Time to get back to full speed at work

 The weather has cooled, the back is back to “normal”, the work on the house is falling into a steady bang and thump, and I’m itching to create! Time to get to work!!

This has me thinking

 I don’t have much to show for the last few days. The heat is starting to abate. Our marine layer hasn’t started back up. But, this is the time of year when I have a daily rainbow on the wall. I probably spend way too much time watching sunrises and enjoying the rainbow as it moves across the wall. Then again, life doesn’t get much better than this!

What got me to thinking is the music I found to play on the Orgelkids organ. In 2019, Orgelkids NL held a competition for demo pieces. The winners are available on the website. I found much to enjoy. I could have played for a good hour. We were sharing though. All that music got me thinking about tatting and how much has stayed the same and how much things have changed. That would make a good panel discussion.

It's hot here

 

I’ve been looking at photos of Asheville, NC where I travelled for Palmetto’s Tat Days a year ago. Taking time away from creating to clean up is just not what we should be doing! And if death has touched your life, that just is not OK. I hope the chaos calms down and the rebuilding goes smoothly so that we can get back to creating.

For us, the temperature has been warm. Very warm. It’s so rarely this hot, most houses here do not have AC. When we moved in, many of our windows were painted shut. You just don’t need to open windows to let in the air that often. We’ve slowly been refurbishing the windows. So, we can open them to capture the cooler air in mornings and evenings. While it’s warm, I’m not working with the silk on the elephant, the metallic on the cord, or really anything. I’ve been using the time to sort and sift through the boxes of stash that were passed on to me. I hope to have more boxes prepared to go to other people by the end of this hot spell.

I built an organ!

Not by myself and not a “real” organ. It does play and the pipes are so sweet! It comes as a kit from Orgelkids USA. It was so much fun!! We had a group of 10 people mostly following the directions. I can’t wait to bring it to groups to show how an organ works.

Another adventure

This is intriguing. It’s the center and round 2 of thisdoily that I found in Carmel. I used TDS (treble tatting stitch) rather than crochet chain. With the TDS in the outside chains of Round 2, it has a bit of a hexagon shape. Intriguing.

Turning the corner

 For those that have tatted an edging to a handkerchief square, this post will be boring. For those that break out in a cold sweat when turning corners in edgings, this post may be traumatic. For those that have no idea what I’m talking about…..

I’ve been having fun stitching a small project on canvas. It will make a great mug rug or coaster. Normally, the edge is finished with a cord or at the very least decorative stitching. For me, stitching isn’t fun until I add tatting. So, I decided to see if Richard Embrey's Helix tatting would create a nice finish to the edge. After a bit of sampling, I decided on what I wanted to use for thread, how many shuttles to use, and what would work for beads. All is well. Until I reached the corner. Now what?????

This will work I think. I may need to adjust how many beads are loaded on each thread. As I tat around, in order for the beads to appear in a straight line, I need to have 7 DS between placing a bead. Using 8 shuttles, that means that I slide a bead up every 7^th shuttle. 

Keeping track of where to use the bead is easy with the shuttle holder and a hair pin. As long as I don’t knock it off the table!

 

Another option

 I realized as I was tatting the last sample that the doilies with the crochet rows are really quite different. Nothing for it but to tat up a sample of both using Treble Tatting Stitch. So here’s sample number 2.

It matches the doily I bought in a thrift shop in Carmel. I will puzzle out the next row soon. First, I need to prep the studio and cover the organ pipes for work on the roof. I learned a lot the last time when the skylights were replaced. So, theoretically it should take less time, I won’t be repairing rips in the plastic, and the chaos should be contained to just the one room. Theoretically. If this sounds a bit grumpy and stressed, I apologize. I’m glad they were able to start so soon. I hope the solar panels will go on gracefully, there is minimal breakage of the tiles, and no damage that will need to be repaired. I hope. I’ll let you know when they finish in (gulp!) 6 weeks.