Winner

Happy Friday all. Yesterday I discovered that I could pedal my new recumbent stationary bike and knot Armenian lace at the same time. Of course I was slower at both, but it's nice to know that I can exercise and make lace at the same time. I haven't tried tatting yet because I'm afraid the ball of thread would be unwieldy, maybe I finally need one of those ball holders from Handy Hands.

In other news today is the last day for my birthday sale. Use the code HAPPYBIRTHDAY30 for 30% off everything in my etsy shop. This is my last sale until the holidays, so take advantage while you can.

I also have a winner for the fusion lace pendant giveaway. The random number generator picked Trish G! I don't have any contact information, so shoot me an email(my address is in my profile) or message me on etsy to claim your prize. Again, thank you for all the lovely comments everyone.

Hello 2016

Nothing really changes on New Year's Day, but it's as good a time as any to get optimistic about the future. I don't have anything more specific to add to the sentiment, but it seemed like a good way to start today's post. The last day of the year was filled with movie watching as the family sat about and simply spent time with each other around some old movies. We were in bed far before midnight which is why I can be up at this ridiculous hour writing about who won my pattern giveaway.

The winner of their choice of any three of my sale patterns is louine. I just need you to message me either through my email on my profile page or on etsy to pick the 3 you want. Thank you to all of you who entered. Unfortunately there were so few entries that I decided to go ahead and just stick with one winner this go around. I'm hoping for a better turnout in April when my etsy shop turns a decade old and I'm sure to do something celebratory for that.

For today I'm going to keep plugging along with my knitting and my still slightly foggy sick brain, hoping that this year things will start to pick up again. I'm hoping for amazingly creative ideas to strike. I'm hoping for unexpected attention and press with more opportunities to share tatting and other handmade laces with the world. I'm hoping for financial growth and few to no large expenditures. I hope I can say that the shop is doing great and is busy much of the year instead of the opposite. Most of all though, I hope my family and friends are all healthy and happy and safe through the year. I guess I did have something more specific to add after all. Here's to it then.

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.

Congrats!

Good Friday morning all! First, a little business to get out of the way. The WINNERS of the 3000 sales giveaway. I will be emailing you as well, but a public announcement is needed. The winner of the Dark Doily necklace, as chosen by random number generator, is SharpTeethOfLove and the winner of the barefoot sandals is Janis Wakeley. I'll announce the winner of the Facebook necklace over there. Thank you to everyone who entered for the lovely comments and for reading and supporting my work. Hopefully the next 1000 sales will come faster!

Now back to usual business. It was another busy day and a few unexpected things occurred. First, one of my fancy masks, the Metropolis, was sent off to a new home. I had to overnight it so it would arrive in time for a Masquerade. It's always bittersweet to send these away. They take so much time, and a little blood sacrifice to make that they feel like children. Seriously, all the sewing of crystals and sequins always results in more than a few pricked fingers. I'm inclined to try to make a new one soon to replace it. I suppose that's not like children.

Other than sending off the mask, I got in the other thread I ordered in and worked double fast to finish everything in queue, save for remaking the things that had sold. The most recent custom order was in another variegated thread. This time, Lizbeth, Caribbean. It's quite a bright combination. To avoid just ordering that one thread, I also picked up one ball of the new twirlz thread and a couple other variegated ones. I don't use them often, but I suppose a little color now and again is a good thing. So many you'll see something in those colors soon.

I should have all my recent orders in the post today and hopefully relax just a bit before tackling the sold pieces over the weekend. Though I wouldn't complain in the least, if a few more orders rolled in. I really am enjoying being busier than I've been in a couple of months. I feel useful again.

We Have a Winner!

Or more precisely, winners, six of them. Once my husband arrived home from work yesterday, I had him pull the numbers. He was actually quite annoyed that the random number generator didn't pull a diverse enough grouping and went back to try again. He ended up going with the first set because he felt that trying again would taint the results even though he never actually saw the entries list. I'm telling you all this partly so you'll blame him if you didn't win and partly because I wanted you to know he took his job seriously.

So without further ado, the winners. First the winners of the 3 Fully Bloomed pendants are Wychbury, RockLove and Crites.

Next up the winner of the Viva La Reine necklace is Nullalux.

The winner of the Queen's Feet Barefoot Sandals is beri03.

The winner and the very first person to own a pair of the coveted In Bloom Ankle Corsets is Jennifer Nicole.

Congrats to everyone that won and condolences for those that didn't. Even with the fairly even odds there were bound to be a lot of people on that list. As a bit of a consolation prize, I've decided to offer all entrants my In Bloom pendant for just $5 including shipping until Sunday. If you choose to take me up on the offer, just purchase the pendant and leave your entry name and mention 'prize' in the notes to seller. I will refund the discount through paypal.

If you won one of these amazing prizes, you should be hearing from me soon, if you haven't yet and I hope to have all the prizes out by Monday. Thanks to everyone for helping make this giveaway a grand success. My shop has garnered quite a few new hearts, my blog a healthy dose of new followers and I even got some sales out of the event. Let's hope many of you stick around after the free stuff is all gone. I am now quite done will all of this nonsense and am ready to get back to some calm quiet tatting and stop checking my comments and email every 2 minutes. Maybe I'll host someone elses giveaway next...anyone?

And The Winner Is....

Well, before we get onto the good stuff, I thought a little health update was in order. On Saturday I took a romantic trip to the Urgent Care with my husband to get prescribed antibiotics and pain killers for an apparent dental abscess. It seems that all my mouth issues have culminated in the murder of one of my teeth and in it's death throes it has chosen to infect my face. This resulted in a swollen and terribly attractive cheek. As you might imagine this put a bit of a damper on, well everything. Yesterday, the whole thing began to drain and I feel a bit better. I'll be going to the dentist later today to see how bad it really is, but I imagine that I shall be looking forward to a root canal, so probably right back to pain, yeah fun.

Okay, now to the reason you're probably reading this, the winner of the Very Vicious Valentine giveaway. As you're probably aware, this was my first giveaway and I'm really amazed with the turnout I got. When all the entries were tallied out, there were a total of 61. It was really awesome that so many people opted for extra entries and played the game with us and I am pleased as punch that I was able to help Diana get a little extra exposure for her amazing art and I hope that many of you will pick up a little something from her in the future.

Alright, I guess that's enough American Idol stalling. I used the random number generator at Random.org to spit out a number and that number belongs to

Valorie, of Battlemaiden.

Thanks so much to everyone for entering and if you're interested in doing a giveaway with me in the future, just let me know. I had a pretty good time with all this business, in fact I just might do one for my tatting in the future. You know, when my mouth isn't rebelling against me!

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!

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