A Hat for James

Ah, the calm after the storm. The challenge has ended and it will be quite a while until the next one. If you haven't checked out the winners yet, scroll down, they are awesome! I have a few small projects, but mostly I'm thinking onto the holidays. Is that absolutely ridiculous? I mean, I hate the fact that stores begin stocking for the holidays before the first chills of winter even begin and here I am worried about whether I should be making tatted snowflakes already. I guess I'm becoming part of the problem.

I do want to show you something today that I made. I made this over the weekend, but I didn't want to interrupt the challenge coverage with it. My youngest brother has requested that I make a cap for him using a pattern he had found on flickr, of all places. I dragged out the sewing machine, dusted it off and began to sew something I'd never tried to make before.
I'm pretty proud of myself and I thought I'd show everyone that I'm not just a one trick pony. Of course my brother suggested that I could sell these and it was insanely simple to make, so don't be shocked if I find someway to combine tatting and this hat in the future. I'm adding it to the list of one day projects, you know the ones I'll probably never get around to be will constantly thinking about. It's becoming quite an behemoth at this point and I better get around to something on the list soon, but I almost certainly won't. Oh , well.

And The Winners Are...

First of all I would like to make a heartfelt thanks to everyone who participated in my little experiment of a challenge. It was a true pleasure to meet each of you and contribute in a small way to your amazing and diverse creations. I hope that the experience was a good one for all of you as well. I reserved the difficult challenge of judging to a few new friends and they all expressed a great amount of difficulty in choosing our winners, in fact this resulted in three third place winners.

There were some amazing pieces that did not place, but I'd personally like to make special mention of them. First I'd like to mention the striking red cuff made by Waterrose. The skill of embroidery mixed with tatting created a piece with a very artisan feel. Secondly, I'd like to mention the distilled rose piece by thebeadedlily. While I felt the piece wasn't the best feature of the tatting, it was an amazing piece of art and it's softness and beauty are unmistakable. I really loved all of the pieces for different reasons and I actually feel bad that I can't give them all a little something, but that's not the way a contest works right?

Now on to the winners, we'll do this backwards all Miss America style. The three third place winners were all chosen by different judges and they will all have their choice of my pendants as their prize.

Wenchie for her SteamPunk Hair Stick.








MadArtJewelry for her Flies' Time Necklace.

IndustrialFairyTale for her faux Ivory and Medallion Choker

Second Place goes to Lamplighter for her amazing lampshade. She will receive any item up to $20 from my humble collection.Fetishghost had this to say, "Wow! My eye kept coming back to this piece. Visually, it's a very strong piece. I'm intrigued by it's design and construction. It appears extremely well crafted. Great work!"

Finally, our first place winner who was chosen by all the judges, SkyIsland for her incredible baroquen mandala. She will receive an item up to $40 from my tatted goods.

This piece of praise by another of our judges, Jane Eborall,"... I like baroquen skyisland mandala - angle by miahawk as not only is it a stunning piece of work she's put a lot of time and care into it (mind, they all have!)"

I'd like to end with some quotes from our judges, first Slvrlily, "That was tough. I went with the three I felt best incorporated the tatting into the piece." Next Fetishghost on judging, "Wow, that was a tuff choice. It took a good while to find my top choices based on originality, craftsmanship, and beauty... this of coarse didn't narrow the field down at all. Each piece is amazing for it's own reasons, congratulations to all." Last from Jane Eborall, "This is one of the hardest things I've been asked to do for a long time but I've thoroughly enjoyed it."

Well, that was a lot of excitement, my life is bound to get a little boring now that this event has concluded. I hope that all the participants will join me again after the holidays for a fresh challenge and I'm looking forward to many more artisans jumping in to help me bring tatting to some fresh new places. Thanks again everyone!

All photos are property of and copyrighted by their respective creators.

The Entries Are In!

Well are all aboard who are going aboard. These are the entries for the very first Tatting is Not a Lost Art: The Challenge!

All of these spectacular pieces were created around tatted medallions made by me just for the occasion. Judging is currently underway and the winners will be announced Monday morning to create the proper amount of anticipation. All items and pictures belong to the respective artisans and many of the pieces are available for sale through etsy.

