New Tatting Patterns

 I just listed this needle tatted jewelry pattern collection in my etsy shop and it's my intention to start combing though my other designs for ones I can write up for sale in the near future. There are a few I'll probably never share for various reasons including selfish ones, but if there are any you'd like me to sell, let me know and I'll definitely consider it. It's a big of an ordeal to get these sort of things created and listed though, so I'll be taking my time.

Tatted Eye Patch

I sold a tatted rose eye patch yesterday, so I spent some time tatting up a new one to put in my etsy shop, which I have been woefully neglectful of as of late, because of, well life. I've also been keeping busy with a new activity in my life. Actually it's a really old activity that I used to spend all of my time doing, but I haven't been doing so in over twenty years. I'm doing theater again. My daughter started over the summer and once I was back in a theater, I couldn't stay away. I'm in rehearsals now for my first show since college. Yikes, right? It's called Men on Boats and it opens in January for a two weekend run. So yep, still tatting and crocheting, but also writing and acting, and look I even found the motivation to write here, so yay! Maybe it'll stick this time...don't make any bets on it though.

Done and Done

 I've spent much of the last week working on this doily piece. I liked quite a few of the rounds to be the end of the piece because the shaping was so different and interesting on many of them, but I was looking for a particular end size so I kept on going.

 At some points it had this nice snowflake feel and at others I got an almost straight-line hexagon. I was ultimately hoping for round and that's mostly what I ended up with.

 This is the final piece done in the vintage or crappy size 10 thread. It's loose and a bit floppy, but that's why it's a prototype. The end size was about 15 inches across which was my goal. I also quite like the negative spaces as well as the repeated motif themes I managed to hold onto.







Once that was done, I worked it up in size 20 DMC Cébélia thread in ecru. It was immediately firmer because of the better thread, but also more delicate. The end size came to about 12 inches which is also what I was hoping for with it. I don't know how I managed to guess that, maybe I've been working with thread for too long or something.

Now that I've managed to recreate it and it still lays well, I'm going to work on writing up the pattern. I kind of want to do it for sale, but I'm not sure what kind of demand there is for a doily pattern. I'll take any opinions you have on that subject. Regardless, I'm pretty happy with how the project turned out. Maybe I'll do another one after I finish writing this one up, the finished product is rather satisfying to look at.

Centerpiece

So I was going to write earlier this morning, but my youngest daughter's computer had a heart attack just as she was starting her schooling. I had to sacrifice my laptop to her because let's face it school is far more important than me rambling on about thread projects.

Speaking of thread projects, I actually have one. My shop has gone quiet again, but that's not terribly unusual for this time of the year. I was starting to get a bit antsy when I was asked to create something for the center of a table. I poked around my collection of antique and vintage pattern books and PDF's picking out a few possibilities when I inexplicably found my self inspired to design my own doily.

The first bit was a piece I found in a German book from 1921. I added the flower in the center and then built it out from there as I went. I don't really have a plan going forward other than to make it large enough to serve the purpose as a center piece on a square table. I don't ultimately know if this piece will be the one I remake for the table project, but either way I've gotten to stretch my designing muscles again.

I other news I did finally list the choker I made the other week. The pictures are disappointing partly because I find myself less photogenic as the years go by, but there's nothing for it. At least I managed to get the project across the finish line. So here's that: My Immortal Corsage Necklace.

Ten Days Later

Clearly I've still got a way to go if I'm going for any sort of consistency writing here, but I'll take once a week as a start. I've gotten a couple of orders since I wrote last so I've been keeping busy with making those as well as remaking a few more pieces for my shop. I'm practically forcing myself to make something everyday to get back into the habit. It's a work in progress that involves much stalling, cleaning and occasionally playing video games that serve no purpose.

I sold a immortal corsage bracelet and remade that piece for the first time in a rather long time. Then as I was working on that I recalled that I had made a choker version of it. Of course that was a decade ago so I had so go back through my sold items to figure out how it was that I had done so. Once I found it, I promptly decided to make some changes. The original had flowers with just a single petal round, I added a second. Then I worked on making the structure better between the elements, adding additional joins. I should get it listed in my shop next week, whether permitting, because I'll need new photos to go with the changes.



Other than the tatting, I also did some crochet cording so I could remake an Armenian knotted lace necklace. I had spent much of the last few months crocheting large projects like blanket gifts, so the return to small thread knotting definitely took my fingers some time to get used to again. Thankfully muscle memory is strong and I've been enjoying my return to thread.

