Busy Busy Days

Boy oh boy, it's been a hectic few days. Last week I was running around town doing errands for my parents, and I didn't sleep Friday night so I could wake them up in time for my dad to leave for the airport at 3:30 in the morning, and Saturday and Sunday it was essentially just regrouping for me and my mom--you know, holding down the fort n' all.

Anywho, I've started and finished a few projects:

1. still trying to make more "real" bobbins:

   Don't they look smart? I whittled the tips down to points and glued beads on them. It was what kept me up while my dad went to the ER (long story better suited to another blog).

Here you see them in action:

I was pretty proud of myself--but then pride always comes before the fall right?


There is now one left. The friggidy frackin' beads kept falling off. Grrr.

C'est la vie...

Also, I've been tatting away. I'm retatting Anna's Doily and here's a general summary of my progress:




So, I'm using Omega cotton crochet thread, size 30. This is the second version of this doily, which I'm also using to refine the pattern.

I will soon post before and after shots so you guys can see the differences =D

Also, I've been working on Evelyn's doily, and started work on a new doily (mat?) which, up to this point, decided to dub: the Flow Doily.


I had some rather... irritating problems with the first round of the Flow Doily. I wonder if you can see what it was...






I tried to figure out what went wrong, but I didn't pin it down until after I started and finished version 2.0 of the first round. What I did, was essentially make it in two parts that I joined together at the center.



And I must say that I rather liked the effect.

 Anywho, that's as far as I've gotten on Flow.

The thing that Flow did for me though, was made me remember something that I saw on YouTube, about starting from a chain instead of a ring. I then realized that it was the way I had started the previous time (from a ring, with the chain coming out from the center) that had left no room for the last chain of the round to join.

So, then comes the redo of the first round of Evelyn's doily. I wanted to retat it, testing and such, and I did--and I will soon post pictures of how it turned out =D

^_^

P.S. My dad took the camera with him to the states, so the reason these pictures are so fuzzy is because I took them with the camera on my phone, which I've had for about... 6 years.

***

So, he got there alright!! Yay =) Thanks everybody.

***

Hey, so my dad went to the airport today. If you guys have any prayers for safe travel that you'd be willing to send our way I'd really appreciate it. He's been having some medical problems, and a little extra oomph wouldn't hurt =)

Thanks!

^_^

VICTORY!!!!!

So, a few months ago, I found this nifty video on YouTube that told me how to turn sharp corners in bobbin lace, and it was sooo cool because I hadn't seen how to do this before.

Then, I forget about it.

Last week, I remembered it, yet I couldn't think of the name. I could've sworn it was "double stitch" or "punto doble" or something along those lines--> see, because I was being honest with myself and admitting the fact that sometimes if I read something in Spanish, I remember that it was in English even though it was in Spanish. Also, I remembered thinking: Huh, I haven't heard of that before. What is it? 

So yesterday, I'm scouring YouTube for forever and a day--and nothing. I can't find the friggidy frackin' son of a biscuit video anywhere.

And it's driving me crazy. 

I can't find it, therefore I can't get it out of my head. 

So, today, I was all: screw it I'm gonna google it, and may be that'll give me better results. 

An hour later, I am proud to present to you: 

THE BACK STITCH!  (So I was a little off, whatever...)

^_^

This makes me feel better about yesterday's tragedy. 

He Ate It

My dog, Pugsley, ate it:

The wind blew it off my desk while I was sticking some other pieces into my binder, and I didn't notice until I heard an ominous smack smack smack! 

It was completely pulled out of shape. I couldn't fix it =( May it rest in peace.

This is Pugsley's second victim, possibly third. For those of you who do not remember: last year, there was an incident, and before that, another, though I have no evidence to prove that last one =(.

(;_;)

Hehe...

So, as you may have noticed... certain pictures on a certain blog are not always exactly as clear as one would expect them to be...

Until now.

Apparently... there's a "setting" in the "menu" (yes, I did put quotes around that) that controls the "sharpness" of your images... I knew that.

This came in especially useful yesterday. We had some friends come over and I was entertaining their 6 year old little boy, trying to teach him bobbin lace. He liked putting the pins in, but not so much the bobbin and thread part.

Anywho, he says that he wants to use some of this sea foam green type color of tatting thread that I had and I'm like... alright. So I start whipping up a stripe of cloth stitch, and yada yada yada.