1st row( from left to right): Bayousalvage.etsy.com, Industrialfairytale.etsy.com, Adicat.etsy.com, Lamplighter.etsy.com

2nd row: SkyIsland.etsy.com, Joeireedhats.etsy.com, MyFairyBabies.etsy.com, Waterrose.etsy.com

3rd row: LacyLove.etsy.com, Figments.etsy.com, Wenchie.etsy.com, GabriellaLucretia.etsy.com

4th row: Thebeadedlily.etsy.com, MadArtJewelry.etsy.com, Foxgloves.etsy.com

I can't even begin to tell you how proud and impressed I am by these pieces and I am so grateful to every one these artisans for participating in this little adventure of mine. Please visit the flickr group to see more pictures of these pieces and check out the participants etsy stores for many more amazing creations. Until Monday!

Yawn

I'm tired, too tired I'm afraid to come up with something clever or even remotely interesting to write about today. I'm sorry to disappoint all those of you who expect more, but apparently, without the proper amount of rest, I am not a bottomless source of opinion and information. You see, my Grandfather was in town visiting the last couple of days from Utah. The visit created an opportunity for all my family in the area to get together at my house for the evening. While I am always happy to have all my siblings and nieces and nephews visit, this results in six children under the age of 9 running about my house. I became exhausted just watching them and more exhausted convincing them to clean up the enormous mess the 12 handed beast just created.

The mess was cleaned, they all went home, but I am still tired. So very tired. So I'm not feeling clever or even awake this morning. Tomorrow will be another day, in fact tomorrow is the last day for entries for the tatting challenge. I know there are still several left to be entered and I'm antsy to see them all and get some winners for this thing. So if you still need to list your piece, get on it!

From the Top to the Bottom

Yesterday, I hung out for almost an hour waiting to get a treasury spot. I wouldn't normally spend that much time waiting, but I had an idea that I needed to bring to fruition. It didn't turn out quite as I imagined, but that's probably because I can't seem to spend hours picking the perfect items. I think it's still pretty good though and I love if this one would actually get popular. Mine never seem to get a whole lot of attention.

In other news, one of the challenge participants waterrose, wrote up a great little article for the challenge on a site I was not familiar with, but it looks great. So, thanks for that. I'll take all the free press I can get. You can check it out here at MyItThings.

There are just a couple of days left for the participants to get their entries listed and I have to say that I am getting antsy. As soon as all the entries are posted, I'll try and snag a treasury for the ones for sale at etsy for a little more attention. The forum thread I've been babysitting for the challenge has actually drawn a little late attention so I have hope that the next challenge will be even bigger. At this point, I think the next will be after the holidays and with most likely use a simple edging. I don't know how long or what design I'll use yet, but I've got plenty of time for that, right.

Tatting Is Not A Lost Art

The Challenge

With one week to go until the July 31st deadline, I am already thinking about my next challenge. So far, the challenge has gone off without any major malfunctions and I feel like it's already gone a long way to exposing tatting to new eyes. I actually discovered a treasury at etsy full of tatting curated by beadsandpieces and thanks to the pieces already made and listed for the challenge, four of the pieces feature my tatting. While the challenge is certainly not making me any money and it was never intended to do so, it has had the side effect of garnering me some extra exposure.

I will be sending out convos to all the participants of the challenge later today with a deadline reminder and I would love if tons of people would visit the flickr group in the next week to view the entries. I will of course be posting them all here after the deadline as well. I would also love if any other bloggers would mention the challenge and post the winners when they are announced for a little further exposure. I might be tempted to offer a small discount at my store for anyone who takes me up on the posting offer.

As for the next challenge, I will be needing some input before I proceed. Should I start the challenge next month with a deadline in October or should I wait until after the holidays? Should the challenge piece be a square, snowflake, simple edging or should I stick with the medallions? I've also been trying to come up with a way to involve other tatters in the challenge, but so far I'm up coming up with a blank. So any ideas on that front would be appreciated as well. Thanks in advance for any opinions and check back for the entries and winners in the next couple of weeks!

All Better Now

Well, I fell better now, I always do after a life lesson post. So back to business then. The deadline for the tatting challenge is looming, just two weeks to go. If you're playing with me this time, don't forget to join the flickr group and get those entries up! I still have a few medallions sitting around as well, so if you're one of those people who thrives on a deadline, feel free to join us.

I have been impressed so far by the pieces created for the challenge and I'm really hoping that I get an even bigger response to the next one. No, I don't know what or when the next one will be, but feel free to let me know if you would be interested in participating in another of these challenges. My goal is to get a large exposure to tatting outside of the established tatting community. I think that the more people exposed to pieces made with tatting might actually result in more tatters and and upswing in the popularity of this unique and beautiful art form.

