I've been doing some tatting.

Since I haven't enough projects to work on, I've been doing some tatting in between tambour pieces.

It began with a Christmas present from my mother this past year-- my grandmother's tatting shuttle, which was given to her by her grandfather.  It came with this adorable box.

 After much reading, ordering books, perusing of tatting blogs, youtube tutorials and consultations with other online tatters, I took up the shuttle and began with a book that walked me through nine beginner tatting lessons.  The book, if anyone wants to find it, I purchased at Ben Franklin (now A.C. Moore in Richmond).  It is Learn To Tat by Janette Baker and comes with a DVD as well, although I found the book to be enough to learn by.  I also ordered The Complete Book of Tatting by Rebecca Jones, and Tatting with Visual Patterns by Mary Konior.  I started my first real tatting of a project last night, a re-creation of one of Irene Buckland's tatting samples, found in Piecework magazine May/June 2010.  The photo of the project is above, from the magazine.  I do wish the magazine project had the visual pattern instead of 21 steps of written instructions, but small details....

Here is my meager first attempt, and my very attractive, clashing Clover shuttles.  :-)  The thread is Lizbeth size 20.  Please excuse my beginner's uneven picots and wobbly joins!  For reference, the original of this pattern, which was tatted by Irene Buckland between 1923-1934, used size 60 cotton thread, well beyond my capabilities right now!

Now that I am totally hooked on this (you will be, too, if you try it!), I started a little collection of tatting shuttles.  The abalone one at the top I actually had for years in my jewelry box, having bought it at an antique show in Somerset, PA, from a dealer who told me it was old.  The ends meet and it is actually great to use, but I am afraid I will break the shell, so it is collection only.  The middle one with the pretty little house and tree I got on ebay.  The bottom black celluloid shuttle was from ebay as well.

And I had to find these as well, don't you know.  The top is a Boye with a bobbin insert, with a nice little pick for joining picots.  The left is a lovely larger shuttle made of wood that is wonderful to use even though I prefer a pick on it.  And the one on the right with the blue thread onion ring sample is a modern Aero, made in Germany.  It also has a pick and bobbin and is my favorite to use right now.  So, there you have it.  Another passion bowls me over and I need to figure out what I am going to ditch (or several hobbies I am ditching) because this is just too much fun and engaging to put down for something else, except for tambour.

Since I last posted we have had some other developments, like this fuzzy addition to our little family, a stray we found several weeks ago tied with a rope to the door of an out of the way veterinary office, which was closed for the weekend.  This dog was left with no water, no food, and in deplorable condition with rotten teeth, bones sticking out and a right eye with a big knob on it.  Naturally, being suckers for animals, we untied him, called the number on his tag (the persons on the other end of the phone disavowed all knowledge of him) and then took him home.  Several weeks later, he has had his shots, checkup, eye looked at (an old facial fracture that didn't heal properly-- makes me furious that someone didn't care about this sweet dog!!!), good food in his belly, and most importantly for his health, he had his teeth and gums cleaned.  His teeth pained him so much that he stopped eating after a week and a half with us and then after he became clear sick, we took him in for the teeth to be cleaned. Three days after the cleanup, he is a new boy.  I cannot believe what an incredible sweetheart this dog is.  He adores our cat, is housetrained, loves people and other dogs, loves to snuggle and is just all around good as gold.  My husband and I love him to pieces.  The name we gave him, that he is already learned, is Buddy.

Expect periodic cute Buddy photos from now on.  Here he is, in his bliss.  :-)

And of course he sleeps in our bed.  Where else?  This is day two-- settled right in.