Two Colors & New

So yesterday mail was a partial success with the remaining books I ordered arriving. Of course again I was generally disappointed with the contents. There was another Coats and Clark book from the 40's. I have decided that the company had all of 40 patterns and just chopped and pasted them into different orders for all of their books adding only maybe one or two that hadn't been seen before. Still, it is nice to create a collection and since I avoid modern books like the plague, they will have to do. I also bought a lot of 4 books which were mostly filet crochet with one being a crochet and tatting book from 1916. Unfortunately the fairly thick booklet contained four whole tatting patterns, so basically a bust there too. While not as nice as having the actually books in my possession, I think I might just stick to the antique pattern library and my handy collections of pdfs for future inspiration...it's less disappointing.

I felt extreme relief yesterday to finally pack up all my custom orders including the two color slave bracelet you see above. See, it looks neat in two colors...I just wish it wasn't like tatting molasses to make them in two. I'm guessing it must be an easier process with a couple of shuttles, but no matter it is done now.

So I rummaged through my jewelry bits to find something to match with one of the new patterns I did get out of my books and found this large silver and glass pendant. Now, when I bought it quite some time ago the seller described it as Australian white fire opal. Sure, it's pretty and it has an opalescent quality, but this huge thing is most assuredly not opal. I bought it for a gift, then when I saw it I couldn't bring myself to giving it. Hell I'm not even sure it it is really silver as there is no marking. Anyway, it is lovely and I tatted it onto the new piece, added a silver plated chain to it and we have another one of a kind piece. I haven't listed it yet. I want to try and get one modeled photo first and then get it up today.

Then I'm back to remaking a few sold pieces that have been languishing in unlisted limbo. I also promised that there would be an anklet embellished with only bells soon and I got new ridiculously tiny drill bits so I can proceed with an elytra based collar at some point. I think that there is at least one more new piece to be pulled from these book pages, but you knows when it will arrive, so that's it for now.