For all you ornithologists (aka ‘bird-watchers’) and others out there….Does anyone throw their thread ends/bit outside for the birds to use in their nesting activities????
Somewhere/sometime I got the idea that birds are attracted to colorful things and when looking for soft nesting materials would go fo threads to add to their nest.
Any ideas about this subject? Anyone else throw their thread bit/ends outside with the hope that birds will enjoy them too?
This are the bits of threads that I pulled out of my tatting pouch that have accumulated for the last several weeks. You can see my preferences for colors. Lately I have been working with 3 of my favoritest colors: teal/sapphire, orange, and yellow.
Frontside of my prototype Celtic shuttle. Measures 2 1.2 long x a little over 1/4 inch wide.
I was wondering if anyone who does a fair bit of Celtic-Tatting (the kind where a thin shuttle is used to pass through small loops) would be interested in assessing the usefulness of my enameled Celtic Shuttle???!
Leave me a message in my ‘comments section’ of email me at: k.bovard@yahoo.com
Me & my newly completed Quilt-Inspired SRT motif “Perpetual Motion”. On my hotel patio with Virginia Beach in the background. It was a rainy day—perfect for tatting (while my husband napped).On a sunny day husband (Jerry) & I took a day-trip to the Outer Banks where we saw this lighthouse.
This last weekend I had the joy of going to a Lace-In/Retreat/Workshop in Concordia, Kansas (a 3 hour drive from my home of Omaha, Nebraska). One of the joys of going is the car ride with friends to get there and back, it being a great time to ‘catch up’. This time I traveled with my lovely friend, Jennifer Bartling (seen as the left-most person in the group of 4-ladies picture).
It is hosted by The Sunflower Lacers and includes Lacemakers from all over Kansas, plus a few of us from Nebraska and Iowa. At least 4 states were represented this weekend. There were 30 lacemakers there working on bobbin lace, tatting, Romanian Point Lace and beading projects.
Russian Tape Lace (Bobbin Lace) class project in progressHallway of the retreat center that used to be a hospital. (Note the tile floor.)Retreat center sleeping room that used to be a hospital room
The retreat center is wonderful and unique. It is called the Manna house and is run and operated by the Sisters of St. Joseph, a nun sect that has its historical roots as lacemaker in France (centuries ago). The Sunflower Lacers found this place because the sisters had an interest in revisiting/learning bobbin lacemaking as a part of their heritage. Ronna Robertson, the president, founder of Sunflower Lacers helped the sisters revive this heritage of their sect and now The Sunflower Lacers have a lovely place to have a retreat for a weekend. The building is an old hospital. The interior views of the rooms and hallways are reminiscent of that bygone era. (See other photos). We each had a private room that was beautifully decorated with matching sheets, bed covers, and curtains as well as antique furniture and old linens.
The retreat/workshop is wonderfully organized. There is always a class/workshop for bobbin lacers. This time the project was Russian tape Lace in a paisley shape. Saturday morning we could choose between learning how to crochet the tape for Romanian Point Lace, create beaded bobbins or a scissor-keep, or work on our own projects. There was a table full of food goodies such as chocolate. I think I ate my weight in chocolate that day.
Esther Miller and Serena ?—the Des Moines, Iowa Tatting representatives. I’ve known Esther for decades….she is almost ‘tatting royalty’. She is good friends with Pam Palmer, the renowned tatting designer and author from England. These two ladies knew and tatted with Mary Sue Kuhn, a major figure in tatting history for being the first designer/author to make Split Ring Tatting Technique usable (since Anne Orr published the technique) by creating patterns and a book. Mary Sue is the one who named the technique ‘Split Ring Tatting’.The 3 ladies on the left are part of the 5-person Omaha, Nebraska tatter/lacemaker group at the retreat. The gal on the right is Susan Groh from Kansas City…our lacemaking supply supplier for the weekend. These ladies are creating beaded decorations for bobbin lace bobbins.Manna House Retreat Center in Concordia, KansasWe had one big conference room where ‘lacing’ took place. This photo shoe the bobbin lace class in action. They were learning/working on Russian Tape Lace.Madame President–Shemene & Gail (from Omaha) working on bobbin lace projects. In the back you can see the area of the room that the ‘tatters’ and the ‘needlelacers’ hung out in. Shemene is the IOLI President this year.This is a photo of the Saturday morning workshop. The topic was learning to crochet the tape for the Romanian Point Lace classe that will be taught/done at the Fall Lace-In. The two RPL pieces are mine and are ones that I purchased in Budapest, Hungary on my honeymoon trip in Sept of 2013. Romanian Point Lace is one of the needlelaces that I teach and study.This is my ‘Sienna Square’ Quilt-Inspired SRT piece that I completed (the tatting!) while there. This is a photo of the newly-done piece on my lap, threads ends awaiting finishing. I think this will be my cover photo on one my 2 ‘Quilt-Inspired Fun with Split Ring Tatting’ books that I am planning to have published by this summer.Anybody else see a tatting pattern in this tile work???? One of the floors of the hallway of the retreat center that used to be a hospital.2 books that I won as door prizes at the retreat. One of the former members was downsizing her collection to go into a nursing home and donated them to the retreat.