Speaking of thread, I had a bit of a panic when I heard that DMC was not going to be importing cébélia thread any longer. I almost exclusively use that thread in size 10 black, so I spent quite some time looking for and then buying boxes of it just in case it becomes too difficult to acquire in the future. I also bought up the entire supply in the only yarn store that carries it near me and they had very little. I'm hoping I'm worried for no reason, but I'll probably buy even more should I run across it. It's not like it goes bad.

Holiday Sale

My how I have abandoned this space. I have been feeling less that creative with my needlework lately and that means I have little, it anything worth sharing. I have had a few small orders in my etsy shop, so I've remade a few things, and work on the Armenian lace piece is ongoing as ever. I've done a little crocheting and some knitting and I'm still hard at work writing. I'm still muddling through the editing of my first novel and my hope is that I'll have something to share before the year is out. I'm also writing daily on at least three different projects, though there is currently much doubt as to which ones will survive to completion. I may have bit off more than I can chew on that front.

‪Knotting up an Armenian lace pineapple tassel pendant today.‬

A post shared by Pamela Quevedo (@totusmel) on Nov 19, 2017 at 12:53pm PST

Last bit of news to share is the SALE in my etsy shop. No coupon code is needed, but you do need to spend at least $20 to activate the 20% off. It will likely be up through the holidays, but sooner is always better, especially if you want anything custom.

Still Alive

I'm getting awful neglectful here again. In my defense I have been hard at work on several different projects. I've finished the third draft of my novel and it's currently being copy-edited by my 10 year old. I know that might sound like a daft idea, but if you could see the skill this child has at finding typos, missing commas, and the like, you would be seriously impressed. Anyway, once she's done with that and I've tackled a few more details, I plan on self publishing it on Amazon. Regardless of how that goes I'm already at work on two other stories that may or may not become novels. The point is to keep writing, right?

Other than the writing, I did tackle an interesting tatted art project though I'm not at liberty to discuss the particulars of that. My part in the task is complete and now and it's up to the real artist to do the hard parts. I'm crossing my fingers that the idea works out because I think it's genuinely interesting and I really want to see it finished. I will of course share if and when I can.

The Armenian lace piece is really my fall back project. I work on this when I'm catching up on the scads of television I try to consume and while I read. This is the last image of it that I posted on all my social media places. I'm much better about updating those while the blog languishes untended. Of course that's mostly because I can post a picture across everything in a minute and here, well it's a much larger time commitment. So if you're actually missing what I'm working on and I know that's a big if, you might want to pop by my facebook page, twitter or instagram. It's generally the same things on all of them, so dealers choice.

I'm also been lucky at least the last week or so to have some orders in my etsy shop. A couple of them have included custom pieces, so I'm alternating the tatting of those with all my other projects and homeschooling the kids. I guess I really am pretty busy. I'm also pretty happy that the summer and it's subsequent expensive air conditioning bills is past us for now and crossing my fingers that these orders represent a trend for the fall. Here's hoping.

A post shared by Pamela Quevedo (@totusmel) on Sep 29, 2017 at 3:07pm PDT

Back Again

Well, I am certainly getting lazy when it comes to writing here, sorry. Things around here have gotten into a nice routine as of late. Schooling has reached a comfortable rhythm and I'm working on all sorts of random things like I picked up some large day of the dead skulls to paint for our walls. It's been slow going on those, but it's something different to do and that's what I wanted them for.

I've had a couple of small orders in the past week that have gotten me tatting a bit and of course work on the Armenian lace is ongoing and very close to hitting the 4 foot across mark. I've also been hard at work editing my novel. It is a glacially slow process though and I'm barely a third of the way through it. I missed the pure writing process so I've already started writing another thing. I'm less certain about how long this one might end up though. It could be a short story or a novel or somewhere in between. Since I achieved my first goal of simply writing a book, everything else just feels like cream at this point.

I may actually have another art tatting project soon. It's a little early to say for certain, but if it does pan out, I should have more to write about in the near future. Otherwise it's now schooling, painting, editing, writing and knotting for now.

A post shared by Pamela Quevedo (@totusmel) on Sep 5, 2017 at 4:22pm PDT

Checking In

I've been pretty busy lately getting ready for the beginning of the homeschooling year that started yesterday. There were of course all sorts of issues that needed to be sorted out before we started. I'm sure we'll have a few more bumps before we really get into the groove of things, but so far so good.

I've done a lot of work on the Armenian lace piece. It's just a couple of inches shy of being 4 feet across now. No, I'm not stopping anytime soon even though it's now large enough to be a bit unwieldy on my lap. I'm going for ridiculously large now.

