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.

Writing Less

So I think that I might start just writing if I actually did anything worth noting the day before. I've been getting up later in the morning and using the time I have to workout which is getting more necessary as I get older I think. You don't really want to hear about the days where I did nothing but schooling the kids and reading the afternoon away anyway.

Over the weekend I pulled my bread machine out of retirement, so I've been making bread. Nothing too interesting, just sourdough because it's my favorite. I also got some knotting time in yesterday. I think that I'm going to do several rounds of these points. I hadn't worked any of them in this piece and I'm not bored of them yet.

I'm also contemplating writing up more of my patterns to list in my etsy shop soon. Sales have been glacial and my creativity has been seriously lacking lately. I am always hesitant to list patterns as it can cannibalize my own work, but I've got to do something to make a little money. So if there are any designs that you've been hankering for, please do let me know.

Almost Done

After schooling yesterday I got to work on the transferring the Gothic doily pattern from text to PDF with pretty with pictures. Of course I also decided to use a different program for it and so I had to fiddle around and teach myself how to use it in this manner as well. All this learning and mucking about made this project last the entire day. I almost forgot to eat lunch I was so focused on getting it put together. In fact I did forget I was doing laundry until I was headed upstairs for the night and then I had to rush about to finish it before bed.

The result of all this is that the pattern is done pending test tatting. It is with someone right now and should hopefully be available for sale in my shop within the week. That is unless I complete botched writing out the pattern and it needs a complete reboot. I wish I could say that that is not a possibility, but it very clearly is.

I was going to post the picture I took for the front of the pattern, but I think I'll just save that for when it's ready to post the pattern. I don't want you to get sick of seeing it. So I'm starting today with absolutely no projects on hand. No tatting, knitting, crochet, Armenian lace, or anything else creative. So here's to a sale in the shop or a creative idea in my head to get me back to my favorite state of busy.

That's Done

I kept my focus pretty sharp yesterday, well, once I had time to sit down anyway. The morning was busy with schooling and laundry and final test runs on the kids costumes including makeup for the youngest. When I did sit down, it was straight to work.

I managed to finish the last two round on the sample doily. Of course I also discovered that I had failed to write out the last round correctly, so that slowed me down a bit as I had to write it as I tatted it.

The next step is to make all the corrections I found in the computer and then I have to write it all again with the page layout and pictures included. I also have to figure out what else the pattern needs to say to be clear. This is all so much easier when I'm just keeping a design to myself. It doesn't even have to be really legible, just notes, a picture and usually a prototype sitting about as a refresher.

I definitely won't get all that done today, or even this weekend as it should be a busy one. My mother's birthday is on Saturday and as it's a milestone birthday I offered to host a get together at our house. I won't call it a party, because I am rubbish at parties. It does still mean, cleaning, food, guests, and more cleaning. Then of course there's the Halloween evening itself followed by Sunday recovery time. I'm tired just thinking about it, but next week I should have some free time to get the pattern ready and listed. Here's hoping.

Three More Rounds

First, I want to thank everyone who answered my shuttle tatting query. I am so glad to know that the pattern can easily be worked by all, no matter how they make their knots. I also got introduced to the Celtic tatting shuttle, what a neat little tool for getting the shuttle into places as easily as the needle.

Yesterday's outings and meetings did use up a good portion of the day, but I still managed to get a few more rounds done on the sample doily. I'm finding it interesting that the look of the piece is completely different when worked in three colors. I am also so glad that I chose to work this from the written pattern instead of my usual way, which is working from the prototype itself. I've found scads of mistakes in my pattern and I feel pretty confident that once I finish this, I'll be able to publish the pattern without error. Of course now that I've said that it's going to be a proofreading nightmare. I am also getting ahead of myself as I still have a few more rounds and they are long ones.

Today should be pretty productive as we have no extra things to do. I'll have time to work and maybe even time to clean. I even started the third and final circle cardigan gift. It's good to work on while i do other things as I've pretty much got the pattern memorized. It turns crochet into that meditative state of my hands moving without my brain having to focus at all. So again, even without sales in the shop, I have many things to keep me busy.

