on those so I arise fresh and task free this morning, the first day of school.

I apologize in advance for what is likely to be yet another tatting free week. Between meetings and park days, and trying to shift around our summer routine without too many complaints, its going to be a long and distracting week. I managed to do most of my Wunderkammer posts last night for the week to get them out of the way. I even set out all the books for the kids lessons this morning to reduce the amount of running around I'm going to do. I thought I'd sleep better that way, but I had a fairly restless night. I ended up getting out of bed at 4 much to the delight of the cats.

So today is schooling until 10:00, then we head to the park for the back to school park day. Then we'll have to come back to finish school, which will be a nightmare because they'll have shifted gears and won't want to get back to it. Forget worrying about no tatting in the blog post, tomorrows post might just be on long "arrrggghhh". Well, no use stalling now, I have orders to ship, a treadmill to walk and a day to start.

Until Monday

Yesterday was quite the change of pace. I had customer conversations all morning while I worked on finishing the mask I started the day before. Then as the day wore on those conversations turned another custom order purchased that I need to wait for supplies to make and one regular order and I started feeling much better about the whole week. I spent the rest of the day remaking the piece I'd sold and watching the end of series 2 of Sherlock and several Doctor Who episodes with the kids. I may say that I'm going to miss all my tatting time when school starts up again, but what I'm really going to miss is marathoning shows I missed when they aired.

So today, I can't really work on either custom order I have in queue because I won't receive the supplies I ordered for them until next week. I suppose it's back to mask making then, but in a much better mood knowing I do have work ready for me next week along with schooling and teacher meetings and their first school event. Oh, man, I'm getting tired just thinking about next week. Yes, I think sitting about and leisurely working on nothing that really needs getting done sounds like a lovely way to end the week and the summer. Well, off to it then and I'll see you, fully stressed out, on Monday.

Better

Well things were looking up a bit yesterday, but only after a bit more down. The other custom order I was waiting on also came to naught, so once that was known I went ahead and started to work on mask prepping. Unlike almost everything else I make, masks require a little prep work, mainly the making of eye wires. I never just make one pair either. I pulled out the wire and made some in black and some in silver. I even made a couple extra for the eye patch design. Once I had a nice size pile, I started to work on one of the masks listed in the shop as a custom order and therefore not currently made.

Then as I was feeling fairly productive I got an order for a custom necklace and some barefoot sandals. I have to wait until I get some crystals I ordered in until I can make the necklace, but I took a nice mask break to remake the pair of barefoot sandals. I also got calls from both the kids coordinating teachers so the start of homeschooling year seems even closer today. Time actually seems to be moving forward again. I wasn't certain it was after the last few days.

I may not have a bunch of orders to finish today, but I do have a mask to work on and a pile of wire ready for me to make more if I need to, just one last episode of Sherlock series 2 to watch and a nice cooler than usual day ahead. Just a few more days of summer vacation left, let's hope they are all good ones.

Nope, Nothing

Yes, yesterday was yet another wash. One custom order customer let me know that she had changed her mind, but I was still waiting on another to let me know one way or another. So I did what I said I would do. I tatted cat ears and watched netflix. I decided to finally watch the BBC Sherlock show. There may be only 3 episodes per series, but at an hour and a half each, it's quite a sit to watch them. I've gotten through just the first series so far. After so recently reading all the stories in the canon, I could talk for hours about what I think went right or wrong with the updating, but it was good waste of time while I waited anyhow. Between watching that and marathoning Doctor Who episodes with the kids, I'm starting to think in what is likely a bad English accent. I suppose there are worse side effects to television programs.

So today looks to be just another repeat of the last few days. I'll nudge the other custom order and if it's a go, I'll work on that. Otherwise, it's netflix and cat ears. I could probably work on a mask or two instead of ears, I think I have 5 or 6 six headbands done at this point. Oh, I don't know what I'll make, but it will keep my hands busy and will likely be boring to read about tomorrow...sorry.

Waiting

Yesterday was a complete and utter wash. I sent out communications early in the morning to the two custom order requests. Then I waited, and waited, and waited some more. While I heard back from one with a couple of back and forth questions, but neither moved to a point where I could work on them at all. Again, this is all part of doing business, but since both of these requests came with a hard deadline, the delay in starting them puts me in a stressful spot. If they wait much longer, I have to say, sorry, not enough time now. I dislike ever having to do that. I know it's not my problem as I shared that I needed to start very soon in order to get them done, but still.

