- For Love of Tatting
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I don’t want anyone to think Paul is working for nothing. I am teaching him Yiddish Slang. This way he can shlep to Glasgow, get some gelt, maybe meet a Shikseh, and have a nosh.
I got my domain name through my server. But you can buy a domain name from lots of places like Go Daddy. WordPress is easier to use then Blogger and has more options. At least so far.
Tatting shuttles are one of the most complex needle work tools around. Knitting needles and crochet hooks are basically sticks with either a hook at the end or a point at the end. Even Bobbin Lace bobbins are just weighted sticks. They are primitive compared to the simple tatting shuttle.
A tatting shuttle holds thread. That is all it does. Shaped like an oval with a block inside so the thread can be wound. The outer material must go over the block and curve down so it just touches the opposite side. The ends must just touch. To tight and not only can’t the thread be unwound, but it will fray the thread. Too loose and the thread will unwind when the shuttle is allowed to drop, and untwist the thread. It must fit easily between the index and thumb of the right hand. It should hold a fair amount of thread. It shouldn’t be heavy or bulky.
Tatting shuttles can and have been made of almost any material. Wood, shells, metals, plastics. As long as the material can hold its shape. Old shuttles which show up on Ebay of ivory and heavily carved were never meant to be used. Tortoiseshell shuttles also show up. If you can get past the tortoises being boiled alive for their shells they are very pretty. ugh Most old shuttles are only good as collectors items, as the points no long touch. A sprung shuttle can’t be repaired. Once that tension is gone, it is gone forever.
Over the years I have collected some tatting shuttles. And I have tatted with most of them. My favorite shuttle is a inexpensive plastic shuttle from France. Costing a whooping $2.00
This post is mostly eye candy. Some of the shuttles were gifts from my Mom. Some are from tatting conventions I went to. The sparkly ones are made in Alaska. The fish shaped one, and the one with the carved openings are from India. Carved by children. If I had known, I would never had bought them.
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- Welcome
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First I would like to thank my dearest friend Paul aka Jasidog for helping me to set this up. While I run in tight circles yelling helppp. He goes “Suzann, push the green button.” Suzann? c-l-i-c-k t-h-e g-r-e-e-n b-u-t-t-o-n NOW An extremely patient man.
I have wanted to combine my tatting site and my knitting blog for a long time. There is more content to be added. But this is a start. You might notice some of the tatting pictures look a bit strange. When I created these web pages, the only way to get images onto your computer was to scan them. Yes they are that old. Those items I still have, I will take new pictures of.
I want to thank everyone who has encourage my efforts in knitting. You cheered me on, when I wanted to throw those 2.00mm at a dart board. Thank you all for being such good friends.
- Afghans For Afghans Socks
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I think this will be my last pair of socks for the current campaign. The yarn is Ella Rae Classic something. It runs like mad. Five washes before it ran clear. But the socks still seem nice and bright.Winging Worsted Weight Socks from Stitches of Violet. But I broke out of the box and did Fleegle’s short row heel.
I can’t tell you how proud I am of this heel. First short row heel that didn’t look like Swiss Cheese heel. It is dead easy. And that is saying a lot from someone who only likes to decreases.
Cast on 40 stitches. 1/3% of the 40 stitches for the ribbing. 2/3 of 40 stitches for the leg. Short row heel. 40 stitches for the foot and decrease away for the toe. Done and Done.
Dawn’s gloves. The glove pattern from Ann Budd’s Knitting Patterns. Very basic. Only one change. Instead of casting on two backward loops between the front and back of the finger. I kfb in the last stitch and kfb in the first stitch. I am doing this with two circs. I think it makes a neater join. A lot of cheek since I have never knitted a glove before.The yarn is Opal Lollipop purple something. The band is long gone. I am using 2.25 needles getting 10spi. Since I have so much yarn, I offered to match the fingers up yarn pattern wise. Dawn told me to get over it. She likes the weird effect. She has been looking at glove patterns at Ravelry.