Aaaargh

So it appears that it is that time of the year again. Luckily this doesn't happen too frequently, but when it does I feel I must rant at least a little. When you use one of my free patterns or purchase one from my etsy store, I request both in the listing and on the pattern itself that you please use them for personal use or offline sale only. This is of course because I sell my own pieces online and I don't want to compete with my own designs. I know that not every designer feels this way, but many do and even though this is not a legally enforceable mandate(who can honestly afford trademark or patents?), most people comply, I assume out of common courtesy or respect. Every once in a a while though someone fights me on it. Yesterday was that day. I fought a seller on esty whom I had asked to remove the listings made with  my patterns. In the end it appears courtesy lost and she refuses to remove the listings. I of course have no recourse and the worst part is that when some people see those listings they will assume I gave permission or that is is fine for them to do it as well and I won't be able to stop the bleeding.

Okay, I may be being hyperbolic, but these events always cause me so much stress. This one even had the added bonus of a bad review for a sale pattern that called out this policy and then stated that they didn't even need the pattern because they could see how to make it anyway. It's everything I can do to keep myself from pulling down all my patterns and never listing another to avoid this in the future. It really is a lot of stress. I mean I get a nervous stomach just sending the messages. I didn't even find the listing myself, but someone had asked if my policy had changed because they saw the listing and so I had to send the message. I know that most people who use and buy pattern have no interest in selling and that to pull them down would be an overreaction, but I still just want the stress to stop. Anyway, I think it's mostly out of my system now, provided that no more of it rears it's ugly head anytime soon.

So back to making things. It was hard to get through any oya yesterday as I kept getting distracted and then shaky from the afore mentioned drama, but I did get some done. This first one here is called the basket stitch in the book I'm using. I like that it looks like little stars after the third row is done. I also like that I don't have any ends to hide when I cut off the threads with this. The knots are so tight, I can't seem them unraveling ever.

This next one is my favorite so far. The book refers to it as a pine cone and adds a tassel to the end. This is the first bit that I can imagine as a piece of jewelry. In fact I may try it out with thicker thread and see how it looks today, provided that I'm not distracted again. Oh, how I hope that drama is all done for now. Sorry, I know, I thought I was done too. Here's hoping today is better and thank you to everyone who does understand and respect my request. Thank you to all of you who support my work and give me confidence to learn new things and occasionally design new things. I need that more than you know.

Thanks!

I spent much of yesterday simply spreading the link to the new pattern around, then watching how it was received. It's been quite some time since I put anything up on Instructables, so I haven't been stopping by the site much except when I saw another tutorial I wanted to play with. I was completely unaware until yesterday that my tutorials there have garnered over 1 million views, wow. By this morning the new necklace has been viewed almost 1,500 times. Of course most of those views are just that, but it does mean more eyes on tatting and you know how I do love that. If you missed the pattern yesterday, it's here. It's also permanently listed in the right sidebar of the blog.

So as to the winners of the 3 month Pro memberships, the random number generator spit out 1 and 4, so Denise - Jewelry By Denise and sylvie 66 you're our winners. Message me by email or on etsy to get your codes. You can find my email address in my blogger profile.

Other than pattern nonsense all I did was knit a sock yesterday. I did manage to finish one of them, but I haven't started the second partly because I managed to split my fingertip with the knitting needle. I think I might need a bit of a healing break or I'll just make it worse. Hopefully I get a sale in the etsy shop soon so I can get back to some tatting. Well either that or I get a new idea. I think both of them are equally as unlikely right now, but you never know. Amazing things could be right around the corner, I'm choosing optimism today.

New Week

There's always something about the first weekend after schooling starts. I really don't want to do a thing, but I also wanted to get out of the house.  Then there's sleep, even though I get plenty of it, I spend the entire weekend yawning. It's a mystery.

Friday did see the new pattern get listed in the shop. If you missed my extra post with the links it's here. I did sell a handful of them over the weekend, but even better I had one good custom order to work on. It was just what I needed, something that had to be made. It always makes me buckle down, focus, and get to work.

I did sell a couple of other things over the weekend, but only one of them will need to be remade for the shop. It's one of my back drop necklaces so I'm likely to stall on that one. Not because the tatting portion is hard, but because there's a lot of work that goes into making the chains for them and I'm not really in the mood for pliers and wire right now.

I also used some more of my weekend for repairing old drawings again. It's kind of like coloring, meditative, but still creative and it balanced out the weekend quite nicely. This week has no plan other than schooling and avoiding that one piece I ought to remake. I did have a couple of customer inquiries regarding custom orders, but once I answered their questions, or tried to in one case where the piece they wanted altered wasn't actually mentioned, I didn't hear back again. Maybe they'll return and give me something that needs to be made again. That would make the week just right.