I think I will also take this opportunity to out the judges for the challenge. First, we have Jane Eborall, a wonderful tatter that I've had the pleasure to talk with on etsy and through her blog. Next we have Fetishghost, also know as Zygote from the Etsy Steam Team. He is an amazing ceramics artist as well as a jewelry artisan working primarily in silver. The tie breaking judge is also the original collaborator that inspired the challenge in the first place. Lily also known as Slvrlily. She's another member of the steam team, a wonderful steam punk jeweler and you may remember a fellow victim of the photo thief.

Once these wonderful people have chosen the winners, I will announce them here, at etsy, on flickr and anywhere else I have a place to post. Only with exposure can the challenge have any real impact on the popularity of tatting, so feel free to post about this challenge if you need something new to talk about. I'm certain to mention the challenge often as we get closer to the deadline but I will refrain from posting the entries until they are all listed. That's all for now, here's hoping this weekend helps me recover a little more from my vacation.

See You All Later

I'm feeling very impatient today. You see, tomorrow morning is the start of my very short family vacation. We're driving to the coast to spend some time in the cool ocean air of Monterey. We do this every year, but this is the first time I've done steady enough business through my etsy store to actually worry a little about the break. I won't be gone long, so it's really not a big deal, but I'm still anxious about it.

I've made my vacation banner, figured out my little profile blurb and now I wait. I guess I could start packing and clean up the house, but instead I'm sitting here stressing out about the Internet withdrawal I'm certain that I will be suffering. I know I need the break, but this all has become so much a part of my daily routine that I worry about the horribly important convo I'll miss or the special order that just can't wait. I know that it can all wait and we all need a break. The truth is, it's a good this I'm going so far away or I'd be like so many others hanging out in the forums with their avatars advertising their vacation. That's no vacation...get off the computer people, seriously.

I've got a couple of new things to finish today and hopefully list and I have a couple of challenge medallions to mail out. I am going to make a few more medallions for the tatting challenge if you still want to join in. As the deadline nears, I'm getting really excited to see all the creations. It has been a great experience so far and I plan on doing more of them in the future with edgings or squares or maybe even snowflakes for winter. Well, see you all later.

Happy 232nd

I bet you find it odd that I know how old the country is, well I was born in '76 so it would be really sad if I didn't know. This really isn't a big holiday for me, as much as I enjoy blowing things up and eating lots of nearly burnt meat, I just can't get into it. So I thought I'd bring up my Tatting challenge this morning instead.

The deadline for the contest was set at July 31st, so there's still a few weeks left for creation of the pieces and are still a few medallions left if anyone still wants to join in. The entries are already starting to roll in and a few are already listed at etsy and in our flickr group. I am so pleased at what these wonderful artisans are going with my little pieces of tatting. You can see the entries that have already come in at our flickr group. I truly hope that this contest and the future ones that are secretly swirling around in my head give tatting the mainstream attention that I think it deserves.

Well if you live here in the states, have a great holiday, if you don't, feel free to ignore all this 4th of July business ans have a nice weekend!

What Was I Gonna Say?

I'm having one of those writers block kind of days today. I had a few different ideas and then they literally fell out of my head. So, let me just say thanks for all the hat input. I listed the Grand Daisy Tatted Hat yesterday with no further modification. After all the feedback, I'm certain to come up with a couple more designs with some neat ideas I got from you. Of course, it will be a while, after one of these big design project I feel a bit burnt out on yarn.

On another note, a side effect of my Tatting Challenge is beginning to kick in. I had hoped that inspiring others to create with my tatting, would in turn inspire me to move in some new directions. I think that it's working. After hanging out with my new steam punk friends, I've come up with a new design or two that will be unveiled as soon I finish them. I guess that my general lack of sales has at least given me the time to work on new things so it's not all bad. Well, I'm started to ramble and that's not good, so I'll return tomorrow with a real post...I hope.

Happy Tuesday Everybody

I was reading a list yesterday of 101 things to blog about. It had a plethora of fairly generic ideas to spur you onto blogging success including, write a post about your popular posts. So, in essence it was a suggestion for a clip show. I wonder if 65 posts is enough to pull from to make a clip show post. Well, lets see, I already made a list of my most popular posts and I imagine there are plenty of people who haven't read them because they just found my blog. Seems like it might work. Alright, tomorrow morning be ready for the TotusMel clip show.