First Ever-2015 Easter Egg Enameled Tatting Shuttle!!!Backside
I made this Easter Egg-shaped glass-enameled/copper tatting shuttle recently.
Now it needs a home for Easter (nothing like the last minute!)
Price $30 includes free shipping to US address
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I have sooooooo much tatting stuff in my studio that I have done through the 20+ years I have been active in tatting, a local tatting club and teaching nationally. Here are another items that I ‘found’ while cleaning/searching for something else.
The bottom item is a bunch of doodles I made that could be used on notecards, with tatted rings/bits added to. I compiled these doodles to give (myself) ideas as to how I could quickly use my left-over tatted rings for fun projects (you know: the rings you make from the leftover thread on a shuttle to ‘clean’ it out). Keep in mind that I do not consider myself an artist, thus these little drawings were references for me to use for that purpose. It actually started with my local tatting club (The ShuttleBugs of Omaha)….whenever we used to to demos at events, one of the members had notecards stamped with little designs similar to the ones in the picture. Club members donated to the cause tatted rings (using up leftover thread from our shuttles). We allowed the public to choose rings and glue them onto the notecards. Everyone just loved it!!!!! Maybe we didn’t get any new tatters from the process, but we did share the beauty & appreciation of tatting.
The 2 items at the top of the picture are ceramic/resin buttons that resemble vases that I bought sometime in the past. I thought that I could use them to add my tatted ‘flowers’ and create something. (I never did use them and thus they ended up in my drawer, one of them broken along the way).
I should scan in the drawings and share them on my website. I shall have to put it on my ‘to do’ list. Keep in mind my ‘to do’ list is quite long—if you are interested, send me a note (either here as a comment or email me at k.bovard@yahoo.com) and that could spur me to bump it towards the top of the list.
My collection of homemade & purchased picot guages
This weekend, on my list of things ‘to do’, was the task of creating my 2014 business accounting ledger for income tax filing purposes. My MO is to put all receipts into a folder and then in the new year, try to make sense of the receipts and create an appropriate business account. Somehow along the way, I decided to put the ‘2014 reciept folder’ in a SAFE place (ie. hidden somewhere stupid) and that was why I spent a large amount of time looking for the folder on Sunday. Along the way I found a very messy drawer of my tatting/lacemaking treasures and started to clean an in the process I found these items in the picture. They constitute my collection of handmade and purchased picot gauges. In addition there are two homemade (by me) thread winders. I don’t remember what the ‘C-shaped’ apparatus is for, even though I made it!!!
This item is a set of 3 picot gauges created and sold by Daniel Rusch Fisher (quite a long time ago). They consist of a sheet of clear, fairly thin plastic with the gauges printed on the plastic in various sizes. To use them, one would have to carefully cut out each piece along each picot size step.
The reason they were in my drawer all these years is that I do NOT use picot gauges. For some strange reason at some point I decided to buy and make these ‘just for grins’.
Please consider joining me at the IOLI Convention in Iowa City, Iowa this coming summer.
This is the second post about the class I will be teaching entitled PEARL TATTING
In addition to learning about the basic of pearl tatting (both rings & chain) and other decorative stitch combination you will learn a totally new form of tatting technique originated by by me that I call “Layered Pearl Tatting”.
The second half of class time we will focus on the “Grand Project” in which we will bring many of the Pearl Tatting Techniques together to create a multiple thread-source pouch. Students will have the choice as to how much of a challenge in tatting they want to tackle.
I understand that there has been alot of interest in this multi-shuttle/thread source pouch. This is your chance to learn it.
I love advanced tatting techniques, and this class is truly innovative!
