Gone

Just as I supposed, I got very little done yesterday, but I did rush to get the newest necklace listed in the morning before I gave the day over to the whims of the birthday boy. I suppose it's a good thing because I woke up this morning to the sound of it selling to someone in France. So, not a same day, but close bloody enough for me. It's been a good, good week for the shop. Even though it's sold, I thought you might like a look at the finished piece, since it was just a tease yesterday. This leaves just the purple one on hand.

The rest of the day was devoted to family adventures. We went out to lunch and then to see Monster's University. After that the husband has computer stuff to play with and new video games. This was all followed by going out to dinner and then ice cream. It was a long, long day.

I get to spend today catching up and cleaning so we can have family over tomorrow. Also it's suppose to be like 107º so I'm not leaving the house after 11. I've got a special order to make just as soon as I get a little more information from the customer and one other sold piece to remake. That should keep the weekend nice and busy, just the way I like it.

Last One...For Now

Another action packed day. Well, I'm not certain you can use that phrase for a day with as much sitting as my days typically possess. I mean I do my best work sitting down. Standing whilst tatting is a tad more challenging than its worth really.

I started the day with weed pulling and planting seeds for the windowsill. The kids are always picking out new plants to try and they come in these little covered egg shaped containers like mini greenhouses so they have a pretty good chance at survival. After that it was errand running and listing the newest red necklace, which I'm happy to announce is already off to it's new home as well. Two days in a row, I sell something the day it's listed. I feel downright spoiled. Anyway, I rummaged through my findings and came up with enough copper bits to make another piece in green. Again I tried to make sure it was different than the others, but it's getting more difficult for me. Luckily this is the last one for awhile. Even if I do run across more of those center filigree pieces, I'll save them for another time.

Today is the husbands birthday and he's got many plans for the day. I'm going to try to get this necklace listed, but it's quite possible that I won't. In fact it's quite possible that I won't get any tatting done today at all. It's a good thing I got all those earrings made up yesterday as well or I'd feel neglectful. It should be a nice day though, out to lunch, the movies and whatever else he'd like. Of course it'll likely make for a boring blog post tomorrow. My apologies in advance, but I hope you day is nice as well.

In Red

Another lovely, busy day for me. I got the two new necklaces listed early in the morning and by evening one of them has already found a home. The other is listed here. The same day sale happens so infrequently that is a cause for great happiness. I am getting ahead of myself though. After I got those listed I went back to getting that replacement bracelet made up. Once it was done I got creative again.
I think I only have one or two of these center filigrees left so there won't be many more of these. They were part of a grab bag years ago so I'm not sure I could find more of them if I tried. I'm also almost out of any brass bits thought I think I might have enough copper ones left to make another.  Again, getting ahead of myself. This one was cebelia thread in cranberry. I'm trying to make each piece as individual as possible, so the center on this one is completely different that the others, well it's all completely different really.

I almost forgot that I wanted to also show you one of the reasons it takes me so long to get photos, the help. JiJi, the cat, seriously would not get away until he was forcibly removed. Then of course everything had to be inspected for cat hair...again.

I also got an order yesterday for several of my earrings. I'm guessing from the customers previous communication that I can expect most of them to be returned after being seen in person, but I just can't have them unlisted while I wait, so I'll be working on getting all of those remade and relisted. It shouldn't take too long and having backups once some of them return, never hurts. I'll also get the new red necklace up and if time permits, I've got some bits in antiqued silver that may become some new one offs. It's going be another long day.

Pretty Filligree Pieces

I buckled down and got to work yesterday. I spent the morning painting headbands black and then I followed that up with a giant sorting of grab bags. The last two I got remained all mixed up and I obsessively sort them into glass beads, natural stone beads, wood beads, and metal findings. The metal findings are my favorite. In fact I'm sorely tempted to get rid of some of the other stuff, but it's just so heavy that I'll likely let it turn into a mini hoard, like a dragons treasure.

After the sorting was, well, sorted, I moved onto making stuff. After the two small pendants, I decided that this time I would go for the bigger pieces. I started with some copper findings, the last I had in the hoard actually and used Lizbeth evergreen in size 20. I usually use 10, but 20 is easier to work with when you have to work around suck small spaces in the findings. It also looks much more delicate. I almost just put the piece on a copper chain, but the only one I had on hand was a bit clunky for it. I opted for the tatted chain and even gave myself he excuse to practice my split chain. I'm not quite rubbish with it, but it could be better.

This is the point in the day where I pulled out a different finding that I thought looked neat and tried to work around it. Now, it was rubbish and was quickly cut away as were two subsequent attempts. I just went back to what I knew would work after that, the same center finding, but in brass. I didn't have any similar bits in brass so I tried a couple of different side pieces before I settled on a simple daisy. I used Lizbeth in dark purple, which doesn't want to photograph accurately with my phone. I  had some tiny brass filigree bead that I added to the chains for this one. There were some changes I made on the center piece as well.

The plan is to get both these necklaces listed today and then I'm making up a spare bracelet because I've gotten word from a customer across the pond that the one they ordered hasn't arrived yet. There's still another week or so before it's been a month which is usually the outside of when they arrive. Sometimes it's a week, sometimes a month. I do wish the post was more consistent, but there's nothing I can do but prepare just in case I need to send a replacement. Then if I have the time I do have one more of those brass findings and some red stones I can add, so I might try to do up one more of these sort of necklaces. Then maybe I'll rummage through the findings again for more treasure so long as my motivation holds.

Boring

Another weekend, another mostly interest free recap. I really did mean to do something interesting this time, but I just didn't. Let's see, I did sell one of the new one off necklaces I made last week, so I fully intended to replace it with something, but I never got round to it. I blame the postal service. They said my thread would arrive on Friday, which it didn't. If it had arrived on Friday I would have finished the medallion order by Saturday morning and had plenty of time to muck around with whatever one of a kind pieces I wanted. Instead the thread arrived on Saturday afternoon, so I spent the rest of that day working on the medallions and most of Friday was wasted remaking barefoot sandals.

I also got an order for my cat ears which meant I needed to remake a pair of them as well. I ended up using the last black headband I had, so today I'll need to paint the other headbands black, so they're ready to go. I suppose I could have used just a bit of yesterday evening to make something new, but by that point I was just tired since the weather turned on Sunday and we were just so lazy most of the day.

So I guess today is painting headbands and hopefully making up a few new things to keep the momentum going and provide me with some pictures to share with you because I too, do not want to be boring.