This would have been much easier if I had some sportsweight yarn. Which I don’t, but I will soon. They fit so far and she likes them. What the heck else could a knitter ask for :-}
- Thats My Girl
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Dawn has been asking me for fingerless mitts to wear when she is out photographing in the cold weather. She picked out the yarn from my stash. Fearless Fibers Hendricks. A beautiful merino in shades of purple. It is hand wash, probably not a clever choice for gloves of mitts. And it is fingering weight. The pattern calls for DK or Sportsweight. The pattern is Spirogyra from the Spring Knitty. If this patterns looks familiar it is very like the Tidal Wave sock pattern. What I had were hands that were larger then the pattern, and yarn that was finer then the pattern. Nothing like a bit of a challenge, right? I swatched a bit. Adding one repeat was still too small, adding two repeats made it too large. Instead I added a stitch to each repeat. This gave me 8 extra stitches around. Perfecto. It also made each repeat two rows longer. Also good for Dawn’s larger hands. I cast on with the 3.25mm needles and did the ribbing with them. Then I switched to the 2.75mm for the rest of the mitt. This gave me a nicer fabric. The best part is they are done they fit and she loves them. I would like to give making gloves for her next. She always ends up having to buy mens gloves. And that is no fun at all. I think (hahaha) I can do fingers. We shall see.
- Great News
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I pestered anyone who had the Elann Puzzle yarn in their stash at Ravelry. I have no shame. I pleaded charity knitting, I begged, I threw freezing children into their minds. A wonderful lady LisaknitsinGAanswered me. She was glad to get rid of the yarn and I was glad to buy it. I have the yarn at hand now. I am going to frog the front down to the ribbing. Then add the new yarn so the front and back match. For the sleeves I think I will stick to just the blue on blue sock yarn. And I will be so glad to sew that puppy up. I have till Oct. to get it done.
In the mean time I have been knitting socks for the RavOlympics. These are also for A4A Youth push. Patons Classic Merino in the brightest colors I could find. I am using
stitchesofviolet sock generator. Works like a charm. It is based on a percentage system. Sort of like EZ. I cast on 40 stitches. 1/3 of the cast on amount for the ribbing then the remaining 2/3 for the leg. One third for the heel flap and the remaining 2/3 for the foot. This system will also work on adult socks in fingering weight yarn. The only thing I would do different for an adult sock is to make sure to measure for the heel flap and adjust the rows knitted for that. I knitted the heel flap on the kids socks a bit longer. If it is too large the sock will bunch up around the ankle. But if the heel flap is too short, the sock will pull under the foot and be uncomfortable and wear out more quickly.
The green pair are knit plain. Eye of The Partridge heel stitch, with a garter stitch edge. The toe is a bastard version of round toe. It took me a day to do each sock. But I am a really slow knitter. People are knocking out a pair in a day.
The Hot Pink sock (It is s truly eye blinding pink) is Garter Rib with the same heel as the green pair. I should finish this tonight and cast on for the second one.
Thank you everyone for you suggestions on fixing the sweater yarn debacle. I really appreciate it
- oh crap
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I finished the back of the garter knit sweater. As I said before I was using two strands of sock yarn with the Elann highland wool. The carry along yarns are a rather violent mix of yellow, blue, green and red. I am about half way up the front and took a good look at it. The two balls of sock yarn I have left are blue, green, red and white. No yellow. If I had look more closely I would have seen they were different color numbers. But I didn’t
As a result the front look much lighter and cooler then the back. I don’t know what to do. I don’t see much chance of finding anymore of the yarn with the yellow. I tried Elann and Ravelry, no luck. I could frog the back I guess. What do you think?
- Done de Done, Done
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I finished the Patons Upside-Downer sweater. This is the first time it has been sunny enough for pictures. There are many things about it I don’t like. Mostly to do with my lack of knitting skills. The pattern is dead easy. My increases do need work.