Pattern On The Way

Schooling has been going rather smoothly. I know it's only because we have yet to get into the real meat of the courses, but I am glad that we're getting eased into it again. This has also given me more free time this week than I had anticipated, so I actually got up to something you might care about.

I went ahead and started writing up the pattern for the Star Flower motif/pendant.Of course with a piece like this, that includes some slightly less common techniques, the more important part was taking in progress photos. The pattern itself is short and simply written, but making certain that it's put together in the right way, that's the challenge.

I've got all the photos taken, now it's just a matter of putting all the information into a nice looking document. This will probably take much of the afternoon today. There's a slight chance I'll get it up in the shop today but it's much more likely that it will happen tomorrow or Saturday.

I certainly hope that there are actually a few of you out there that actually wanted this and I hope I'm not just asking for more drama with it. Well here's hoping.

Productive

If nothing else, it was a productive day. Not only did I finish the order I had in queue, but I also managed to remake one sold piece, do the final edit on the first tatting pattern, and finish the first draft of the set of patterns. Of course this took all day, but I'm feeling pretty good about it.

Now I just need to send this one off for test tatting and proofreading, do the final edit after that, then it will be ready for release on the 1st as well. I feel like I'm actually on top of a project, for once. Usually I'm scrambling at the last minute. I do have the feeling that my attention to this one, might be distracting me from other things I ought to be getting ready for though.

I sold a few more pieces yesterday, business has certainly been picking up a bit, so I have plenty of things that need remaking for the shop. That should keep me busy tatting wise for a few days at least. Though it won't produce any good photo opportunities, so expect cats. Well I'm off to it then, plenty to do.

Patterns Forth Coming...Eventually

Happy Monday world. As usual, the weekend seemed much longer than it actually was . It all started on Friday when I decided it was time to buckle under and write up the patterns I have planned for April. I have been lucky in the past to have lovely people turn my pathetic attempts into professional looking pattern pages, but stubborn old me, wanted to be able to do that part myself. Not that it is in any way bad to lean on people with certain skill sets you don't have. I was just fairly certain that if I wanted to figure it out, I could.

I'm happy to say that one pattern got done, save for a couple of edits suggested by those same lovely
people, and it looks pretty good. Though all can show you is the most abstract of teases as I want it to be a surprise. I'm still hard at work on the other pattern. This one is for three pieces that work together as a set, so it's much longer and more involved. I'm currently stressing out on how to price it and if I should also release each pattern separately as well. Any opinions on either point would be well received.

The rest of the weekend was family adventuring and yard work. The weather was lovely, so the husband decided to mow the lawns. This meant it was about time to tackle the weeds and plant some new flowers. Of course when I woke this morning, my shoulder gave me much grief. I imagine it will continue to do so all day, it's an old injury that likes to visit from time to time.

As far as actually tatting, I was lucky to get in a couple of orders over the weekend with pieces I could remake fairly quickly. Along with those, I also got one yesterday with changes requested that  add up to me making a whole new custom piece. That kept me busy when I had time and will be my main task for today, followed by more pattern work.

Distracted

Well I started out on task yesterday. I finished the pair of barefoot sandals and it looked like I was going to get the slave bracelet listed, but then I got distracted. I don't know if it was the rainy weather after so much sun lately or what, but I went down an entirely other path.

That other path was writing up the pattern for the motif, the bracelet using it and the earring motif derived from it. My plan is to put it up for sale at the same time I release the pendant, International Tatting Day, April 1st. Of course writing it up, taking pictures, doodling on those pictures and putting the thing together reminded me why you will not be seeing a tatting book by me anytime soon. It took me all day to do all that and I still have to find someone to test tat it for me so I can do any needed editing before I can list it. All that for some really simple designs. There is just no way I have time to do that for the complex ones people keep asking for. Then there would be all the drama of proper layout and actually publishing which are all completely out of my realm of knowledge. So again I state, because people keep asking, there will be no pattern book from me in the near future. Maybe when my kids are grown, but that's a good decade or so away.

As you probably guessed, the pattern stuff was the only thing I did with the rest of my day. I should get back to the slave bracelet today and get it listed. I'm also playing with the idea of doing a short video tutorial on the lock stitch for the needle since the earring pattern uses that technique and I only recently learned how to do it myself, so I imagine there are plenty of people who haven't yet tackled that...or I could be the last person to try. That's certainly a possibility. Either way, it really depends on how the day goes. Videos are hard to do with a house full of loud kids and curious cats and me being a fairly lazy human. So I guess you'll have to wait until tomorrow to find out whether I continue with the focus or not. Right now I'm just crossing my fingers that I won't have to wait another full week for a sale, but onwards and upwards.

