I just thought I would share some thread antique thread cabinets that I found in an antique store in my hometown of Wisner, Nebraska (population ca. 1200 people). The local antique dealer has a great gig going on because many of the locals (mostly farmers) let him go into their homes and barns to ‘pick’ (think ‘cherry-pick’) their antiques. My own family is one of them that ‘invited’ him into our lives to rid of us of our ‘junk’ that he turns into ‘antiques’.

I was passing through town recently to or from visiting my family/parents and stopped in to find these beauties. I haven’t bought one yet. I’m still waiting for the perfect one from a thread company that I know and love.

I have been taking inventory of my thread stash & have a bunch of patterns ready, HOPING that I will get quarantined! However, it is just wishful thinking that I would get two weeks to tat. I work full-time in healthcare and in healthcare it’s like “…we ride at dawn, bitches!”. There is no ‘working from home’, at least not for those of us actively providing technical services. I am the lead of two clinical (think diagnostic) specialized laboratories at the Nebraska Medical Center. My main, active job is as an Electron Microscopy Technologist working with human kidney & muscle specimens with the end goal to get to the proper disease diagnosis which then leads to the proper treatment for the patient.

Check out this website in which the author has several articles under the title of ‘Adventures in Time & Lace‘ that highlight various artists and artworks that are formed by lace. LACE as ART! Yes!

https://www.mrxstitch.com/category/3d-textiles/lace/

Yes, this is the type of content that I had wanted to write about. But Mr. X has done such a great job that I am merely going to point everyone to ‘his’ site. Do check it out.

I found a reference to a Polish dish called Fuczki–a sauerkraut dumpling that I have never seen before. Since I like sauerkraut (dad is German, mother is Czech) I googled it looking for a recipe. Then I found myself on a website called Culture.pl in which I was reading about the foods of 10 regions of Poland. At the bottom on the page was a link to “How Polish Women Reclaimed Folk Art by Giving it an Urban Twist” which I followed. The first part of the article was about folk painting. The part I found extremely interesting was towards the bottom of the article under the subtitle of ‘Illegal City Decor’. It included images of buildings in which a lace pattern was painted on. Many of you will recognize this style of lace art as seen on the internet before. But now I have an artist’s name: ‘NeSpoon’ and I learned that according to this Polish site that her work is considered ‘Illegal City Decor’….what we call graffiti. I shall have to do more research on this ‘artist’!!!

https://culture.pl/en/article/how-polish-women-reclaimed-folk-art-by-giving-it-an-urban-twist

THIS IS PART 2 IN MY SHARING OF A SCIENTIFIC SEMINAR I WENT TO RECENTLY TITLED: ‘HEALTH, HAPPINESS & HARMONY; THE HOLISITIC ESSENTIALITY OF HOBBIES’.  Presented by a Licensed Clinical Psychologist, Dr. Jerry V Walker, III

The objectives of the seminar was: 1. Define what constitutes a hobby; 2. Critically examine how hobbies contribute to our physical, mental, emotional and social health; 3. Develop ideas for how to incorporate a variety of personally-relevant hobbies into our regular routine or lifestyle.

WHAT IS A ‘HOBBY’?
According to Dr. Walker a ‘hobby’ is anything that: 1. Requires effort –you actually ‘do’ something; 2. Requires aptitude--for this one I had to look up the definition of ‘aptitude’ and learned that it is the ‘natural ability to do something‘. I’m not sure I totally agree with the word ‘natural’. That means that one must possess an innate ability to do an activity. As we know with tatting and other fiber-art activities, they have a learning curve both physically and mentally; 3. Is something you do for enjoyment.  Tatting definitely fits this category!

WHAT CONSTITUTES AS ‘HOBBY’? 1. Is an Activity–something physical; 2. Has a Purpose–eg. social, productive, time-filling, etc.; 3. Is Voluntary–ie. it is something you want to do; 4. Holds Significance–ie. is meaningful to the person. (In my case 3 of my 4 grandparents tatted, so for me it is a heritage.); 5. Not a Means to an End–it doesn’t have to have a purpose, you can just enjoy it. The presenter also stated on this topic, that a hobby is not a job. If you make money at it, is it still a hobby? I would suppose that would depend upon how much money you make and how well you live.

https://lacemap.github.io/

I was going back through my old emails looking for a lost one and ‘found’ this link/website. Someone had asked in the original post about places to go in UK to see lace such as museums and this was the reply.

