Doodle

Well yesterday's teacher meeting pushed school back so far that we didn't even bother going out to jog or do yoga. Instead I somehow convinced myself that I was up for more weed pulling in the yard after lunch. Why does only a half an hour of that activity feel like I climbed a mountain the next morning? Who knows, but it seem to almost always be the case.

There were no orders in the shop, nor was I particularly inspired to create anything. I couldn't, however, let another day go by without any tatting. So to that end I doodled up this little bit. It's nothing too interesting nor creative, but at least I picked up my needle and thread and did something.

Now that the most recent teacher meeting is wrapped I have a few weeks of calm before I have to start gathering more work samples and that will hopefully put me in the mood to do the patterns I've been planning. Sometimes it feels too much like my own school work, getting them all written out, photographed and proofread, but I am on a self imposed deadline. Of course as always I'm hoping for more sales to distract me instead, that's the dream.

New

Well, I didn't get any surprise sales to give me something to tat, so I had to rely on my meager imagination. As usual, I just sat down with thread and needle in my hand and started making things up. Soon I had a bit of something I could use. A few revisions and beads later I'd managed to come up with something at least a little different from anything else I'd already tatted.

Since I had little else to do with my time, aside from laundry and the like, I just grabbed some more thread and made a few more of them. My current plan is to make even more and then pop them in my etsy shop as pendants. I'm also starting to think forward to April first and International Tatting Day. I've been able to come up with a small new design every year to offer cheaply as a pendant and the accompanying pattern. This year I was thinking of doing both a free pattern offered here or on Instructables as well as one for the shop. So I guess if you have any opinions on what you'd like me to offer, I'd love to hear it. Obviously there's still plenty of time, but I always prefer being over prepared rather than under.

So I guess today's plan is a little tatting followed by a whole bunch of thinking. Man, I sure hope a sale interrupts that. It could get painful otherwise.

Weekend Recap

I tried to do something original on Friday, but that was about it. I doodled this for no particular reason and I'm not sure that it really has any purpose. It is an odd shape and it definitely reminded people of different things, but I'm not sure it stands on its own. I might play with it a bit to see if I can add a way to extend the design, or I might just let it be an odd little doodle that gave me something to do on a Friday afternoon.

The rest of the weekend, I cross stitched and hung out with the family. We mostly watched movies both at home and on Sunday in the theater. We went and saw Book of Life, which was beautiful and fun and I recommend it. Not that my opinion carries any weight.

The only thing I sold in the shop over the weekend was a pair of cat ears. I'm down to just one pair  left so I guess I will need to spend some time making those again today. Their time is almost up for the year, though I do sell a few year round, Halloween is the only time any one thing flies off my virtual shelves. So today, it's tatting ears and sewing them to headband. At least it's a plan.

The Motif Grows

Schooling has been blissfully efficient. They haven't really gotten into any big projects yet, so we're done fairly quickly with very little fuss from the children. This also has me in possession of more free time in the afternoon than I had anticipated when school started, even with things like laundry. I know that it's temporary, so I'm trying to take advantage of it.

I still didn't want to remake the back drop necklace, so I did a little drawing, then I suddenly felt creative again and began to grow the Star Flower motif. At first I was thinking that I would avoid any more woven elements, but once I really got down to it, it wanted to continue the weaving.

I used the ecru and black one to grow with because I had made two, one without a hanging ring. I managed one ecru round and one more black round. The amount of cut thread I had to deal with for these rounds was ridiculous and quite a tangle.

I was initially thinking barefoot sandals, but I've since decided that it is much more likely to become a hair piece/fascinator. It might need one more row though and I am dreading how much cut thread I'll need for that one. I still have some small hat bases from my other fascinator, so I might get it finished today, assuming that the next row turns out alright. I just start tatting and hope that I understand the lace well enough to pick the right stitch counts as I work. So far so good though, so I'll cross my fingers and we'll see what happens today.

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.

Stalling

I stalled like a champ yesterday. I never even got around to remaking anything, nor cleaning. In fact after I did laundry there were a couple of hours that I literally laid about. I guess I decided with schooling starting up again next week, that I should get a little time wasting done. In fact I'm not certain that I'm done with that yet. It might be on the plan for today as well.