The next sweater is well on its way. This is Duo I didn’t have yarn that would work to the gauge, 4spi. But then Bets came to the rescue. She told me to beef up the yarn I had with sock yarn. This was pure genius. Awhile ago when Elann has the Sock It To Me Puzzle yarn on sale, my DH gave me two bags of it. It has been sleeping in the back of the closet. I dug it out. Two strands of sock yarn and one of Elann HW equal 4 spi for me. Happy dance all around. I tried the sock yarn trick with some HW Chunky, but it was more like body armor then a sweater and it came out too red white and blue. When the HW was on bag sale I got a bag of a lovely violet. Added to that is a sock yarn with red, yellow and blue. It sounds awful. But is knitting up like confetti. The sweater is done is garter stitch, so is thick and comfy. I have no idea why the picture is blue, but trust me it is much more violet. The back is almost finished now.
I am knitting the largest size and added a stitch on each side for seaming up.
The directions call for 4spi on size 7 needles. I am thinking you would need to be a really loose knitter to get that gauge with those needles. I am picturing someone with thicker yarn trying to knit is with those size sevens. And wondering what is wrong with them.
- Hello Out There
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It has been awhile, I know. Lets see I was a bit under the weather for awhile. The fires in the Great Dismal (which it isn’t) Swamp kept filling the air with smoke and the smell of wood burning. Not helpful if you are trying to recover from anything chest related. Not of course that it happened just to bother me. The fires in the Swamp and in North Carolina have mostly died down. But they are peat fires so they will be smoldering for awhile. I don’t live near the swamp, but people who do found brown bears in their back yards. Eagles and hawks and other critters escaping from the fires.
I knit a square for Benne’s blanket. The only thing I knew I could finish a garter stitch log cabin square. My daughter sewed in the ends and posted it off for me. Wonder child that she is.
The colors are so faded in this picture. They are really dark. Chocolate brown, Spiced Wine and Harvest something, Elann Highland Wool.
The other project I was working on was a shawl for the new mothers at the Cure Hospital. Afghans for Afghans. I started it, but then I just couldn’t work on it much. As it required more brain power then I had available. Elann Superwash Merino in Ruby. I frogged back to the Candle Flames and started the straight part again. It is now about half done. I have put it aside for now and will continue to work on it as I can. There is no way I could have met the deadline.
I saw that someone had done this with the Candle Flame shawl pattern at Ravelry. The body is simple Yo, K2tog. With the Candle flames at each end. I have one candle running up the edges on each side of the body. I reduced the size of the candles for the edging as the ones in the body looked to large for an edging.
I am now working of a top down raglan sweater for the Afghan for Afghans Youth project. This is a first for me. And you can see my raglan increases needed work. I considered frogging back to improve the increases. But I realized that I would miss another deadline if I kept frogging. When I die they are going to put Born To Frog in my tombstone :-}
The body color is a sort of denim blue, the cuffs are Elann Highland Wool in Ruby. I threw in some mosaic patterns in the body, more red and some golden color. I will repeat on the sleeves. The body in almost done. Then onto sleeveville.
My dishwasher broke, my mouse died and then the headset. I hope nothing else decides to throw itself on the sword.
- Happy Mother’s Day
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Happy Mothers Day To All the Moms out thereMy daughter took this picture of Zola and her cub Gramby. Zola had two cubs which was a real surprise to the zoo keepers at the Norfolk Zoo. I love how the picture captures the cubs attachment to his mother. I take pictures that record a thing exists. My daughter takes pictures that record the soul of a thing.
If you would like to see more of her lion and animal pictures please visit her divantart gallery Dawn’s Gallery
Mother’s Day is a little sad for me, because all the Moms are gone. But I remember my own mother with love and more then a small bit of laughter.
I hope everyone has a wonderful day! - Cause You Know You Want To
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It is time again for the Wee Tiny Sock swap. This is the most fun, the quickest and least expensive swap going. Make you tiny sock, stuff it in an envelope and mail it off. Soon one will be heading your way in return. So if you are slogging along with a big project, take a half hour out and have some fun!
Head over to Yarn Miracle for more information.
Thanks for the kind words on the socks. I got the call from Afghans for Afghans and they needed socks. I undid the round toe to make them a bit shorter and mailed them off. It must have been meant to be. Since they had been sitting in the bottom of my basket for almost a year.
