Less Of This And A Bit Of That

I started the giveaway on the facebook page yesterday morning and it will run until Friday, if anyone over here is interested in an elytra tatted came pendant. You only need to comment on the giveaway thread to enter. After that was set up it was tatting and child schooling until noon when the first of the vintage tatting books I ordered arrived. I won't lie, I was a little disappointed. Don't get me wrong it was in superb condition only it was a giant repeat book. It was by Coats & Clark from 1942 and seemed to contain not just patterns from their other books, but exact page layouts as well. There were a few ones I hadn't seen though even those appear to be derivatives of other patterns I am familiar with. I did eye a couple of things I will twist to my own devices here soon. In fact I did make up one prototype piece that I might do a final of today.

Still no new thread or word on it either. I think perhaps I have been spoiled by excellent online shopping experiences. You know, where they constantly update you on the status and you are never in the dark. Yeah...I like that better than this sitting around wondering crap. I have however, ordered so much stuff lately that I might have actually forgotten about some of it myself. See, this is why I need status updates.

I am currently working on a custom ordered set of a slave bracelet and a Quadra. The customer asks about some different colors and I immediately offered up a two color option. Why do I do that? I mean, it was my idea...I always seem to forget that I dislike working with two colors. It is such a pain in the...well you know what it's a pain in. As long as I'm doing the rings in one color and the chains in another I can easily work with one thread on the ball and cut only the other, but that's still one enormously long thread getting all up in my face and tangling and whatnot. Then there is the inevitable point where I realize that the cut thread wasn't long enough and I have to cut and tie new ends meaning new thread ends to hide later. I know...if I hate it so much, why do I even bother? Well, 1) It looks cool and 2) I do it so infrequently as to forget my disdain between projects. Surely then I will remember for next time as I write this out...yeah, no. I'll do it again and I'll complain again, it is my way.

Hopefully, I'll have that one knocked out today and I can get to the finishing work on all my recent custom orders and they should all be in the mail tomorrow. Then I can play with my new patterns while I wait for the other books and the thread. I'm crossing my fingers that there is a gem in one of the books that inspires me to greatness, but either way at least it's something new...to me anyway.

One last bit for the day. One Book, One Twitter officially kicks off today and I jumped the gun a bit yesterday. I wanted to see if I could read and tat at the same time. Guess what? I can. Sure, it slows me down on both fronts, but it is possible. I managed the first three chapters while propping the book open with my remote control. I think they make little weight things for this purpose and I might pick one up. I used to be an avid reader, but between the children and reading kids books all day and tatting not being conducive to reading, I haven't read a novel in ages. If I can manage to do the two things at the same time, then I can claim nap time in the name of reading and getting work done. I also remembered why this book might not be, um appropriate for all audiences. I mean, I love it, but I can't fault anyone for being all, 'what the hell is this mess?' It is still in my opinion a wonderful book and superbly written, so again it's not too late to join in. Follow @1b1t2010 and use the hash tag #1b1t to participate. There is a discussion schedule up to avoid spoilers and it gives a generous eight weeks to complete the book...just saying. Now, that's it for me.

A bit of This And Less Of That

As I implied yesterday, I have no new tatting to show you...I am sorry about that. I did have hopes that one of the many vintage tatting booklets I ordered would arrive in the mail so I could play with a little something, but no.

I finished up one mask, made up a matching collar and then I got to start on a Power of Voodoo mask in the hand dyed purple thread. I'm not certain why, but I was plenty happy to just be finally making a mask with this color. So happy in fact that I might need to get a photo shoot done with it before I send it off so I can list it as a custom option. Yes, I love the purple thread that much...I might have issues.

I other news, I have finally gotten past 700 fans or "likes" as they're now calling them on facebook and while I'm beginning to very much doubt my presence there given recent privacy issues, I am still holding out hope that civility will win out. But I digress, the reason I bring that up is that a bit later on today, I will start another giveaway. This time the prize is a tatted cameo pendant with the beetle elytra center. I may also add a Love Insects pendant to the mix if the participation is high. The link to the facebook page is in the right column...yeah, over there. The giveaway will likely be open until Friday to give the most people a chance to throw their hat in the ring.

One book, One Twitter officially starts tomorrow and I feel compelled to share that Neil Gaiman is one of my very favorite authors. I have read most of his books, including Good Omens a ridiculous number of times and thankfully he also writes amazing children's books so I have an excuse to keep reading him even when I can't read for myself. No, I still haven't worked out how I'm going to fit in reading time to my schedule, but as with all things I take on, I'll make it work somehow.

So to recap, nothing new tatted, but there are books coming. 700 fans on facebook means a giveaway you might want to enter and get ready to perhaps hear way too much about a book I'm going to try to read with Twitter. That's it and I'll see you on the 'morrow.

One Book, One Twitter

It was a Spring weekend, the sun was out, the birds were singing, the urge to clean and renovate was entirely too strong to ignore. There was an impromptu out of town shopping trip that yielded $5 bookshelves, free comic book day and yard work. It was also one of those times Murphy warned you about when not one but several items were sold from my etsy store and all of them are custom meaning of course that my work is already laid out before my for the week...yes, the whole week.

So instead of talking about tatting I shall use this moment to tell you about One Book, One Twitter. You can read all about the origins of this social undertaking here on Wired. Basically it is a twitter wide book club...now I'm not usually one for book clubs for so many reasons, but when I caught wind of the event all the books in the running were ones I would actually read or re-read. So I followed @b1t2010 and started actually using the hash tag #1b1t to recruit a few people in my corner of twitter to join in. Now the book has been chosen, American Gods by Neil Gaiman which I will quite enjoy re-reading and the start date is set as 5-5-10.

So what I'm trying to say here is if you use the twitter and are fond of reading books like Gaiman's, join in. I'm not certain what sort of discourse will arise and as I haven't discussed a book with other people that wasn't found in a comic book store or the children's department in ages I'm not sure how much talking about it I'll do. It will be interesting to see how many people finally do join in and see what else this social media is good for.

As you can see from the articles I linked to, they are still hashing out all the details. It seems like it should be rather laid back and trust me the book is a fascinatingly quick read despite the sheer size. I find Gaiman's ability to weave a realistic world out of myth, reality and pure fiction to be utterly breathtaking. So that's my take on it and I'm off to tat my fingers off on these custom orders and I will start reading on Wednesday...hopefully.