Yesterday, I was fortunate enough to get a nice sized order that needed a few pieces made up before I could ship it. Since we're back to schooling that has to wait until after classes are wrapped which means I still have a bit more work to do on them before I can get them in the mail. There are also a couple of pieces that I will want to remake for the shop even though sales are coming maybe every other week or so at this point, save for pattern orders that are a bit more frequent.

Last bit of news is that I finished writing the first draft of the novel I've been working on much of the summer. It topped out at over 82,000 words. There's still a ton of work that I'll need to do before it sees the light of day. There's editing and proofreading and probably more editing. Since I'm back to work so to speak, it may be quite a while before I get these processes done, but for now I'm reveling in the fact that I did indeed write a book.

Monday

I really did mean to write here again last week, but I was yet again distracted by life. The children are back to homeschooling at the end of the month and the prep work for that has already begun which includes a myriad of issues that need dealing with. I did get a order for earring last week so I spent some time making a custom green pair and then remaking these firefly ones. It was nice to get something out in the mail to a customer, but that was about it on that front for the week. I have been selling more patterns than usual, which is nice, but since they are such small cost items, it really doesn't add much to my income.

I also worked some more on the new headpiece project. I'm really taking this one much slower than usual. I like the shapes I'm getting, but I think it needs more. The idea right now is to have it be worn with chains over and around the back of the head so I don't have to worry so much about sizing. I'm also debating whether or not it would be a good idea to use a wire base for the center part that's meant to sit up like a crown or just use stiffener. Obviously I'm got a lot more playing around with the piece before it's ready to move from the prototype phase.

I've also still been writing and reading a lot. I've broken 51,000 words now and the whole thing is starting to get a little unwieldy. At first it was easy to remember where each character was and what they'd said last time I wrote about them, now I feel slowed down as I reread what I've written to make sure I'm not contradicting myself. There's still no end in sight as I've still not worked out the resolution to many of the situations the characters have managed to get themselves into without much help from me really. This writing thing is real work, but I'm determined to finish this sucker.

Weekend Recap

I know this is shocking, but I have new tatting to share with you today. A loose idea has been percolating in my brain for a little while, but then one of my favorite people shared an image with me as inspiration and it was so close to that percolating idea that I actually started work on it.

A post shared by Pamela Quevedo (@totusmel) on Jul 28, 2017 at 10:52am PDT

The idea is a potential headpiece that will come down in a point across the forehead and then also down on the sides of the head with the top edge being a bit like a crown. There are a lot of details to work on on how to will be worn and how this prototype shape will be further adjusted to form the other shapes.

The shape here started with an antique edging that I twisted into a square. I've actually made up three different versions already and I think I've sussed out how to join them. The next challenge will be to modify the shape for the side sections. I'm working slowly on it, so I can keep working on all my other summer projects as well. I've reached about 45,000 words on my writing and received some wonderful and unexpected supportive messages to keep it up from a couple of people that I really respect. I can't tell you how nice it was to get those and it out a bit of a fire under me to work harder on it. Hopefully this week will see some substantial progress on my writing and my tatting. I won't say no to some orders in my etsy shop either.

Still Working

I've been lucky to get a few orders over the last week including a pair of earrings tatted in black linen thread. Someone had asked if it was harder to work with linen thread and I think I might have talked about it before, but the answer is yes, it is. Linen tends to not have a consistent width, often with little masses of fibers along the way. This not only makes double stitches less even, it also poses an issue when trying to pull the thread though the needle. Sometimes I can tug out the masses, but other times I just have to cut the thread and start with a new section. I still like using it because it produces an organic handmade feeling in the resulting piece.

I also got an order for my triforce necklace, so I spent some time remaking that for my shop. After the earrings and the linen, this was a milk run. Progress has been slow on the Armenian lace piece. I'm doing a section of small loops so it is taking roughly forever just to make it around the piece.

The week also saw my writing word count reach about 39,000 as of this morning, so I should break 40,000 today. Otherwise things have been pretty mellow around here, writing, reading, knotting, and tatting.

Oh, a couple of funny things to share this morning. I got asked late yesterday evening if I had pink or white mask available to send to a cover photo shoot for Italian Vogue occurring today and tomorrow in New York. Yeah, no. This isn't the first time I've been asked for similar things with similar time frames. I've rushed about overnighting pieces never to have them show up in print. I don't know why these magazines wait until the last minute to organize shoots, but that's always the way in my admittedly limited experience. The other funny story was a comment on this blog, that I've since deleted because it was ridiculous, congratulating the Totusmel team for being included in the top 75 landscape design blogs on the internet for some feedspot site. Yeah, landscape design...do they even look at the blog before they write the comment? Too silly. Well that's it for now.