Question

I am absolutely knocking on wood as I write this, but I am feeling much better this morning, much better. I can feel a few remnants of the virus lurking about, but that seems to be about it. I was feeling mostly better yesterday, but still tired so I engaged in some serious stalling between projects throughout the day.

First, I did finally assemble the crystal necklace I've been working on remaking. You've probably seen it before, but because I was asked, here it is again. I failed, last time I made it to take a good photograph of it laying flat so assembling it was a bit of a chore than it should have been. The front was simple, but I couldn't remember the configuration around the sides and I had no pictures to help. I spent way more time than was necessary figuring out where all the motifs wanted to live. In the end I got it and I still haven't taken that laid flat picture. Remind me to do that today.

Once that was finished I had another custom length bracelet to make for an order I got in the morning. It was a simple piece so that was done fairly quickly and then while attempting to stall, I instead did my end of year etsy numbers. This is the point where I remind anyone out there casually thinking that selling your handmade wares online would be fun that while it can be satisfying, it is also a royal pain. This was just the first pass at the books in preparation for tax time. I still have receipts to gather and record as well as several online account records to comb through. Thankfully I don't have to do it all at once. I'll dole it out slowly over the next few months so I won't fly into an accounting driven rage and slaughter the innocent in my path. I'm a much calmer artisan than I am a businesswoman.

I do have a question to pose to you this morning as well. I have promised to do a tutorial on tatting to a jewelry base and that will be something I put up for free on Instructables, when I get it started anyway...hopefully soon. I also want to get a couple more patterns up for sale in my etsy shop, but I'm not sure which ones to do. I know I don't want to do any ankle corsets, but other than that I'm not sure what to go with, probably something small though. So if you have any opinions or requests, please let me know and I'll use the weekend to sort out what to offer. No promises of course, but I am at a loss so any direction would be helpful. I thank you in advance for your help and hopefully with the sickness at bay it will be a productive weekend as well.

Have I Got A Deal For You

I got a suggestion on my Facebook page when I asked what I could do to encourage some shopping. The suggestion was to offer a small pendant at an irresistible price for one day. Well, I thought on it and it seemed like something I clearly have the time for, so I worked up a couple of samples and let the Facebook fans pick one of them for the offering. Once it was clear which way the votes were leaning I went ahead and made up a small pile in different colors just so I had some examples for the listing. I am also utilizing the pull down menu on the listing so folks can pick whatever color they like from the shades I have on hand.

This won't be a limited pendant like the International Tatting Day ones, but rather a limited time at that 'irresistible' price. The price won't just be for one day either. I decided to run it through the weekend. I know selling pieces at this price won't fix my income issues, but I'm thinking of it more like priming the pump. You know like when street performers throw a little money in the hat just to get things rolling. I also made it so that there is no additional shipping cost for this item when purchased with anything else from the shop which will hopefully encourage people to pick up a few more things while they're at it.

So I'd love it if you'd pick one or two up if you like and/or share the deal if you think anyone else would be interested, the images are linked to the listing. I really do hate to be all sales oriented, but one has to bite the bullet sometimes and do what needs to be done, right? I'm crossing my fingers and hoping this helps. On another note to encourage more sales, if requested I will include the pattern to the piece with your purchase of one. Mind you it won't be a professional looking pattern, because my writing skills in that arena are limited, but I thought a few of you might appreciate that as well. If you do want the pattern, just make a note of that at checkout and I'll send you a hard copy with your pendant. I think this might be the closest to actually selling a pattern I've ever gotten and likely the closest I'll get for quite some time. Happy shopping...please!

Friday

Here we are at the end of another week. I'm afraid I have nothing new to show to today as I was lucky enough to sell a mask yesterday and went straight to work on that. I did notice something interesting while I was making it though. There are some patterns I have done so many times that I could do them in my sleep. In fact my familiarity with them as they are prevents me from attempting anything new with them at all. You see, if I change anything then not only would I have to unlearn the previous method, I would feel compelled to get new pictures and loose what I now think of an an iconic image for me.

