Happy Halloween!

So much to do, so little time to do it in. Halloween is not only a festive event for my family, it is also my Mother's birthday and tomorrow is my brothers birthday, so Happy Birthday Mom, happy Birthday Matt. Of course, I don't think either of them reads my blog, but I still feel it's only right to say it. The kids will want to dress up most of the day and we will visit Daddy's work for a little pre-trick or treating. It's a good thing too because here in central California, it is supposed to rain all day and I don't know whether will get to go out tonight at all. I just can't justify taking a 1 and 4 year old out into the rain to get free candy. Hopefully they are still young enough to get over the disappointment.

I don't yet have any costume pictures for you so I thought I would post a picture of me and the girls from last Halloween morning. So much has changed in the space of a year, the baby is a toddler, the toddler is a 'big' kid, not to mention my drastic hair makeover. I promise that I will have pictures of my tatted costume for you on Monday.

I'm just finishing up a pair of tatted cuffs right now. I realized after I got my copy of Belle Armoire with the cuff pattern, that I didn't have any currently listed and that looked a little off. I still don't know what my next new project is going to be. Should I keep playing with the wool yarn and hope people are in a scarf wearing mood or is it time for a new choker pattern. I'm sure I'll figure it out. Oh, speaking of tatted scarfs, the pattern I listed has been viewed literally hundreds of times. I hope all you free tatted pattern folk share the results with me. Seriously, I would love to do a post of random pieces made with my pattern, so do share!

Happy Halloween, Samhain, All Hallows Eve and since I won't be back until Monday, Day of the Dead, All Souls Day and All Saints Day and any other harvest or fall holiday I may have missed!

Slowest Week EVER

This has been the slowest moving week in recent memory. Maybe it's because I'm getting so much press lately coupled with no sales, maybe it's because my favorite holiday is sitting at the end of the week or maybe it's because I'm all nervous about my things being sold in person at SteamPowered even though I won't actually be there. I'm sure it's a motley combination of all these things, but I feel like the weekend should already be here. Let me back up a bit though and explain the press comment.

The week started out with me receiving my artist comp copy of Belle Armoire. My most recent article contains a pattern for my tatted cuffs and I got all giddy when my article had a cover mention. The cover art was from Bonzie, also of etsy fame. Then after I published my free tatted scarf pattern, it was picked up by the needlework editor of CraftGossip which sent me a little extra blog traffic. Then last night I was informed that I was the featured etsy shop on Fashion Me Fabulous. I thought that was plenty, but this morning I got a message that one of my tatted masks was featured on Rare Bird Finds. What makes all of these mentions so great, is I did not know about any of them except of course Belle Armoire. They were complete, pleasant surprises and I'm quite shocked at the convergence of so many fortuitous events.

I was going to complain about the lack of sales as well as how nervous I am about the afore mentioned convention, but I've decided to accept the trade off for the unexpected attention. I do have a funny little story to tell today though, an anecdote if you will. I found myself sitting in the dentists office yesterday for a half an hour. I reached into by bad to pull out my tatting needle and thread only to discover that while the small ball of thread was present, the needle was not. I decided that since the ball was small enough to act as a make shift shuttle, that I would again attempt to shuttle tat. The result of this was a string of sadly formed rings and a not so subtle reminder of why I am a confirmed needle tatter. The moral of this little tale is that while I receive a occasional accolade for my tatting skill, I have so much more to learn. When people tell me that they could never do what I do, I just think that there are probably many things they can do that I cannot. I will still try to 'get' shuttle tatting and eventually I might succeed, but for now I will stick with what I'm good at.

Nothing Of Consequence

It another of those mornings. I've nothing of consequence to share with you. I've been spending a little too much time shopping through Twitter. I downloaded a desktop widget called Tweetdeck that keeps Twitter in the background all the time so I seem to always be eavesdropping on some conversation or other. I also keep clicking on links for new listings and sales, it's a nasty habit that I need to squelch at least until my sales pick back up. It is so much harder to justify shopping when no one is buying from me.

I know it seems as if I've been busy since I actually listed two new pieces in as many days, but I had been working on those pieces slowly, off and on for a very long time and just finally finished them. I've been a little uninspired as of late and I'm finding it hard to get motivated to create. Perhaps it's just the letdown after sending so many pieces to the SteamPowered convention that kicks off this Friday, I don't really know.