On Writing and Tatting

My sale has been over for a bit now and I did get a few orders out of it. Even nicer was the large one I got after it. I've got a few tatted bracelets I'm remaking for the shop as well as a couple of the crochet and Armenian lace ones. As always it is wonderful to send lace off to someone who will appreciate it.


I've also been writing pretty consistently for the last few weeks. I'm up to I think 27,000 words now. If you were curious about what it exactly that I'm attempting to write, it's trying to be a novel. If I had to attach a genre to it, it would be urban fantasy or horror, but it's really not scary.I guess really it's too soon to tell what it wants to be. There are moments that I swear it's like it's writing itself, pulling me in directions I had not initially meant to go. I am also starting to understand a few things about writing that I never thought I would, like how continuity errors are born as I frantically tried to make sure changes I make are consistent throughout the 80 some odd pages I've gotten written so far.

In other news I'd like to take a moment to thank Fox for her lovely compliments on her blog the other day even if it was wrapped up with a slightly depressing thought. I fear that I do agree that tatting seems to be at bit of a stalling point. I am humbled that I ever had an impact on the art at all and now I feel a bit guiltier about my own creators block with it. I wish I had a solution or that I just suddenly felt inspired to create, but I have to concede that my inspiration has more often that not been tied up with selling pieces and knowing that someone will one day own the things I make. Since my sales have slowed to nearly nonexistent most days, making more things just seems futile as they will likely just get thrown in a storage tub never to see the light of day again.

I do hope that this lull is temporary and maybe come fall and the routine of schooling, I'll feel the need to create again. In the meantime I'll just keep creating in the ways I am inspired to do so.

Sale is Still On!

I haven't had a lot of takers for my sale, but it is still on until tomorrow at least. You can get 25% off with the code SUMMER25 in my etsy shop. In the meantime I have spent my days reading and writing. I've managed to pen over 16,000 words now and I am not yet burned out, so there's a chance I might actually see this one through.

I did get a few orders in my shop including a custom order for gold and gray bleeding heart earrings and this wide cuff bracelet, whose name escapes me at the moment. So I've been tatting quite a bit too, just not as much as I wish I was.

Unfortunately I've also had a package go missing in France. It was marked as delivered, but the customer has not been able to locate it. It was likely stolen off a porch or by a carrier, so that means I need to make a new bracelet and send it off again. The worst part is that postage to Europe is ridiculously expensive so honestly it's costing me more just to send another than I got from selling it in the first place, never mind the loss of the bracelet on top of that. Insurance would have been too much on such a small order. Oh well, that's the cost of doing business when you have to rely on others to make final delivery. Luckily the customer seems patient and kind about the whole thing.

So just to recap, I'm alive, reading, writing, tatting, oh and I'm still knotting away on the Armenian lace as well. I'd really like to make a few more sales, so I may leave the sale up for another week to see if that helps. Otherwise I'll keep on working like I have been and I may try to start writing more often again. I think it might help with my other writing if I'm doing so. Time will tell.

Update & SALE

Happy Monday morning world. So the last couple of weeks have been a bit of a slog. First there was our broken air conditioner. You might remember that it went down two Monday's ago at the beginning of a triple digit heatwave. It took nearly two weeks to have a new one installed after we found out that it was something that just couldn't be fixed. We finally got it last Thursday, unfortunately it also came with a rather sizable price tag. On top of that we also had my mother staying all last week while she transitioned to living at my sister's house. That wasn't really a big deal, but it definitely contributed to the demise of any sort of routine.

I did manage to spent some time working on the Armenian lace piece and I got one whole order in that time. I tatted up a replacement bracelet as soon as I got the order. Other than that I have been writing everyday for a week now. I'm up to about 7500 now, but it's just the beginning so no one has seen that yet. My plan is to keep writing everyday until I've managed something that could be called a novel, good or not. Only time will tell whether or not it will see the light of day.

In the meantime I'm going to offer a 25% off sale to try and get some sales and hopefully put a tiny dent in that air conditioner bill since it pretty much ate up all the savings we had. So for the next week use the code SUMMER25 in my shop to get 25% off everything and please do share. I can use all the sales I can handle right now.

