TAST and Tatting

Hope you all have had or are having a wonderful Christmas day.  We just finished our dinner and are now stuffed.  I think a nap will be in order, shortly.

In case any of you are not familiar with TAST, it stands for Take A Stitch Tuesday.  A wonderful Aussie lady, Sharon B. is teacher and she will be teaching us a new embroidery stitch each Tuesday starting January 3rd, 2012.  I am looking forward to this challenge.  There are over 400 ladies and some gents participating so it will be interesting to see what everyone does with their stitches. To find out more go here, you might want to join up yourself.

I’ve been trying to figure out how I want to do this and have finally gotten it all figured out in the past couple of days.  I have this photo album never been used, that I got in a load of craft items about a year ago.  It is a 3 ring binder and has pages that have 3 pockets to a side, and I’ll cut fabric to slide in these pockets, and the fabric pieces will be what I do my stitches on, and I’ll have this wonderful album to save them in.  I am excited now that I’ve gotten that figured out.

I put one of my crocheted blooms in a pocket so that you could see what I’m talking about.  I’ll cut the fabric to be about 3” by 4”.

Here’s the fabric I’ll use.  It’s a lighter, creamier color than in the photo. I need to press it before cutting it out to size.  I better work on that so that I won’t be caught 'not ready’.

For Christmas I had ordered tatting needles and I opened them today.  I got 4 for the price of three, plus a threader.  I did my first attempt, and messed up taking the thread off the needle.  I think I let go of the loop of stitches, and ended up getting knots and I couldn’t go any further.  Those of you who tat using needles will know what I am talking about.  DH thought my stitches looked good up until my mess up, so that was encouraging.  I’ve still got to get the hang of making the picot stitches, I think I finally got it at the end.  Practice will make me better at this and I know I’ll get faster and enjoy it more too.  There is a lot for me to learn with this art form.

The tatting needles are the 4 long needles laying on my needle book, and the threader is above, with the instructions to the right.

I am starting with the largest needle, so that I can learn easier, and size 30 crochet thread.

If any of you needle tatting ladies have any tips I would greatly appreciate it.  I have to admit that once I learn, I will be adding bits of my tatting to pieces I plan/hope to sell in my Etsy shop ~ FlowerLady’s Creations. 

I am so excited to learn this new needle art. I tried to teach myself how to use the shuttle for tatting many, many years ago, and just couldn’t grasp it.  I want to thank Susan for tatting these wonderful trees posted on her blog Suztats.  When I commented on her work, she told me that she had done them with tatting needles.  I had never heard of them.  I googled them and found some you tubes on using them, and decided I would like to give it a try.

Well, that’s it for now from Plum Cottage, where my creations happen.  It is partly cloudy, with a bit of breeze, we’ve had a light rain, and it’s 79 and feels like it is 81.  That’s winter in s.e. FL, USA. We don’t always have a chilly Christmas.

Happy Creating whatever medium you create with.

FlowerLady