This looks like a good way to share sites such as museums and even shops that may have some level of lace or unique fiber art to see/buy.

Looks like it originally was created by the Dutch. The USA map may need a bit of work….

Yesterday, I went to a fantastic seminar titled “Health, Happiness & Harmony: The Holistic Essentiality of Hobbies”. It was given by Jerry V. Walker, III, PhD, ABPP here at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (where I work). Dr. Walker has quite a background as a Licensed Clinical Psychologist and Psychology Services Manager here in Omaha, Nebraska as well a impressive history in the military working as a psychologist. I begged out of going to another meeting to be able to attend this seminar and it was sooooo good. It was a scientific approach to how ‘hobbies’ enrich our lives/health in many ways including physical, mental, emotional and social.

It’s funny to present this information here, because all of us reading/visiting this website/blog are already aware of how tatting enriches our lives. This seminar presented defined ideas why hobbies are important to our lives.

As a clinical psychologist, Dr. Walker said he often asks his patients what hobbies they have, ‘what they do for fun’….and he said that the answer is many times a blank stare. Many people just don’t have hobbies of any kind. I just don’t get that! I personally have several friends that don’t have any interests or hobbies. I am personally worried about one friend who is talking about ‘retiring’ from her job in the near future. She is going to go ‘stir-crazy’ when she actually does retire. Fortunately she has had some surgeries in the recent past that have given her a glimpse into what being home full-time might mean to her daily life. Yet, she still won’t find/create a hobby or interest. I get the impression many times that she looks upon my hobbies and activities with disdain, probably because she just can’t understand the motivation of having a hobby/interest. I try not to force my interests upon her or any of my other friends, trying not to alienate myself from them because I have such an active life interests outside of my full-time work obligations.

The other thing that I have been doing since I have gotten back from the IOLI Convention (in August) is playing around in my enameling studio. I sold alot of shuttles at Convention and this gave me the impetus to make new ones. It seems that every time that I go back to enameling I make shuttles that are quite different in design style to the previous ones I have made. I guess I keep evolving my style.

The new style that I have adopted is the use of decals designed for use on glass and ceramics. Since enamel IS glass, these work perfectly for me to enhance my shuttles. I wish I had painting skills, but I don’t so this the best I can do.

The decals are permanently fused into/on the enamel/glass surface. They will not come/rub off.

I’ve had a lot of fun finding and using various decals. I have: black animals-dogs and cats, sugar-skull cats, flowers, snowflakes;, birds, bees, ladybugs, butterflies, and even a motorcycle.

Check them out on my Etsy shop at: https://www.etsy.com/shop/TheShuttleSmith?ref=hdr_shop_menu

Well….2019 has been quite a year! Since getting world that I would be teaching at the 2019 IOLI Convention in August in Spokane, WA, I have been busy in various ways: 1. Designing classes for the convention and then preparing class materials; 2. finishing a book that I had a good start on and with the help of Diana Howe’s tatting skill was able to get published (Illusions of 3-D in Split Ring Tatting); 3. Designing and laying out a second book that came from inspiration of the classes that I was teaching at Convention (Bounty of Tatted Delights). 4. prepping my books and enameled tatting shuttles to sell at Convention.

As soon as I got to Convention (which was incredible!) I realized how much time I had devoted to the above endeavors and decided that when I got home things would be a bit different…I wouldn’t be pushing myself as much (at least for a while). I was unhappy about having to publish the Bounty of Tatted Delights book under an ISBN number that wasn’t mine so I ‘unpublished’ it when I got home. I JUST republished it as of November 30th, 2019 so that burden is no longer hanging over my head.

All my books are now available on my Etsy site: https://www.etsy.com/shop/TheShuttleSmith