I just realized as I sat down that today is Friday and thus the last blogging day of the year. See, I had grand plans of doing a big end of the year post with a look back at this past years "achievements" and placing some goals for the coming year into print, but the week got completely away from me. So, I suppose I'll wing this a bit. I just went back and looked at last years post and this is what I discovered:

"So where do I go for next year then? As much as I do still adore the round numbers, they are not really a true gauge of my success, they are just reminders that we live in a base 10 world. Sure, I could ask for the fame thing again, but that is a wild crap shoot. If I made half an effort to make it happen of course, but we all know I am too lazy and much too chicken to go out on many ledges. So I guess I'll stick with practical this year. I will try to make another Instructable and another video. I will continue to design, grow and learn. I will watch kittens and children grow, take care of my family, make a few new friends, babble in my blog and try to be better person."

Every year before that post I laid out a bunch of round number goals for the year, but given my paragraph of goals here, this past year was a rousing success. This past year saw not one, but four new Instructables posted, a new video and plenty of new designs. The children and the cats kept on growing and everyone appears healthy and happy. I'm lucky to be online where I am constantly meeting new people and folks read and occasionally respond to my babbling. It's been a year full of getting really close to fame and not quite breaking through, but all of that had lessons to teach. Tatting made it to a New York runway and I sold not one, but two of the fanciest masks I've ever made. All in all it was a pretty good year and I won't muck up next year with a list of numbers either. In fact, that stuff I said last year, I'd like to do all that again.

One last thing for the year, a new mask. I was searching for more inspiration for my next project when I ran across a prototype mask made years ago. I was a complete fail, but I never tossed it assuming one day I would have the skills to resurrect it. Yesterday was apparently that one day.  The original is under the new work there. I made it with medallions all of the same size and it fits like it was made by a five year old with a pile of yarn. This time I decided to shape the design by not only decreasing the size of the center medallion, but also making the medallions on the side asymmetrical so they would grow out to the sides giving the piece the proper shape without losing the overall size.

In the end I also added more to the bottom giving the mask more coverage and I completely reworked the edging I used at the top to a more organic design giving the top more structure so the points didn't flop about. The new mask is on the bottom here. I know you can't really tell how bad the top mask is here without it being on a face, but trust me, this was a design achievement I thought I never get. I probably won't get it listed until Monday since I hate doing photo shoots with the husband around...even when he doesn't actually mock me, it is perceived.

So there you have it, the end of the year, a new mask and that leaves us at the weekend. Thank you to all of you who read this blog or the Wunderkammer, buys my tatting, follows me on twitter or joined the facebook fan page. Many thanks for commenting, consoling, commiserating, offering up ideas and for putting up with my occasional  nonsense...or pretending to anyway. Thank you once again for being part of my year and I hope to see you in the new one.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

More Crochet

Man was yesterday morning ever a wash. The extra children stayed until just after noon and it took a few hours before my sanity returned and I was able to accomplish anything. It's not like they're bad kids or anything, but when there are eight of them, it's just terribly overwhelming just to be in the same house with them and winter makes it worse because they can't go outside and run free. I suppose they'll have great memories of these sleep overs though, so it's all worth it then.

After all of that, I did get some things accomplished. First, I finally settled on a needle felting kit I found on etsy with a lovely assortment of colors and just an hour after I ordered it, I got an email saying it was shipped. I love it when sellers are, well...like me. Then I had a couple of small pendants to tat up and that got me right back into my groove. Once that bit of store business was concluded, I had a neck warmer to finish.

This one is my oldest, she picked out the yarn and the buttons. Man, does she love those buttons. I had just finished it and she put it right on and clearly she's pretty happy with it. In fact, she didn't tale it off until I made her get dressed for bed. I made both the girl's pieces as long as my own so they won't grow out of them. So I guess that's the end of the crochet projects for the winter.

I've got a couple more small pieces that need to be tatted up today, but after that I'm not sure which direction I'll go. I did recently acquire instructions to make ribbon cocardes. I have an etsy friend that makes them and I've gotten a few from her. It was driving me batty that I didn't know how to make them, then I saw a how to for sale on etsy and snatched it up. I tried the technique, but still haven't taken one all the way to completion. I might try that today. The process is simple, but time consuming which is much like most crafts I do, so it should fit right in. I also have another craft kit for a beaded, light up wrist cuff, but the instructions are ridiculously complex so I've been putting that one off. My week of almost vacation is almost over though and next week  I will likely shift gears to a new large project or at least something new in tatting. What a week.

Felted

So yesterday I made a mistake I had surprisingly never made before. We ran some errands in the morning and I dropped an order off at the post office heading to Canada. When we got home I pulled up the order on the computer to mark it shipped when I realized that I had packed the wrong pair of bobby pins. Yikes. In my defense the order came in Christmas day and you know I wasn't in the proper frame of mind to distinguish a white pair from a white and ivory pair. I sighed and thought and came to the conclusion that I best just remake the accidentally shipped pair and get the right pair ready to ship. I suppose it could have been worse. I could have not noticed at all and then the customer would have contacted me all upset in a week. At least this way I was able to email the customer and let them know what had happened and that I would be shipping the right pair today. I also figured letting them keep the wrong pair would be much easier than asking then to ship it back.