Weekend Recap

Well, we had a pretty busy weekend around here. We hosted a birthday gathering for the oldest child and that of course meant cleaning and preparing food and then cleaning again. I was also quite fortunate to get another order in my etsy shop just after I wrote on Friday. This was for another pair of barefoot sandals, but a much more complex design. I worked on remaking the pair off an on throughout the weekend. Luckily due to the postal holiday I had a couple of extra days to use the existing pair as a template to get the new pair made.

On Sunday we headed out to Monterey Bay Aquarium for the day. It was the last bit of birthday celebrations and it was quite lovely out there. The weather here inland is already too hot, but the coast was a cool 60º. We also met up with my brother who lives near there and had some family time and catching up.

We had a few errands to run on our day off yesterday, but I also got another order in my shop. This time it was for a simple cuff bracelet. I happily went to work remaking that as well. I got both pieces remade by the end of the day yesterday and we're just starting our third to last week of homeschooling. There are a few more projects and tests to worry about as well as other family events coming up, more birthdays and a graduation. So I'm still pretty busy, but since some of that busy is tatting, I made time to write. I'm not sure what I'll get done this week yet, but I'm feeling a little more focused already.

I'm Back

Hello everyone, which is probably just a small handful of people at this point I'm guessing. Clearly I've been taking a bit of a break on the blogging. I've also been taking a bit of a break with basically everything craft related. Sales in my etsy shop have had me wondering lately if I ought to just throw in the towel with the whole endeavor. I'm not quite ready to let go yet though. I do still quite enjoy creating and that's still the best outlet for it.





Over the past couple of weeks, I've spent a lot of time on family stuff, birthdays, moving, divorces, none of those things are mine by the way. I spent a weekend cross stitching a clearance sampler kit while watching Netflix with the family. I've also spent some time with the slowly growing Armenian lace doily/tablecloth, though I haven't taken a picture of it in a while. I probably spent the most time reading actually. Well that and contemplating the idea of writing something myself. I'm not certain I have the skill set for that though.

It's also the home stretch of the homeschooling year. We have just a few weeks left and that means a lot of projects and state testing to deal with. So I guess that I just took the time off from being an artisan to focus on all these other things for a while. I did just finally get an order in my etsy shop yesterday that got me tatting again and that is likely what brought me back here as well. I finally have something tatting related to share, though to be honest it's just a pair of barefoot sandals you've seen countless times before.

So I'm hoping that I can get back into the habit of creating and blogging again soon, though I somehow doubt I'll be as consistent as I used to be. I just need to find a bit more motivation somewhere to really get back into everything. Here's hoping that it actually exists. Regardless, life is fine and I'm still making things, always making things.

One Off

I meant to write yesterday morning to show you this necklace that I made, but I got distracted by my sister-in-law going into labor. Her and my brother live quite a distance away, so we were relying on text updates and I guess that had much of my focus. The baby wasn't born until this morning by the way...it was clearly a marathon experience for them.

Back to the lace though, I added some tatting on either side of the metal ring and then finished it off with crochet chains and a macrame slide clasp. I also meant to get it listed in my shop yesterday, but the aforementioned distraction was a pretty all encompassing. I'm hoping that I can focus today among all the cleaning I have to do before this weekend. We're hosting Mother's Day at our house and since I don't want to have to clean on Sunday myself, I've got to get it done today. So here's to a productive day and a busy weekend.

Hen and Chicks

Two days of tatting in a row, yay!I got an order early in the morning after a strange conversation thread with a different potential customer. The conversation was odd not only for the inclusion of text-speak, which I personally think should stay solely in texts, but also because I opted to answer honestly regarding whether or not a choker would slip down. I just couldn't see guaranteeing that seeing as tugging on it would definitely do that. Anyway, I think I scared that one off, but I got another order for this bracelet.

This one is my take on the hen and chicks pattern. All the chains are Victorian sets and I made it double sided. I finished remaking one for the shop  while I was also finishing reading Utopia. The bracelet is in the mail to its new owner this morning. I might try to get back to the ring from yesterday later today, but I'm not sure. Whenever I do I'm sure I'll write again.

Weekend Update

I had a nice weekend for the most part. It was Free Comic Book Day and the newest Marvel movie hit the theaters, so that's what my family spent time doing. There was a little cleaning, some planning for the future with the extended family, and bread baking.

Sunday evening I had the hankering to tat up something. I didn't have any new ideas, so I just grabbed a small ring and tatted around it. I'll probably add a little more to it today and turn it into a necklace for my shop. I'm starting to think that maybe I should spend a little time just making one-off pieces like this just to keep my tatting skills from fading away. Hopefully I can stay motivated enough to actually photograph and list them when they're made, oh and that they actually sell. That would be great. Here's hoping.