Cath's bouquet

Cath and Phil were married last Saturday and I haven't seen the official photos yet but here are two, taken by a guest, of Cath's bouquet. In an earlier blog I said that Cath's mother, Ruth, asked me to design these flowers for her then she and a friend tatted over 80 poppies and a similar number of daisies for the bride's bouquet and bridesmaids' flower arrangements.

More pictures of the display at Harrogate

Grapes on the vine designed by Karey Solomon

Train by Jennifer Williams

Clock designed by Rosemarie Peel, fan and butterflies by Jennifer Williams

One of five fairies by Jennifer Williams

Eggs by Lynne Webber and Jennifer Williams. Flowers by Jennifer Williams

Beaded necklace designed by Nina Libin

Harrogate Lace Fair 2010

The Ring of Tatters' 30th Anniversary book came back from the proof reader last week and now it just needs one photo to be added and it's ready to go to the printer.

At the end of March Ruth Price travelled to Harrogate with me to 'fly the flag' for the Ring. On the left of our display table we have eggs decorated with tatting, some hanging on the 'Easter tree' and others in a basket on the table. Next to that there is a vase of Hellebores and in front a selection of bracelets. In the centre, at the back, is a bunch of grapes with vine leaves designed by karey Soloman. In front of that is a necklace (purple beads on silver thread) designed by Nina Libin for our new book. It uses 3000 beads and took me a whole week to make. There are three fairies, two baby's shoes and a square mat and behind them a clock designed by Rosemarie Peel and I added my own butterflies and fan to fill the space at the bottom of the frame. There are waterlilies on a mirror and a vase of daffodils that you've seen on my blog before. At the back, hidden, is my butterfly picture and hanging at the back the train and carriages. They don't show up very well in this photo but the flowers for the wall hanging were made by the ladies in my groups.

A Heart for St Valentine's Day

If you're looking for something quick to tat for St. Valentine's Day I've put the patterns for two fairly easy ones under 'patterns' on the left.

January was a very busy month, the snow slowed me down a bit when it came to getting out and about so I spent nearly all the time working on the computer. I had plenty to do because The Ring of Tatters is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year and we're publishing a book of new patterns to mark the occasion. Last May we decided to ask thirty members of the Ring, who create tatting patterns, if they'd design something for this book. They've all been so generous and we've been given a really lovely selection of designs.

The sad news that Mary Konior had passed away on 16th January made me look again at her books, well, the two that I'm lucky enough to own. What an example she set to people writing tatting books - or any craft book for that matter. It is obvious from reading them that Mary believed if something was worth doing it was worth doing well.

Snowdrops

I have about 20 - 25 tatters who come to my groups every month and at Christmas, instead of Christmas cards, I like to give them something tatted that they can use every year. The first year I made them Christmas crackers. I remember sitting in the waiting room at the garage while the car was in for its annual service, as this took over two hours I tatted about eight of the sprigs of holly to go on the crackers.



In 2008 I thought that I'd give them a diary for 2009 with a pattern for each month throughout the year. In the dark days of winter I like to look for the first snowdrops so this is what I did for January.

If you'd like to tat my snowdrop click on the link on the left for the pattern.

The National Christmas Lace Fair, Solihull, UK

I had a busy day last Saturday. It was the day of the National Christmas Lace Fair and the Ring of Tatters had a stand to display some of our tatting for Christmas. The table was only 6' X 2' 6'' so we didn't have much space. As we hadn't been represented at this event before we wanted to show the bobbin lace purists that tatting is not inferior to bobbin lace, it's just a different form of lace.

There were four of us on the stand, demonstrating how traditional tatting works and generally promoting tatting to anyone who was interested. At all of the other exhibitions that we attend we're asked how much the different items are but at this one we were asked where they could buy the patterns so watch this space (for next Christmas).

3D Snowman

It wouldn't be fair to the ladies who were on my Missenden Abbey course for me to release the patterns just yet but I'll give you the link to the 3D Snowman pattern that Jane Eborall has converted into a pdf for me.

I write my patterns in a drawing programme called 'Serif' and export them into 'word' This pattern is four pages long so it'll take a while to download.

The link for the pattern is on the left hand side of the page.