Sad

We had a bit of a tragedy around here yesterday morning. One of the two rats the oldest daughter just got as an early birthday present suddenly passed away. She was perfectly fine two days early, the day before she was being slightly lazier, but nothing alarming. Yesterday morning something was clearly wrong, but before the vet's office opened for us to call and make an appointment she died. The child was devastated and spent much of the rest of the day with the surviving rat on her shoulder to comfort both of them. Needless to say, that put a bit of a kink in the day, though we still had schooling to get done.

After lunch the household had settled down enough for me to at least get a little work done. I put together a cat ear headband since my last one on hand just sold. Then it was back to the new...old edging design. It bears less resemblance to it's inspiration now, but I still haven't gotten it all the way to choker length. I woke up to a small sale in my shop, so I'll be taking care of that before I get back to this. We also have another testing day today. She has two left today and tomorrow. It's safe to say that I am looking forward to next week when things are back to our usual schedule, but at least I'm managing to get some business and some creativity in.

Old

As predicted shuttling the oldest child to and from testing complicated the morning, but once afternoon was upon us I was able to sit down and work. I decided that if I couldn't come up with any new ideas that I would rely on some old ideas. I grabbed my stack of vintage and antique pattern books and started flipping through them for something to work with. I've done this countless times before, but this time I was going for something simple that I overlooked before. I thoroughly intended to make something as written just to relax and get tatting.

Of course that's not exactly how it happened. I chose an edging pattern in an Anna Valeire book. The pattern was hard to even read, but as it turns out I was going to muck with it anyway, so it mattered very little was the original pattern was. I tried once the way it appeared to be written and immediately decided to change a few things. This is the second version I made with some extra elements and stitch changes, but shortly after I took this picture, I scrapped it and tried a third version with further revisions. I shortened the top chains and lost some extraneous picots. I also enlarged the lower rings.

I'm really liking what I've come up with now, so it's on its way to becoming a choker I think. I was hoping for a bracelet, but the length doesn't look good for it. Maybe an anklet might work. I guess we'll see once I get a full length of it worked. So that's the plan for today. I'm also going to keep that stack of old books near so I have something to make when I need to.

Remaking

What a lovely day I had yesterday, all because I got an order in the morning. Schooling ran a little long and after lunch we had an online assembly to attend, so if was some time before I got to get to tatting, but then the rest of the afternoon was spent remaking the necklace that sold.

This one was based on another vintage pattern. It began life as the corner of a handkerchief edging. The first time I made it, I followed the pattern as written. By the time I finished it I knew it was going to need several major changes to work as a necklace. Of course all that was back when I made it the first time. This go round was just remaking and it went nice and smooth. I finished both this necklace and the book I was reading at about the same time.

Today is the first day of the school testing I mentioned yesterday, so I don't have much faith for free time. The testing site is on the opposite end of town, so it's no quick drop off and pick up either. Hopefully everything will go smoothly though and I'll get to tatting something when I get the time.

Better

Yep, I really needed that weekend. We did our normal adventuring, but we added in a nice evening with friends that we don't see nearly often enough. It was also this lovely friend that became the first to take home one of my Mermaid Tail necklaces. So that also meant I had one to make over the weekend as well.

It wasn't the only tatting I did either. I lazily tatted up some ears for a cat ear headband and I even attempted to doodle a bit though this session produced nothing worth note. I'm not sure how much of anything I'm going to get done this week though. It's testing week for the oldest child, but the youngest doesn't have to do it yet. That means I've got to ferry one and still get schooling done with the other three day this week. I have hope that something interesting and fruitful will happen this week.

The Tassel Is Done

Well, I did a little something yesterday. It wasn't much, but it was tatting related at least. As soon as schooling was over I made sure to put the new necklace together and got it up in my etsy shop. After that was done I didn't do much else creative. I really think I have hit a bit of a creative funk. I know that I shouldn't require positive feedback, or any feedback at all really, to create, but when sales have slowed to almost nonexistent and comments are few and far between, I get a little maudlin. This isn't the first time and it certainly won't be the last time I'm here emotionally, but that doesn't seem to make it any easier to push through this nonsense. Oh well, there's really nothing for it until the Universe decides to intervene or I just snap out of it on my own.

As you probably guessed, I have no projects in queue and no new ideas currently. Here's to the weekend pulling me out of the funk...or at the very least distracting me from it for a couple of days.