I did do a little something newish to justify myself for the day. I added another round to the woven motif I've been playing with and it became a hair pin not long after this. I almost added a fourth round and I still might just to see what it would look like, but that time wasting bug reared up about then.

I will try to get the hair pin in the shop later today. We have our first teacher meeting this morning and having to leave the house and get things done should keep me from melting into the couch too soon. Not sure what else I'll get up to, if anything, but I'll keep trying for a picture worthy moment.

Things to Do

I cleaned my desk yesterday morning. I make this statement to illustrate how truly bored I was without a project in the morning. Sure, it needed to be done, but it really ought to have been done months ago and I managed to ignore it sitting here every day. Once that was done though, I knew I needed to get into some tatting quickly. First I chose to make a few spiders for the shop. I know, Halloween is still months away and it's still over 100º outside, but the stores are stocking it, so why shouldn't I?

After a few of those, I decided to dig back in my sold pieces for something more substantial to do. I ran across this Celtic stye motif I did years ago now. I couldn't remember much about why I made it, but when I found the prototype I decided to muck with the design a bit. I changed some stitch counts and picots, redid the center, and left off a third round entirely. I'm thinking just now that I may make it a new boutonniere design as well as a pendant.

No time for that today though because I thankfully got a nice sized order late last night. I have things that need making and I couldn't be happier. I might set aside a little time for this though, new things always make me feel like I've actually accomplished something. Either way, I have things to do today!

Well That Worked

I'm not a huge fan of the Facebook. I'm there because it was sold as a good place to grow connections. I don't leave because despite how increasing useless it has become with them sending my posts to the smallest percentage of followers possible, there are great, supportive people there. It also occurred to me the my 'fan' page has many new tatters following it. So I used the platform to discuss the recent and not so recent 'copytatting' issues. The best part, besides the productive conversation, was the post was shared 13 times. Now, that might not seem like much, but my posts are rarely shared and this just means that more people I don't even know can understand how that behavior can hurt people. Plus I made a silly graphic for it and I was pretty proud of it. In fact it might end up as a permanent part of my sidebar. You are all free to use it as well...if you want.

While all that was going on I managed to finally get a Woven Rose motif/pendant listed in the shop and one of my very lovely return customers picked one up in Raspberry pink. As much as I personally prefer everything in black, you can really see the woven chains when the piece is in color and it looks so much more intricate.

I listed the pendant as a 'choose your color' listing, so you can get it in any color thread I have. I am also curious how the piece would look in multiple colors. Right now I'm doing the outer rows as one with a split chain, but technically it could be easily done in four rows and thus four colors. I'd try it out today, but I woke up to a custom order for a bracelet.

We're headed to San Diego for a few days starting tomorrow, so that mean no time for experimentation right now. I only have time to do the custom order, pack, set up everything for the cat sitter, my mother and/or brother, clean up, and finish the last day of schooling. It is going to be a long day and if you don't hear from in the next two, have a lovely few days yourselves.

Small Ideas

I feel like a broken record stating that yesterday was another busy one, just not for tatting. I really didn't stop moving until well after lunch. There were all sorts of errands and laundry and well, just tasks coming out my ears.

Once I did sit down for a while, I nearly fell asleep. This is a big deal because I simply do not nap. I can't seem to do it at all, with the exception of a long car ride, day sleep is nearly impossible. Anyway, after resting for a spell, I did pull out the lace. I was trying to come up with a 'big' idea, but nothing was gelling, so I scaled it down to a small idea.

Really, I just started tatting with a loose idea in my head and this is what formed. It's got some woven chains and I even pulled out a split chain right before the outer row. I seems the perfect size to make a cuff bracelet with. I'll just add two more motives to the sides and it should be just the right size. When I posted it on the Facebook, it was suggested that it could also be a pendant or the beginning of a pair of barefoot sandals.