Today, I'll just share that I've gotten 11 participants for my tatting challenge and the deadline isn't until July 31st so there is plenty of time to join in if you haven't. Part of the inspiration for the challenge was a collaboration I recently did with slvrlily from steamteam. She has finished a couple of brooches using two different medallions and I offer them up as inspiration for anyone who needs some. They are both gorgeous, but the black one is my favorite. Lucky for you I'm not judging this one!

When I Was Cool

I was looking through old pictures yesterday with my daughter and ran across something that made me giggle a bit. You see, before I took on the job of Momma, I had a paying gig. I worked in retail like a lot of kids out of college and I even had one of the three most coveted "cool" jobs: coffee shop, book store and mine, the music store. Unlike most kids though, I stayed there for seven long years before we were run out of business by big box retailers, but that's a story for another day.

One of my management duties was P.O.P merchandising. This is a real fancy was of saying that I made displays using point of purchase materials, a.k.a. posters. It was one of my favorite tasks, just me a stack of posters and flats, a staple gun and a huge wood base. The purpose of this task was to create and photograph a display so we could prove the the record companies that we were advertising for them and they in return would continue to send us more posters and promo Cd's. I was actually quite good at this otherwise useless skill.

Now I'm wondering how I can parlay this recovered knowledge into a technique for my etsy store. I learned that people love images that pop, basic colors surrounding a central image or repeating patterns that emphasize a theme. I guess I've got the theme down with the repeating frame around each of my photos, but I think I'm still lacking the pop. Maybe my mannequin head has got to go, but I still lack a proper model or photography skills for that matter. I guess I shall put away this lesson until another day. It was sure a nice blast to the past though.

Challenge Update: We now have 7 participants! There are plenty of medallions left, so please join us and make something amazing with tatting.

What If Machines Had Hands

Handmade versus manufactured, it's John Henry versus the steam hammer. One has a soul and the other is cost efficient and creates a reliable quality level with a reputation, brand familiarity and accountability. Are you starting to see why people may be a bit wary of the goods you create in your craft room with no quality control? Clearly I support the handmade community, I am of course part of it, but I also love the reliability of many companies goods. I like to know that quality is consistent with every bottle of shampoo or pair of jeans I buy. I am also not rich by any stretch of the imagination so I need a good deal.

I think a lot of us struggle with this dynamic. We want to buy handmade, but we can't often justify the cost of doing so. There is also very few guarantees with handmade, for every piece or product that has high quality craftsmanship, there are dozens of others that appear to have been created by a five year old. For example, wire wrapping at it's finest is gorgeous metal swirls draped around beautiful stones in a fluid and clearly artistic way and it's most basic, it's glass beads coiled with wire in no discernible pattern to form a colorful if not comfortable ring. I apologize to wire ring lovers, but I just don't get them.

Now, I get handmade and even I have a problem buying it for many products, so you've got to imagine that the general public has got to work through some prejudices before jumping on board. I think most people don't mind buying handmade as long as they are getting fine craftsmanship and they don't mind buying manufactured if they feel the company has fair business practices. I guess what it really comes down to, is everyone is different. We all let many different factors determine our buying habits. Some people love owning one of a kind pieces and won't let price get in the way of that. While others just what what everyone else has and still others won't spend a dime more on anything regardless of quality.

You can't change everyone's mind about handmade. We can, however, expose people to the option and by making quality goods, we can win over those people who are on the fence. Maybe I will buy some handmade shampoo soon, know of any good ones?

Challenge Update: We have five participants on board so far, they are listed in this forum thread: http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=5648779

And So It Begins

I present for your approval and participation, Tatting Is Not A Lost Art: The Challenge

First, a little background.Tatting is the art of making a very durable form of lace with knotted stitches using either a shuttle or needle. While there is a very vibrant tatting community, it is often regarded as a lost art by the general population that has had little exposure to this unique and timeless craft.

By creating a your own piece with a tatted medallion, you can not only help expose tatting to a wider audience, but also win yourself some of my tatted pieces. First place will be a $40 credit at TotusMel.etsy.com, second place will be a $20 credit and third place will be your choice of my tatted pendants.