Since that was all the tatting I got done I thought I'd show you the needle felting project I did on Christmas eve. Go ahead and mock if you must, it was my first ever attempt and wings in articular leave much to be desired. After I worked this up I used some of the left over roving to practice the concept some more and I believe I have it down now. Sure, I should have done that first, but hindsight and all that, right?

I tried to find more roving locally so I could play some more. I know I probably won't have much time for it, but I'd still like to have some around. Shockingly I could find none anywhere. I suppose I'll just have to suck it up and order some online if I ever want any. There are lots of kits on etsy and I might even try to trade for some.

In other news, we had all the nieces and nephews over for a sleepover last night. They still slumber upstairs. That's eight children between the ages of four and twelve so as you might imagine it took hours for them to finally fall asleep, chatting and laughing just loud enough to keep us from sleep as well. We'll cook them a big breakfast and then they play all morning while I get nothing done. I still have one kid's neck warmer to finish and that's the end of the family projects. I'll probably stall for a while trying to figure out the next side craft to tackle. I might get a couple of pieces remade for the shop or maybe I'll start plotting my new year projects. I feel so adrift without my schedule and no one was around to comment on my mask yesterday...uh oh, the whine is starting, I'm off.

Secret Project 2

We started off yesterday with a shopping trip to take advantage of some holiday clearance racks. We ended up going far more places than our original intent, but we returned home with awesome wrapping paper, new lights and more importantly yarn and buttons so I could crochet up some neck warmers for the girls. I spent the rest of yesterday making one for the youngest and today I will likely spend much of the day making the one for the oldest. I know it sounds like a lot of work, but I swear it's almost like a vacation for me. You, however have other things to see today.

Here it is, the last secret gift project. I'm particularly proud of this one, so a few oohs and awws would be much appreciated. The wonderful friend who was the recipient of this one had expressed an interest in the first Day Of The Dead mask I made which was not surprising given the collection of them she possesses. I thought about giving her the existing one, but since I had the thought early enough I had plenty of time to make it a side project and she really did deserve her own one of a kind piece.

The first thing that is unique to this piece is the eye shape. These ones are patterned after actual eye sockets, not the almond shape I use on all the other masks. This did present an interesting challenge as it changed the dimensions of the face dramatically. I couldn't work off the other masks, but rather had to make it up as I went. This meant more than one session of cutting out and starting over.

The other change is the center motif on the forehead. Changing that also caused a ripple effect on the rest of the design. I went a little lighter on the embellishments this time, concentrating on a few key areas rather than all over. I embroidered the entire edge of the piece and found some interesting filigree pieces to use. The triangles or hearts on the sides there are actually from one piece that I cut in half which was less fun than it sounds, but I knew I wanted them. Of course there are plenty of Swarovski crystals in black and red and then some black and silver embroidery to finish. All in all it was a few weeks worth of work after store tasks were done.

The next time I make one of these it will definitely be with the new eye shape as I think it really enhances the skull effect. When I might do that is a complete mystery though. As I mentioned I think I want to do something completely new first and all that is after my week of nothing much here at the end of the year. So to recap, more crochet for me today and the day ends with a sleep over of nieces and nephews so forgive any insanity I might spout tomorrow as a result of that.

Holy Bats

Morning world...unless you're reading this at another time of the day, then I suppose hello would be sufficient. I am pretty happy to be seeing the backside of Christmas today. Now, don't get me wrong, I love my family, I adore giving gifts, but the seemingly endless cleaning that begins at Thanksgiving, well, it's a pain I can do without.

As you can imagine there was little, if any tatting over the weekend, but I do have something to show you anyway. When we came back from Monterey, we almost immediately headed to a friends house for the evening and since my secret gift projects were amongst those exchanged, you may finally see them starting today. I'm showing you one today and the other tomorrow, you know to spread it out a bit. Today's was created for a fellow who may well be the single most talented artist we've ever met. You might be thinking, is that a bat? Why, yes, but not just any bat, it is the Batwoman symbol. I could go into why I felt this was a good thing to tat up for him, but instead I will go into who I have to thank for the design.

When I got the idea to make this, I immediately knew where to look for the structure needed for the wings. I think it was last Christmas I received a dragon form Anne for the Intatters exchange and I knew I could use the lessons taught there to make my bat. Sure, there was math to adjust angles and stitch counts. I dropped entire rows and I spent much longer than I care to admit on the head, but thanks must go to Anne for the perfect wings. Still I was afraid I had not captured the image I was going for, that is until it was opened and immediately recognized and I was very much relieved.

The husband and the oldest are both on vacation this week, so expect less progress from me in every regard...see this is why I'm doing two days of secret project reveals. I've also been trying my hand at a few other crafts, you know, as a vacation. So far, you've seen the crochet project and over the weekend I tried out needle felting. That still needs work, but it was pretty fun, so I might do some more. I might show that off too, just to be more entertaining and of course I need to start thinking on my year end thoughts and goals for the coming year since it's become something of a tradition on the blog for me. Maybe this week won't be a bore for you after all.