I thought about this as I questioned a few on my creation methods and while I did not actually have any radical ideas that would have necessitated all of the above, I did do one small thing different and it was quite refreshing and resulted in one of those, 'why haven't I been doing this all along?' moments. What, you ask? I simply made the free floating rings first and attached them while creating rather than making them last and contorting myself to get them attached. I guess the next trick would be to see if I can learn how to neatly throw off a ring...it always looks more like it was puked off when I try, though honestly I've only tried a couple of times. That's the major drawback to being a bit of a perfectionist, if it isn't perfect straight away and there already exists another way to accomplish something, I just move on.

I do have quite a busy week ahead and I will likely drop a few balls. My Grandfather is coming to visit, there are vet appointments and people to call and more cleaning to be done as we've set a date for our long postponed house warming. We've only lived here a year now come mid month, but there are so many people we haven't had over to see the house. Of course before those people arrive everything must be enviably perfect. Ok, that is so not going to happen with two kids, but I can still at least get pictures on the walls and make sure the carpets and toilets are clean. As you see, I am obsessing a little on this so expect periodic updates on the final putting together of the house. Now off to it then.

It's Too Hot

Yet another long weekend is now behind me. This one featured my husbands birthday, which means we watched movies and video games, ate ridiculously large meals and I have consumed enough chocolate based desserts to create a whole new me. So to say I'm not well rested is a severe understatement. Yet, here we go into a new week full of...well, I've no idea really. I've got very few if any plans for the foreseeable future. I am currently making the reward for my graphic collaborator on the wunderkammer and I'm really excited by what she's already shared with me. So excited in fact that it's a bit of a struggled to not share it here, but I shall endure. I want it to have a great reveal when it is complete.

I am still knitting away as well. Switching between the two fiber arts has my hands a bit confused though and if I stop paying attention to what I'm doing things get a bit weird. I really should be remaking a score of pieces I have listed as custom orders, but I just can't seem to get motivated to do so. I have started one of the masks, but I'm pretty much ignoring it right now. I think the heat is just wiping the energy right out of me and it's only going to get worse.

I will be shipping pieces away to have their magazine photo shoot this week. If I am recalling correctly this is for an August issue, so hopefully I'll feel comfy sharing all the details soon. I've made one piece specifically for the shoot, but the others are existing ones. Though I did make some earrings to match them. I very rarely do earrings since there are so many other tatters that make them, but I figured this was a special occasion.

Speaking of other tatters, I discovered over the weekend that the pattern I've been passing out for my barefoot sandals has a rather glaring mistake...oops. Someone finally called me on it, well more accurately, asked me if it was their mistake. So, if you have the pattern, please note that the center medallion is wrong and should be: (4 rings of 5ds, p, 3ds, 9p sep by 3ds, p, 5ds close join each ring together by the 1st and 11th picot.) Sorry.

Something Old, Something New

I love old books. I love thinking about who else has held it in their hands and read its words. There is a sense of history that just cannot be conveyed in a pdf. This is why I keep buying old tatting booklets. I'm sure that I could find their pages scanned online, but it's just not the same. I just got four new ones so old they have no dates on them, though a little research has them dating to the turn of the century. As I sat down to pick new designs to reinvent, I realized that I am hard on books, very hard. I decided that it was in the best interest of the books that I scan them and print out the scans to use instead of using the actual books. My tech expert husband found me a nice pdf compiler for the project and I got my four new ones scanned in yesterday. Of course now I need to scan in my other ones, before there is nothing left of them to scan.

That was my something old for the day, my something new is goals for the etsy store. The last ones I set were 400 sales by the end of the year and 3000 hearts for the store. Well a spectacular October, spurred on by tatted masks no doubt, resulted in the early reaching of 400 sales. I was going to revise the goal to 500 by the end of the year, but then the sales all but stopped. Instead I shall revise it to a more attainable 450. The 3000 hearts was supposed to be a ridiculous number, but a few prominent front page stints resulted in short windfalls of them. I now stand just 50 or so shy of that goal. I remember when I was about to reach 1000, I joked that I didn't even know 1000 people. I had assumed that I had reached a saturation point where anyone who would like my thing enough to favorite them had already done so. I guess I was wrong then and I hope I keep finding new people to impress with my tatted pieces.

I hope to have a few new pieces in the next couple of weeks based on these amazing old designs and the store should soon fill back up with pieces returning from their Steampowered vacation this week. I'm still don't feel ready for the holidays, but I think after today's election is over I can shift into gear and get there.

How Did I Miss That?

When I first started making tatted jewelry I was using edging patterns from one book. The simple modifications needed to turn them into chokers was about the extent of my skills. As I got better, I moved onto new books, more complex vintage patterns and eventually my own designs. I still went back to that first book every so often to recreate a sold item or just to get inspired, but I did not dwell on it.