I suppose the worst of it is that I got so little else done in the meantime, afraid of getting involved in something big and having to stop mid project. Instead I worked on cat ear headbands since each ear is done in three rounds and they are all short ones, I can put them down quite quickly. Plus I figured with Halloween just around the bend, having more of those made and ready to ship can't hurt.

Today should be more of the same I'm afraid. More waiting for the go ahead to work and making cat ears in the meantime. I'm crossing my fingers that the custom orders will be resolved one way or the other today. I really don't care at this point if they will need to be made or not, I just want a definitive answer so I can stop all this waiting. I am not good at waiting. I am good at working, so I'm crossing my fingers that I get to do some of that today.

Friday Was Good

Friday was nice and productive. I worked up the final version of the bracelet and got it listed. Then went straight to work on the other pieces to match. The pendant was fairly straight forward. I didn't change it anymore than I had already done for the bracelet really. It is pretty large, but I generally don't shy away from large pendants.

The earrings were slightly more difficult. I tried making them exactly the same as the corner bit there, but it really looked ridiculous and not at all jewelry like. So I spent some time playing with stitch counts and moving elements around until they both matched and looked like earring ought to. I think I managed it.

As you probably guessed, I got these and the bracelet all listed on Friday. Then I got a custom order request, that was promptly purchased and I worked on that the rest of the day and into the weekend. I say promptly purchased, because I'm having another one of those bouts of people asking for things, conversing back and forth and measurements and whatnot for days even and then disappearing. It's fine, really, just kind of frustrating.

The rest of the weekend was family adventuring once the last order was done. Now I have just this last week of freedom before I become a teacher to my children for most of the day. I still don't know how I'm going to use my last week, but hopefully there will be something interesting to make it nice.

Distracted

I had quite a long, distracted day yesterday. The whole routine was a bit off because the husband was off to a conference from which he will not return until this evening. We also had to drop him off in the morning and so we followed that with early morning errands. Just in case that hadn't completely put off our routine, I checked on the kids classes and they were finally active on the school site, so I spent hours looking to see what supplies I might need to acquire before they start school on the 12th. Then I let the kids start picking the books they were going to read during those sections where they get to pick, so I could acquire those as well.

It wasn't until after lunch time that I finally sat down to tat anything. First I tried adding a bit to the existing center, forcing picots into being where I needed them. This gave me hope, but it also taught me that there were quite a few more stitch count changes that would need to be made before the piece would behave in a manner I approved of.

I started from scratch and worked up one new rectangle motif with all the changes I thought I needed. It took much longer than usual with the higher than usual distraction level and I didn't stop to get a photo, but I finished the one and it looked perfect. So distracted or not, my plan today is to get the second half done and get the new piece listed. I also think there might be a big pendant hiding in there and maybe even some earrings.

Yesterday did not start the month off with the bang I had hoped, nor the sales, but I'm going to keep swimming, or rather tatting because my summer is almost over. Seeing the kids' schedule for the year confirmed that I'm going to be much busier with them this year, so brace yourselves for the blog boredom now. Doing everything I want to do is going to be a lot of hard work.

Hello August

Well hello there August. You're going to be good to me right? July was a bit of a cold shoulder. I kept making new things, but July was having none of it. In just a couple of weeks I'll have little time for anything but schooling, so here's hoping August starts off great.

Yesterday after I finished up the custom order, I decided to do a quick giveaway on the Facebook. I tend to do those when I'm feeling a bit down because when people comment to win something, they generally say nice things. It is like a balm to a bruised ego and completely worth the effort. Plus, it often puts me back in the mood to work and work I did.

I mucked around with some more vintage patterns out of what I think must be a German book. When I see these antique and vintage books posted online, I just snag them and then by the time I get around to really looking through them, I've forgotten where I got it, or why. I worked up three different bits over the course of the day. I played with thrown rings, which I hate doing with two needles. I just dislike working with cut thread. I played with an edging I thought might make a neat bracelet, but it's far too unstable as it is. Then I did that rectangular motif in black, mucking with the design a bit so I could get away with not using two needles and that one I liked.

I put two of those together and I think with a little more effort, it could be a new cuff bracelet. I thought it would work out as it was, but as much as I like the negative space in the centers as a design element, it makes it too unstable there to hold up as a wearable piece. So I think I might add another element there and maybe get it listed today. I thought that I could add something to it as is, but the picot placement doesn't lend itself to the idea I'm working on, so I'll likely just have to make it again with a few more adjustments first. More prototypes...oh, joy.

So that's the plan for the first day of August and the beginning of the end of summer. As long as the smoke from a not too nearby fire that's is messing with my eyes and everybody's breathing dissipates soon, it should be a good day.