Since I have no extra tasks lined up for today, I suppose we're going to find out if all that is true. I'll just try as many ideas as I have time for and see what sticks. If nothing else, at least they'll be something to look at on the blog tomorrow. Wish me luck.

Finally

We didn't get the youngest child's new school books until early evening, but it was still a pretty normal school day and that means it was long. We are attempting to get though an entire year worth of curriculum in one semester. It's not going to be all that hard, just a little more time consuming. Also with the warmer than usual weather the kids wanted to go out on a walk in the afternoon. Normally I might protest. given that I have things to do for the shop, but it still hasn't recovered from the holidays yet, I was up for a little exercise. Sales are few and far between and so are my ideas, so perhaps ignoring it a little won't hurt.

I did get some tatting in though. I managed to get day 6 of the TIAS done, though I almost forgot again. Boy, she sure does love the split rings in this design. It's a good thing I guessed that for this second section and started with a ridiculously long tail, just in case.

I also managed to finally get the hearts and clover motif listed as a pendant. I went back and forth about listing the colors separately, but then I opted for a 'choose your color' listing. I figure that way at least I save the 20¢ for listing the other colors. That may not help much, but thinking more frugally is becoming more necessary by the week.

Aside from schooling with actual books today, I don't have any real tasks in queue. There are always a few more pieces I could remake for the shop. I mean, there are still things left unmade from November, but nothing that I really feel 'needs' to be made. I should start letting some creative thoughts flow again, but that's not exactly something that can be controlled. So I guess, I have no idea what I will get up to today, but here's hoping something good and interesting happens.

Clovers

Tuesday was not as event filled as Monday, but I still managed to do get a few things done. Right after schooling I puttered around for a while and finished up the snowflakes I was working on, then eventually settled in to make the matching bracelet to the woven and beaded necklace. I did not, however, get the hardware on and list it. Sometimes I just save those things for the next day just so that I know I will have something that needs doing.

While I really wasn't feeling particularly inspired, nor motivated, I still couldn't just sit around. I decided to do a little free tatting and see what emerged. After a few failed bits of nonsense, I wound up with this little clover looking bit. It's in pink only because I still had that thread out after the Valentine snowflake project. I mucked about more with it after this trying to see if i could add a proper hanging point, but I hated all the results and opted to leave it as it. I figure a jump ring just goes in one of the existing spaces and and it hangs a little cockeyed.

The obvious response to the piece was St. Patrick's Day clover, but it also has a bit of the heart thing going on as well. In a more neutral color, it just an an interesting shape. I'm thinking I might try to join a few together into a bracelet as well. I figure this is what I'll play with today, my last day of vacation from 'real' schooling. Tomorrow the full school schedule resumes and I probably won't be nearly as bored nor desperate for activities. Which means I will probably start having grand ideas again. I think maybe too much free time is a bad thing for creativity. I've wasted so much time on nonsense this winter. I suppose I needed a bit of a break. I can't be 'on' all the time, but I'll be glad to be back 'on' soon.

Too Hot

In what is probably a very bad sign for the day to come, I woke up with quite a headache. It's likely due to the heat as the weather has decided that it's actually the middle of Summer instead of Spring and rocketed the temperature up past 100º and it plans to keep at it for some time. I don't mind the heat in principle, I just prefer a more natural progression to it.

I did get up to a little new tatting on Friday. I made this little motif with no real purpose in mind. I like it alright, but I think it might be too similar to other peoples work since I got a few, 'hey, that looks just like...' comments. I've never seen a similar one personally, but the comments put me off doing anything with it...at least for now. I did take some time to fine tune the design before setting it aside though and now the outside chains are a bit straighter.

The rest of the weekend was attempts to beat the heat for the kids. First a splash pool thing on Saturday and then their grandparents pool on Sunday. I don't really like swimming myself. You can chalk it up to a bad childhood experience. So instead I read while sitting outside with the family. I am just a few stories away from finishing the entire Sherlock Holmes original canon. Sadly I don't think the experience has done a thing for my powers of observation.