My point is, that after they left, I still had a bunch of thread left on the bobbins, so I was like what the heck and decided to do a few practices.

I present to you what I hope is the precursor to many a successful tape-type lace projects:

 To my left you see the finished product, photo taken post aforementioned sharpness epiphany. On the right side, from the half stitches down, is what I did while the little dude was here. The rest was when I got bored around midnight and was trying to come up with a good reason to go to bed.
As I write this, I have yet to take it off the pillow, but I do hope it stays together... oh, here's the link I used to figure out how to make the bars (I think I'm in love with Google Translate, and I'm learning Italian! >_<). This lady has some good tutorials on what I'm assuming is Cantu lace, but I'm not sure since I have yet to find where she actually specifies which type of lace it is--but oh well, it's all in Italian so it's probably staring me in the face and I don't understand it haha ={)




Here, you see this lovely piece of lace in progress:
This time, the fuzziness is not due to my poor photography skills, buuut to the fact that I took the pics with my phone since I was too lazy to go downstairs and find my camera.

Ditto.








So I have now, finally, after such an agonizingly long wait--RELEASED THE BEAST!!!!

I was a little worried that it might just fall apart on my and completely lose it's shape--but no =D =D

I'm happy ^_^

*insert clever line here*

So, I've had a messed up weekend--I won't go into it, since it's more than just a pain in the biscuits and this is a happy blog --> so on with the happiness:

I have been a busy little tatting bee. Aside from the previous white doily I posted, I have also been working on one for my sister over in sunny California =D BEHOLD!!!:

Though this is an authentic handmade 2012 Karla Barraza tatted doily-thingamabobber --> the picture is fuzzy.

*sigh* yes, I know. I'm still working out the kinks in my camera--so bear with me =D

Anywho, here it's at 4 rounds. I'm thinking of adding some on, but I'm not sure about the time frame since my dad's going to Cali to see her in about a week and a half =S And I's gots schools and stuff... hmph.


Also, a few nights ago, I got it into my head that it would be a fantastic idea to look up how to do sewings in bobbin lace.

My only problem is that I know diddly squat about sewings... now wait, correction:

I don't even know diddly squat about sewings.

So, here I am, in the middle of a real thinker... how can I practice sewings... if I don't even know how to do them????

Funny thing: there's such a thing as google O.O

You: NO. WAY.

Me: Right?

Eventually after about two seconds of massive googling effort, I find this nifty link to a bobbin lace wiki       >_<       So, I gave it a shot, and the result was that charming yellow-red rectangle you see above. I didn't really like the method a whole lot, and you can see where I tried doing the sewing with a passive pair instead of a worker--but hey, that's what practices are for, right?

Neeext, I remembered a certain video I saw on YouTube, and even though that was for bars, I figured I'd try it out and I found the I liked it a lot better (for this practice, anyway) than the other method aaaaaaaaaaand that's what I did on the skinny practice. Pretty neat, huh?

I was kinda worried about the space left between the pieces, though, but I asked around on the forum on laceIOLI, and it seems to be normal, so........... yeah. Also, the subject is apparently more complicated than I had previous thought. Therefore, now I just have to find the time to do all those fancy practices =D =D =D

Also, on Saturday I got a little bored.... Does anyone remember when I was convinced that I was going to whittle out an entire set of bobbins? If not, do see here.

Aaaannnyywho, I got bored, right? So, of course, the typical happens:

I cranked out four of those bad boys until I remembered that I like to be able to move my fingers without wincing. They are pretty neat, though =D 

^_^ 

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hey! Check out the new look =D Pretty sweet huh? Got it off of: http://thecutestblogontheblock.com/

Tipsy tips =D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLxMMDEx4KM&feature=g-all-u

So, I found this super nifty way of figuring out which size thread to use. Superdeeduper simple!

It's in Spanish, but the great thing is that there's such a thing as Google translate! ^_^

Yay =)

So, today, I received a rather pleasant surprise.

Firstly, my dad is visiting some family next week, and knowing that he was going I decided to make a few things for some of my relatives--given that I haven't seen them in a while.

Soooo.... I start tatting away like I was getting paid for it and I came up with this funky looking (but still totally kick ass--whoops, I mean ash, kick ash) 2-round doily--which is as far as I got for the following reason:

The little piece of biscuit wouldn't lie flat.

