Progress

We're nearing the end of the semester for the kids schooling and that means semester reviews and long tests. Add in my normal household nonsense like dishes and laundry and what I'm left with is precious little time for anything else. I managed maybe a chapter of reading while they worked, but I got only a couple of interrupted hours to work on any tatting. I did get another design problem solved though. The top edge there holds the pieces together nicely and it sits on my neck well, so far. I still have to do this on the second side of the piece before I will know for certain though.

After that I have one more design challenge and that's the end of the piece. I don't think there's enough room to do another full motif on either side, but it's all too short as it is, so I need to design something else to finish the piece. It's always easier with small necklaces that I can just slap a Josephine chain on, but this is a bit of a beast in size. I haven't come up with any ideas yet, so if I get any tatting time today, it might all be just thinking about what might work. Even if I do figure it out and get it made, I will likely make a second piece before I try to put it up in the shop. I've worked on this off and on for so long I've lost the perspective I need for pricing. I need to know how long it takes to make when I'm not dragging my heels and working on designing elements. At least it's starting to feel like a real necklace, so I'm calling yesterday progress.

Bigger

We adventured just a bit yesterday like I thought we would, we also caught up with some television and movie watching, so I did indeed get some time to work on the necklace. I do feel kind of silly calling it that though. It still seems so far from being something real at this point. I'm fairly certain that it will be huge when I do finish it though.

This go round I worked out the sides just a bit more. I still want to add a small bit connecting the newest section to the center. I think I know what I'm going to try, I'm just not sure that it will work. The shape is harder to control when the pieces are this big.

We're back to schooling again today, so once we're done with that I'll play some more with this. I also really need to get back to remaking sold pieces. I haven't done it in a while, not that there have been a ton of them, but still. I've been hesitant because I'm running out of some supplies. With so very few sales coming in still, I'm afraid to order anything. I'll probably start cannibalizing findings off pieces that aren't selling before I break down to order more. Well, at least it'll keep me busy.

Sigh

I got to start off this morning one of my least favorite ways, cancelling a large order in my etsy shop because it came from Italy. Oh, how I wish that I etsy had a tool to exclude a single country from purchasing from our shops. I'm certain that I've mentioned this before, but Italy has extremely restrictive customs regulations protecting its native industries. So if Italy is known for making something, you cannot ship that thing made somewhere else into the country, this of course includes lace, but also shoes, hats, leather goods...it's madness. Anyway, I occasionally will get an order from someone there who did not read my policies stating I can't ship to Italy, so then I spent twenty minutes, refunding, cancelling and explaining their own country's restrictions. Oh well, there's really nothing for it.

I didn't do much of anything over the weekend. Well I did finish the cowl I was knitting and then I knit up some boot cuffs, because I can no longer not be knitting apparently. Oh, and I did get one thing sussed out on the new tatting project. The little section I was trying to fill between the motifs got filled. I tried so hard to work something up separately from the piece, but in the end I just had to work right on it to find the right flow. I think I know what's coming next on it, but I won't know for sure until I get another motif tatted up and they are not quick little pieces.

It's a school and work holiday in our house, so I'm not sure I'll get round to much tatting. When everyone is home and bored, we tend to go adventuring, but if I get anything at all done, you'll hear about it tomorrow. Here's hoping I get a nice order in the shop today to make up for the one I had to turn away this morning. Either way I should be back to lace making tomorrow.

Sigh

I was really bad yesterday, I didn't pick up my tatting needle at all. I'm going to go ahead and just blame the kids though. Well, not them exactly, but we did have a school outing to go bowling and it did take up a rather large chunk of the afternoon. Since the morning already belongs to them for schooling, I figure it's safe to lay the blame there.

Of course that's mostly bull, I found myself enough time to finish the book I've been reading. I even went to download the next one in the series, but discovered it was half the cost to just buy the paperback, so I ordered that instead. I probably needed a bit of a break from reading anyway so waiting a couple of days for it to arrive sounded liked a good plan. I also found some time to knit. The yarn I'm using is really thin, so there is a lot more of it than I anticipated left in the skein. I really have no idea when I'll run out, so I could be knitting this for another week or so. At least I know I'll have something cozy for my neck when it's done.

With my book finished I should be able to tat a little without too many excuses. Though I did make a mistake yesterday that is playing on my confidence. Someone linked me to something tatted they saw on pintrest, likely just amazed they'd run across something like that. My mistake was to continue browsing though the pins of tatting. I feel like a complete designing failure compared to so many of those creations. I am just lazy, uninteresting, and plain unskilled. I'm not certain what I'm going to do with these new found inadequacies, but I expect me to be more maudlin than usual, at least for a while. My apologies in advance.

Nope

I was far more focused on reading yesterday than anything else. I feel I must've gotten to the meat of the story because I find myself reading at really odd times, a page or two here and there along with the more sustained periods throughout the day. The side effect of this is that I'm giving myself very little time to do anything else. I am trying to knit while I read, which is fine on the knit rows, not so much on the pattern rows where I need to pay attention and count. Doesn't mean I'm not still trying to do it though. I feel like I have to keep productive when I'm reading.

I did carve out a few minutes to try out a new bit for the tatted necklace. Honestly, I hate it. Not at all what I was going for in the end. I mean I started out okay, trying to maintain the motif for the new bit, but the shape is ridiculous. I was so frustrated with my utter miscalculation, that I just put it down and picked up my book again. I need to come at it from a new direction, so that's the plan for today. I'll think harder on the shape I'm trying to create and hopefully I won't get too distracted by reading or knitting to actually come up with something useful. I won't put any money on it though.