I also made a couple of good sales over the weekend, so I have a few bigger pieces that need remaking today. It's basically just that and schooling for the day though. I did have a few annoyances over the weekend as well, but I'm not really in the mood to complain this morning. Be warned though, if I wake up one day this week without anything better to share, you'll hear all about it. Here's hoping I don't run out of nice things to share.

More Motifs

I was not granted any new tasks yesterday, so once schooling and the morning walk were out of the way, it was a whole lot of nothing around here. Okay, that's not entirely true. There was laundry and dishes and after staring at the motif from yesterday for a while, I tried a few more iterations of it. A few were tossed right in the waste basket as they were compete failures, but there couple were interesting enough to share.

The top one is the version that I think will actually make it into the shop whenever I get around to it. The only real change there was the outside chains are now zig-zag chains. I find that they are stiffer and hold their shape better which works well for a longer chain. The bottom one I did because someone on Facebook noted that the original motif was reminiscent of a Celtic cross so I thought I'd expand on that and see if I could get even closer. I'm not in love with it, but perhaps with a few tweaks it too may make it to the shop.

I didn't do much else with it that's worth sharing. In fact I didn't do much else at all yesterday. I mostly played catch up with recorded shows. In fact I only managed to read one Sherlock Holmes story and that was during schooling while the oldest read her novel. It was a completely lazy end to the month. Here we are at the start of a new one though and I sure hope it begins well and stays busy.

Mini Motif

With nothing set in stone to do yesterday, I admit I started with reading. One story later I remembered that I had started a pair of ankle corsets for extra stock and had never gotten back to them, so that was my next task. They were almost complete when I got to them, so it wasn't long before I was again reading. I knew I had to do something more physically productive with the day, so I opted to do some small doodling.

This is the second version I came up with. The first go around I was playing with lock chains. They just did not want to behave the way I wanted them to. I'm glad that I let them go though as I like the way this one turned out. It's much smaller than the last motif, so it won't be turning into much else though. I'll get it pressed today and if all the bits are behaving after that it will likely get listed as a pendant.

Upon more thought, I might muck around with it a bit and see if I can build upon it. I do hate letting a motif just become one thing. I think I might also see if I have any beads on hand that would look good in the center there. I guess I have a few tasks on hand for today after all. Here's hoping for many more.

New Motif

Well, schooling didn't go too bad yesterday, at least not because the kids didn't want to do it. No, our problem was that the online school went down just as I was finishing up with the youngest kids classes and starting the second half with the older one. Luckily she had three chapters of a novel she needed to read so she did that while I beat my head against the computer until they finally got the problem sussed an fixed.

After schooling I went straight outside to check on all the new plants. I also got it in my head to prune the grape vine and remove a nuisance rose bush that sprang up last year near the established one. I'm not certain ripping a plant up is very "Earth Day", but it was in a bad place and I'm not overly fond of roses to begin with. Plus it will give my stargazer lilies more space to bloom. All this gardening nonsense followed by some vacuuming took me all the way to lunch time with no tatting.

By the time I got round to picking up my needle and thread I was in the mood to create rather than produce, so I doodled a bit. I literally drew the proposed image out with my finger on my couch first and it actually worked up like the impression. The first time I did it without the third, outside ring at the corners and it didn't feel complete. The second time I added it and I was already pretty happy with the result. If one was so inclined, the larger rings might even look neat with a big bead, or I suppose you could substitute the center ring with a button. Though I am definitely not a button tatting fan. It just not my bag.

I did take it one step further and began turning the motif into a bracelet, because that's what I do. It will likely be a little on the short side, but it will fit me perfectly. I might work out a few slight changes to make it fit more universally, or maybe not...I guess we'll see. I also noted that the motif would work up into a square mat fairly nicely. Though again, that's not really what I tend to do.

So today I imagine I'll get the bracelet done and then decide if there's anything else I'd like to do to exploit the new motif. Then I'll try to get it listed as a pendant and bracelet. I think I'm done with remaking for the time being. There are still a few masks that I should get made up at some point, but masks haven't been selling much lately so that's really not an immediate need. Maybe I'll try doodling again and see if anything else comes of it and I will also try not to do anymore gardening because it's a lot of work.