Speaking of Friday though, I pretty proud of myself. Yesterday after a failed search for instructions on how to make a bustle for my costume, I figured one out all by myself. All I seemed to find in my search were wedding dress modifications, overly complex patterns with poor explanations and sad d.i.y. pieces with less than stellar results. My solution was a piece of leftover fabric gathered and tucked under my corset and it looks perfect. Now, hopefully the rain that is predicted for Halloween will not arrive and I'll actually have a reason to wear the costume to take the kids trick or treating. I promise, I'll share pictures if it turns out alright.

Free Tatted Scarf Pattern

I've been toying with the idea of offering up tatting patterns here for quite a while. I was always a little afraid that I would alienate my non tatting friends and since my skills at pattern writing are negligible, I assumed my experienced tatting friends would be completely uninterested as well. As I was finishing up a new scarf yesterday, I decided that it was the piece to cut my pattern offering teeth on. It's a very simple pattern, so all those just starting out or returning to tatting after a time will have something interesting to try out. The beauty of this piece is that even though it is simple, the finished project looks like much more complicated design.

First off a little yarn choosing information. I like to use hand dyed super wash merino sock yarn. If you search for that on etsy, you will find every possible color combination imaginable. Other comparable choices include, sport weight or baby yarn. You can certainly choose thinner or thicker yarns, but that will change the dimensions of the scarf. I'd also like to point out that I am a needle tatter and though I'm certain that shuttle tatting with yarn is possible, I have no expertise in that field as what kind of shuttle to use. For your needle, you want to pick the smallest needle that you can easily thread your yarn choice through.

Now the pattern, the scarf consists of two mirrored rows of a pattern I call 'simple vine'. While I came up with this pattern myself some time ago, it occurs to me that as simple as it is, it existed long before I 'designed' it, I just haven't run across it yet. I'm going to write this longhand just in case my shorthand version only makes sense to me.

Row 1:

Ring 6 double stitches, 1 picot, 6 double stitches, close and reverse work.
Ring 6 double stitches, 1 picot, 6 double stitches, close and reverse work.
Chain 6 double stitches, 1 picot, 6 double stitches, close and reverse work.
*Ring 6 double stitches, join to last ring, 6 double stitches, close reverse work.
Ring 6 double stitches, 1 picot, 6 double stitches, close and reverse work.
Chain 6 double stitches, 1 picot, 6 double stitches, close and reverse work.
Repeat from * to whatever length you desire ending with 2nd ring of pattern

The second row mirrors the first and joins at matching picots. The pictures should give you a good idea of where the joins are.

That's all there is to this one, I hope that all made sense. Just a few more bits of, well, let's call it wisdom. It you're not ready for yarn tatting yet, you can use this same pattern with size 10 thread to make yourself a bracelet or choker. Simply change the length to whatever you need. The reverse holds true as well. If you've got a nice symmetrical bookmark pattern the length can be altered to make a bracelet or choker and if you change to yarn it will probably make a great scarf. The whole reason I've been able to come up with interesting pieces is that I look beyond what a pattern is written for to what it could be and anyone can do that.

Please feel free to use this pattern for your own use and share the results with me. If you wish to make pieces to sell, please contact me first.

I hope this wasn't too boring to all those non-tatters out there. Maybe I have even inspired a few of you to take up tatting too.

The scarf will be on sale in my etsy store just as soon I finish here. The yarn used for this scarf was from Onecrazystitch.etsy.com

Last In Line

I am not a selfless person, I was always the first in line to eat. I wasn't only out for number one, but I certainly made sure I got mine. You know that person at the concert t-shirt stand that pushes through the crush of the crowd up to the front without blinking an eyelash, yeah that was me. Of course that was before I had kids, now I have patience, avoid crowds and I am generally the last in line for seemingly everything. I did do the line crush thing wearing my baby in a sling last year at MacWorld, but if you've ever seen the line for badge pick up there, you'd understand.

I can not even remember the last time I tatted something just for me. You see my list of priorities starts with the children/family and then my customers, then the household and then me. I am bringing in all this up so you will understand the event that me making my own Halloween costume pieces actually is. Over the weekend I decided that the finishing touch to me generic "goth" costume would be tatted edgings on my shaping corset.

I tatted two separate edging pieces and tacked them on the stretchy corset. Though I do like the way it turned out, I also decided that I am going to make a 'real' one as well. Since I have no desire to sew my own corset, boning scares me, I ordered a relatively inexpensive one that I will embellish when it arrives. Many moons ago I was approached by a corset maker to make lace for her to embellish her designs, but I think my price was a little too much for her and I never heard back, so I'll just do one myself. I figure I can offer it for sale as a made to order piece, since all the corset makers seem to do that.

I promise that I will post pictures of me in my Halloween costume after next weekend. I do plan on also wearing one of my masks and chokers, so I should be all tatted up.