Yesterday I sold one of those chokers from that book and I sat down to make a new one. I no longer need the pattern so as I tatted I just looked at the lace and I realized something incredible. There was inside this design another design just waiting to be snatched out and created on its own. In fact I saw not one but two new pieces just waiting to be created. I thought, how was it that I did not see this before. I've made this piece perhaps a dozen times and I never saw it. Now I can hardly wait to start on these new pieces inside the choker. Was the design simply waiting until I had developed the skill to see it? I also wonder how many of my other early pieces have gems waiting inside their rings and chains waiting for the moment to emerge.

All this happened just as I was trying to not design any new pieces. I just wanted to stock up for the holidays and rest on my laurels, but I guess my creative side has other plans for me. So in the next week or so, I should have new pieces to show you and hopefully they will be as amazing as the look in my head right now.

Eventually

Well, the mask did not beat me. We are, however, still at odds. I solved the biggest problem with my little epiphany. That is, I absolutely needed wire around the eyes for this to work and I added a simple border in the negative space between the diamonds. This gave me the look I was going for, but I still need to make the center motif smaller or market the design for men only because that center is far too big for my face. Still, I think it's a marked improvement and I'm confident that eventually this will see a final design that I can feel good about selling.

Speaking of selling, I've gotten a few more requests for my tatted mask patterns and I felt like I needed to make a formal statement on them as well as my other patterns. First, the tatted mask patterns haven't even been written down yet, yes I know that I should do that, but I just haven't yet. Right now I'm debating whether I should offer the patterns individually or whether I should just save them up and actually try at that pattern book idea I'm toying with. I'd like to figure out how to draw up visual patterns before I attempt that though. I'm afraid if I put them out before the fictional book, I will be shooting myself in the foot. I guess the short answer is, it's gonna be a while, definitely not before the beginning of the year.

Over the weekend I visited the Atwater Fall Festival. It's one of two small festivals in the park one town over from us each year. We've gone to these events every year for quite some time, mostly because it's simply something different to do. Since I began on etsy it has taken on a new meaning for me. I search through the booths for the etsy address to see how many people I actually have this in common with. When I started, it was just me and now I get to find a few people who have this experience as well.

Why am I not selling at these events you might ask, well there are a few reasons. My go-to excuse is that I have two small kids, one who is still nursing, so it's too much hassle. While that is true the more telling reasons are, I am a wuss. I have a hard time trying out new things without someone to goad me into it and since I have no local crafty friends, there is no one to convince me to try. The other reason is, I simply don't like doing them. I don't like convincing people to buy my stuff, its awkward and uncomfortable and it seems like way too much work for the little I might be able to make. I'm not particularly social, so I don't get any real networking done and I worked in retail way too long to want to go back to the front lines in foreign territory.

Water, Water Everywhere, But Not A Drop To Drink

I have been floating in a sea of productivity and recognition for the last few days. Prompted by my acceptance to Lollishops, I have been working on new pieces for that future storefront, my etsy shop as well as another set for a Steam Punk convention in the fall. In fact I had been so busy creating, I took me a few days to realize that I haven't made a sale in a while. Just when that was starting to get to me yesterday, I got a couple of nice surprises. I was mentioned in the lovely blog by Amy Esther. It's listed on top of my feature list on the left. What was even nicer than the kind writeup were the comments left at the end. I am always uplifted by those comments from strangers who confess to being fans of my work. I'm always surprised to find out that people have heard of me.

Then the mailman brought me my early copy of Belle Armoire Jewelry. It contains my second article for the publication. This one features my tatted chokers and I write out the pattern for my Grand Victorian Daisy choker. Of course I was not actually surprised by my article in the magazine, but what did surprise me a little was that I was not the only artisan using tatting in the issue. I was the only actual tatter, but there was a feature on two different artisans that use vintage tatting in their work, one does gorgeous assembled necklaces and the other makes cuffs. While the magazine is not what I would call a mainstream publication, it does appeal to an entirely different demographic of jewelry creators, exposing the art form to a new audience.

I made a ridiculous claim months ago that one of my goals was to make tatting the next crafting craze. I never in a million years thought that we were truly at the beginning of a resurgence of this amazing art form, but if this magazine is any indication, the world might be ready for tatting! Check out the magazine when it hits shelves and be sure to tell me that you saw it so I can feel all famous and stuff even if I'm not making any sales.