Torchon Icicle

This month at Lace Guild we did Torchon icicles. I have never done Torchon Ground before and Shirlene Mayo helped me hobble through the learning stage. It's an interesting form of lace making - LOTS of pins, which you can see at the start and where I'm currently working.  I took most in the middle out to see what it looked like.

My husband took a look at my work and said something along the lines of it looking like 3 wavelengths of varying frequencies interacting with one another - especially the pricking.  It was much more scientific than that, but It made me laugh.  One person's lace is another person's wavelength.

Fist Bobbin Lace

Here is a bad photo of my first bit of bobbin lace ever. I made a few mistakes, but it still turned out, I need to stiffen it somehow and then decide what to do with it. Next on the list is the bat.

Home Depot 1 Lowes 0

I have been trying to find 1/4 inch wood that's wider than 6 inches and that isn't a lament. Home depot has it in Poplar 8 in wide *Happy Snoopy Dance*. I think I'll still try to find an online source or see what that local cabinet store (if I can even find them open) has, but I can officially move forward with the Carol Berg rebind.

Teaching people

I have had another person say they would take a bookmaking class from me. I wouldn't charge $400 like the not-so-local Book Arts studio. They do, however, have all the lovely tool * mentally drools over the guillotine cutter*.

This has led me to think about all the "mad skills" that people have. I do believe that people should be compensated for their time and talents. Maybe I'm kidding myself about costs, but I do have a hard time, especially in this economy, charging a high price for a class. On the other hand people shouldn't expect to get it for free. I DID pay $350 to take a book arts classes. Maybe it's just the LDS culture I live in, people think you should give it away free. I don't know, but maybe teaching a class is in my future.

etsy and walmart

Once again this week several people who know I make books asked if I had considered selling them on etsy. And once again I had to explain that I don't have time to make a lot of books right now and that I'm not sold on etsy. You have to pay to post items wether they sell or not. I'm not about to put out money like that with no guarantee of investment. I may look into local craft malls or make a goal of selling at some of the "arts" fairs next summer, but for now I'm just going to make the CB books.

That project moves forward in snail like fashion. One step forward two steps back. Ripping pages, but still don't have hard wood covers. I also wanted decretive corners, but the Lowes "no longer carries that sort ot thing" Lord I hate the WalMartization of America. It's turned us in to red necks. Cheep, but here's no quality or substance anymore. Perhaps that is why places like etsy are doing so well. People actually DO want something fine made and are willing to pay for it.

Mics.

A number of projects are under way in my world right now. Ripping continues on the Carol Berg books as does tatting a lovely green doily. I am attempting to tat something of my ownish design. It's a challenge from a tatting site in which I was given a diagram of the rings and we were to come up with the chains and picots. It's not going baaaaadly, but it isn't great either. I'll take pictures when I get to a "stopping" point (and empty the memory card of Boo pics).

On other fronts that have nothing to do with book making or tatting I was given 12.5 pounds of gourmet artisan chocolate today. I've started a list of "things to make with chocolate". