For a limited time/volume, Karen Bovard-Sayre/The ShuttleSmith is making available (soon) her sterling silver tatting shuttles.
The yellow sign in the first photo was ‘dusted-off’. It was my original banner/sign from the 1990’s when I was actively making my sterling silver tatting shuttles. (I taped-off the ‘sterling silver’ part when I recycled this sign for my Enameled Tatting Shuttles.)
So, the sterling silver shuttles shown in the first 2 photos from today are what I have available. Look for them in my Etsy shop (TheShuttleSmith) soon.
I just realized that I haven’t really updated my website with my ‘new life’ change—I MOVED from Omaha, NE/Council Bluffs, IA to Grand Junction, CO the very end of 2021 (Dec 28th to be precise).
The first several months were spent settling into our new home. This meant not only unpacking stuff but also painting, cleaning, working in the yard, etc. It turns out, we purchased a home that needed more work than we had thought. In July, I just finished painting the last room! We/had painted 3 bedrooms, the living and dining room (which was turned into my husband’s work-from-home office) before we moved in. Once here/in 2022 I finished painting the hallway (the worst room with 6 doorways!), the entryway, kitchen and sun room. We were without kitchen counters and kitchen sink for over 5 weeks due to Home Depot’s contractor messing up our new kitchen counter install. I am so thankful for a kitchen sink to this day.
What free time I did have was spent preparing for the first ever Tatting Cruise hosted by Tatting Corner in March. It was a blast! If you get a chance, do go in the future (next one is scheduled for November 2023). I shall plan to post more about that in upcoming blogs.
The next big event I prepped for was the IOLI (Lace) Convention in Phoenix, AZ area the end of July–July in Phoenix is quite hot! I vended and took one class. I debuted the first kit in my new business (Needle Lace Arts). More about that the Convention and Needle Lace Arts in future blogs too.
I spend about a quarter of my time/life traveling back to Nebraska to visit elderly parents either by train (Amtrak–my favorite) or plane.
In the future, I plan to introduce you all to this beautiful new region that I live in. I have enjoyed and been inspired by Jane Eborall’s photos of where she lives and have appreciated her willingness to share her home. So I plan to do the same.
I would also like to start video blogging about tatting related things. Stay tuned for more about that endeavor.
Any comments—contact me at: k.bovard@yahoo.com or call me at: 402–960-7370. Colorado is in Mountain time zone.
I’m finally getting around to posted links to the following two internet resources for two reasons: 1. Whenever I want to find these websites, I have to rediscover for myself what they are called, where the are. So I decided that if I posted it to my website, I would have a permanent place to go to find this information in one place; 2. These two sites are waaaay too wonderful to keep to myself. Everyone who enjoys tatting, lacemaking, needlework or fiber arts in general SHOULD know about these sites!
These 2 internet sites are libraries/repositories for books, articles, manuscripts, patents, periodicals, etc. that are in the Public Domain.
A work of authorship is in the “public domain” if it is no longer under copyright protection or if it failed to meet the requirements for copyright protection. Works in the public domain may be used freely without the permission of the former copyright owner.
Thus the following two websites (one called the Antique Pattern Library and the other called The Digital the Archive of Document Relate to Lace) house digital copies of publications in PDF format that can be downloaded by an individual for personal use only. I understand that one is not allowed to profit from these documents.
However, if you frequent either Etsy or Ebay, you will find people selling digital/PDF files (instant downloads) of books possibly acquired from one of these two sources.
It is my understanding though that if you own a physical copy of a public domain book, you could also create a digital copy (from scanning or photography) of it that would be your own property, allowing you to sell your copy.
The following image is a snip image of the homepage of the Antique Pattern Library. If you click on any of the topics in thered boxes on the homepage it will take you more directly to just those publications of the genre/topic that you are interested in. There’s a lot of topics, huh?!
The second internet site to find a large collection of lace public domain publications is housed/collected at the University of Arizona. The following link will take you directly to the ‘Digital Archive of Documents Related to Lace’ (as seen in the image below) but if you go back a level (to …./patterns/weaving) you will find another archive dedicated to publications related to weaving (not lace). I think that this site started as a weaving archive and then added the lace archive later.
The following image is a snip image of the homepage of the Digital Archive of Documents Related to Lace. If you click on any of the topics in blue texton this page it will take you more directly to just those types of publications that you might be interested in. I would recommend starting with the ‘books’ link.
This is a compilation of the 2 (or more)-thread Glass/Enameled Tatting Shuttles that I have made through the years. Since I cut them out, I can do whatever I want, including more holes/slits for more threads. These shuttles were made with a variety of enameling decorative styles.
If you are interested in having one custom-made for you contact me: k.bovard @yahoo.com or call: 402-960-7370. You choose the shape, colors, etc.
I am constantly trying to analyze how to get fiber arts such as tatting and other lacemaking techniques recognized as ART. Thus, I am starting a series of articles in which I explore various fiber artists and their work.
The artist that comes to my mind (immediately!) as who should be first to be highlighted is Agnes Herczeg. Agnes is a Hungarian artist who combines needle lace with small pieces of ‘found’ wood to create small but powerful pieces that can only be described as ART!
Please do take the time to explore the following links to see more images of her work as well as her work explained by various sites including The Metropolitan Museum in NYC. Look her up also by her name on FaceBook.
The artist kindly gave me permission to use some images from her website here in my blog.
http://www.agnesherczeg.com This is Agnes's personal webpage/site. Check out pieces for sale under 'SHOP'. Also view her pieces from the past under 'GALLERY'. Each one is amazing!!!
With Spring here and Summer just around the corner, I thought I would showcase some of my The ShuttleSmith’s Glass/Enameled Tatting Shuttles that feature bee and ladybug designs.
I don’t think that I have any of these styles for sale in my Etsy shop (TheShuttleSmith) currently but if you want one, I can custom make them for you–you choose the design, color, etc.
Contact me at: k.bovard@yahoo.com or call: 402-960-7370 (Mountain Time Zone)
Last year, I pulled out a unique thread from my collection, using it for a project other than tatting and was wondering what size/kind of thread it was. Then I notice that the label had either yards or meters per weight of the ball printed on it. This started my ‘Thread Size Comparison’ Quest that I continue to this day. This was the original chart that I was somehow able to create to show my quantitative/scientific analysis of thread size based upon length (yards or meters) per weight. I chose to illustrate my charts with YARDS per 50 GRAMS.
The above chart has 54 threads charted but on my current Excel spreadsheet I have 107 threads charted. Threads included are crochet cottons, perle/pearl cottons, and other threads commonly used in tatting. Some are now longer available, but were pulled out of my stash of threads that I have from 40+ years of tatting and buying threads.
My problem with showing the full-range of threads I have in my spreadsheet are that I don’t know how to graphically publish them–I’m fairly Excel ignorant. I can figure out how to put the threads and numbers (yards/50 grams) into my chart, but can’t figure out how to export them into a usable graph. Can anybody help me with that? If so contact me at: k.bovard@yahoo.com or call: 402-960-7370 (I’m in Mountain Time Zone).
It’s really interesting to see how threads that we use relate to thread sizes of other manufacturers. The 20’s are fairly consistent/in the same size range but the 80’s are statistically different size-wise.
I use this chart to determine unique threads/fibers I find in such places as high-end yarn shops (specifically Personal Threads in Omaha, NE). Just recently I found & bought a skein of Indian silk lace-weight thread that I’m going to use for a new fiber-art venture I’m working on: Teneriffe Lace (More to come on that project.) The label said the skein was 800 yards per 100 grams. Thus, the thread/yarn is in the 400 yards/50 grams range and is very similar to Lizbeth 20 (both are slightly on the thicker-side of the 20’s range).
When I was going through my own website(s) (yes, I have several!) I realized that my ‘Karen’s Keltic Tatting’ page had alot of views. Thus I started thinking about how I really haven’t showcased my form of Celtic Tatting here.
I call my version of Celtic Tatting: Karen’s Keltic Tatting. It is based off those ‘tattoo necklaces’ that were popular in the 90’s and are enjoying a comeback a little bit lately. I just did a Google search and found that you can buy a simple one from Spencer’s. (Spenser’s was my favorite store to shop in when I was growing up and lucky enough to get to go shopping at a mall in Omaha.)
Probably 10-15 years ago, I was looking at my tattoo necklace collection and realized that ‘it was tatting!’ and thus Karen’s Keltic Tatting was born!
Inspiration for creating this technique came from the ‘tattoo choker necklaces’ of the 90’s
An ‘attempt’ at a cross—the bottom, vertical staff is not long enough
I have more designs sketched out that need to be tatted up. This form of design work is alot more time-consuming than my Split Ring Tatting designs. These Karen’s Keltic Tattingdesigns require alot more ‘trial & error’ to get right.
There was a local quilt show here in Grand Junction, CO that I learned about and on the list of vendors was “Tied in Knots Tatting”. So I just HAD to go to meet this mystery (to me) tatter.
I WAS BLOWN AWAY by the creativity and large amount of tatting by Dianne Dayhoff from Debeque, Colorado. In addition to that, she was a lovely woman to talk to. She said that she doesn’t work from patterns. But she did admit that she looks at pieces and patterns on the internet and adds components of those designs into her tatting. She just starts to tat and ends up with beautiful work.
The other thing that I was interested in was her prices for her pieces. She asks for and gets a pretty good price for her work….closer to ‘ART’ prices than ‘Craft’ prices. Although not nearly enough for the time and talent she puts into each piece, it was certainly gratifying to see that her work was in the ‘art’ range. I thanked her for promoting tatting as an artform. She said that she prices her doilies at about $7 per square inch. A ca. 12 inch round doily was in the $100+ range (if I remember right). Even her earrings were priced minimally $18.
Dianne says that she vends at one craft show a month, most are in western Colorado close to her hometown of Debeque. The farthest she goes is Durango area because she has relatives/friend there for the excuse to go that far.
She uses beads in her work but just like me, hates them on here shuttle thread. All beads were added-in on joins.
Her work was varied: crosses, doilies, jewelry (she likes to incorporate costume jewelry she finds into her work as components), gift boxes, masks, ankle and wrist bands, etc.
We discussed ‘split rings’…..she does do them, but doesn’t like them (ARGH!) I’d like to hang out with her but Dianne says she is a very singular tatter and has no interest in joining a tatting club (that I would like to start!). I would like the chance to change her mind about split rings!
Dianne does have a FB page but says that she wants to disable it but doesn’t know how. She only sells at shows and lives a relatively ‘social media-free’ lifestyle.
Although don’t drink this stuff (I’m a bit of a beer-snob), I couldn’t help but see the connection to tatting in this advertisement. Anyone else see a tatting design?