So there I am--having put so much hope that this little doily would make it, that it would live to serve its puprose... and no matter what I freaking do, it wouldn't lie flat.

Anywho, that was about.... a week and a half ago. Since then, I'd stored it in between the pages of this big notepad that I had, and kind of forgot about it.

And guess what? I go after it today, fully intending to re-tat that last round (which was the source of all of my mind blowing misery) and find that AT FRIGGIDY FRACKIN' LAST!

She lies flat! (no pun intended):

You can't tell that well in the picture, but it's flat. I'm telling you, it's friggidy frackin' flat.









Muahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
That literally made my morning =D =D


^_^

Leafy leaf =D

So, I forgot to add this in my previous update:

I decided to take a shot at a little free form lace, and tried out this bad boy from The Lace Guild: http://www.laceguild.demon.co.uk/ylm/versInstr.html

I think I made the pricking a wee bit to big, but here check it ooooooooooouuut:

So, as you can see here, this is the pricking, it's about 9cm x 3cm and you can see me trying to get fancy with the sharpie =D

I don't have a cookie pillow (but am in the works to make one!), but I know that sometimes part lace is worked on a bolster (albeit a bigger one) so I pinned it to Camille and went on my merry way =D

 Here, I'm almost halfway through and have added all the bobbins I need to add--adding bobbins is weird! It took me a while to get used to it. It was kinda fun working this. I thought it would be harder, but it was freeing in away, not having to stick to a grid. =D =D

Voila! She is finished! At first, I was worried that the gap in the middle wouldn't work, but it did! Though, you can't see the gap in the stitches at the edges as well as I'd like =(

Muahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!! VICTORY!


I give you my very first piece of part lace (even though it doesn't have any parts aside from the one). Nifty, idn't?



^_^

Reality Checks are a B****

Soooo... this one's been a long time coming, as you may have noticed, progress on a certain masterpiece has been a bit... let's say "delayed".

I know I've been really freaking busy with school, but these past few weeks I've come to understand that there was also another aspect to take into consideration.

For those of you who have read "the backstory" <--- (subtle hint to go read it if you haven't), you will know what I mean when I say that I am really freaking blind--not legally blind, but I couldn't see biscuits on fire at night if you had a spotlight on 'em. (fyi, I'm trying not to swear, so from now on, if I say "biscuits" or "friggidy frack" it stands for something else.... 0.o)

Anywho, my point is that I am really friggidy frackin' blind, and I only just turned 18!

Now, here's the thing, I kinda need my eyes to work for a little while longer until I can afford to get them fixed, so... I've decided not to focus primarily on needle lace anymore--maybe not even do it at all.

I've been avoiding working on my projects because I get headaches under artificial light because of the detail and don't have a lot of daylight to lace away because of school =(. I'll still do a little every once in a while--but I wanna major in CompSci, so there's already gonna be a lot of strain on my peepers!

It's with a heavy heart that I say all this--but the good news is that tatting is friggidy frackin awesome, and so's bobbin lace!

^_^

Here's the last piece of needle lace I made. It's small, about 3cm across, and it was a practice with wheels so I kept the design simple:

So me's made a boo-boo =8)--but I won't tell you were it is =P muahahahahahahaha

Anywho, it's this really pretty blue/purple color that doesn't show that well on the camera, and I used gutermann size 50 polyester--insert cringe by pro-lacemaker people.

I also must announce that I have a new favorite thread brand. I used to favor gutermann because they had the thinnest size around these here parts (yes, I just said that. I'm feeling a little western, so sue me.) buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut I ran into a little brand called Duets--ring any bells anyone??? It's still polyester, though, but it's not as wiry and it's the right thickness.

However, as I am no longer a needle lace major, I shall use it with my bobbinery and such.

I also must let you in on a little secret... I have a problem (yes, another one), one that involves me liking to make my life miserable by trying to run before I can walk. Soooo... I may have started designing my own tatting patterns and trying to make enormous doilies... I must say, you tatters out there have a lot of patience. I cringe every time I make a mistake and have to undo my stitches, and I nearly cried the last time.

I have pics though! and I'll post patterns as soon as I test tat them =D =D

^_^