Each person may purchase one or more of the tatted medallions to participate in the challenge. You may create absolutely anything with the medallions. The medallion should have a prominent place in the design and may be dyed or embellished. In order to accommodate artists of all kinds, I am offering both a small medallion, 2 inches, in black and ecru and a larger size, 4 inches, in ecru only. Your choice of medallion does not affect your chance to win. I will continue to offer medallions as long as there is demand for them, so if you don't see the one you wanted, let me know and I will make more. The medallions are available now.

The entries must be listed at etsy using the tag, "tattingchallenge"and/or uploaded to our flickr group by July 31st to be eligible to win. They will be judged on creativity, design, use of the medallion and general coolness. There will be three prize levels all redeemable at my etsy store.

The contest details and entries will be published here on my blog with proper credit and links to the creators. Please contact me with any questions you may have.

Flickr group: http://www.flickr.com/groups/tattingchallenge/
My store: http://totusmel.etsy.com
Forum Thread at Etsy: http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=5648779

In A Slump

I'm tired, really tired. I just past my 60th blog post and I'm starting to feel like I might soon run out of wise and witty things to say. I find myself racking my brain when I wake in the morning, searching for a good topic that will hook readers. I guess I still haven't found the niche that will make this blogging thing effortless. I still spend way too much time plugging the blog and I think it's really taking time away from things I should be doing, like making things to sell, but I use this as a distraction from the artisans equivalent of writers block. Is there a word for that?

The problem I'm having right now, is that I'm simply not selling all that much. I've been going a week or so between sales and there's not much motivation to create new pieces when there are almost 80 just gathering dust. I'm hoping that this tatting challenge will jump start my creative movement and inspire me to move forward with some new designs. I've had a lot of offers to collaborate with other artisans lately, but I still find myself listless.

Oh, what to do...what to do. Well, I'll be finishing up the "rules" for the challenge today and I will definitely be listing the medallions I've already finished tomorrow morning. I got myself one judge yesterday, Jane Eborall. She's a wonderful person and quite the talented and experienced tatter. I was recently lucky to make her acquaintance and she has agreed to help out. I hope to hook a jewelry artisan as a second judge soon. I have also set up a flickr group for the challenge, my first one, so I hope I did it right. Now, I'm getting all antsy for this party to get started!

I'll list the links to the medallions tomorrow morning just as soon as I get them up. I hope everyone has fun with this!

Stop Thief!

Over the weekend I received a message from one of the tatting elite, the Tatting Goddess. Isn't it funny how every community no matter how small has their own famous names that no one outside the community has ever heard of, but I digress. She informed me that she had seen one of my pieces on a questionable site. Now, I've found my photos being used without my permission before, but so far it's always been in a good way. The pictures linking to my store and credited to me, usually they are accompanied by some kind words as well. This was not the nice kind, it was the kind where someone was actually using my image as a set of pictures to convince people to purchase a disc of tatting patterns from them.

What makes this even sillier, is that the patterns on the disc appear to all be vintage patterns that are all in the public domain. In other words, they are all free patterns available all over the internet. I've seen a lot of people complain of these kinds of image thefts, but I had been fortunate enough to not have experienced this until now. I feel annoyed and I keep trying to decide whether this person thought my design was amazing enough to sell her product or that I wouldn't be a threat if I caught her. I guess it really doesn't matter what they thought, I sent a strongly worded email that I'm fairly certain will be ignored and that's about all I can do. I wish for a moment that I knew a really good hacker to take down the site, but that's probably a little extreme, huh?

The Challenge

Switching Gears now, I think I have gotten enough interest to go forward with my tatting challenge. In the next couple of days, I will be working out the details, tatting up medallions and attempting to con a few folk into being judges (if you're interested, just let me know).
Participates will get to choose from 2 sizes in 2 colors. The small ones are about 2 inches across available in ecru and black and the large ones are 4 inches across and I'm only making those in ecru. I will be charging $5 for each of the small ones and $8 for the large ones and domestic and Canadian shipping will be free. Each person may buy as many of the medallions as they want for the challenge and they may be dyed if desired. The finished pieces will be due by July 31st and will be judged on the usual traits, creativity, function, quality of construction and generally how cool they are. I will be offering up three places worth of prizes. First place will your choice of pieces from my etsy store up to $40 or a credit up to that amount. Second place will be up to $20 and third place will be your choice of one of my pendants .

I'm hoping to have the medallions available for purchase on Wednesday, but no later that Friday. These rules are a work in progress and the medallion listings will hopefully contain the final version. Please let me know via email of etsy convo if you'd like to be on the notification list for the challenge.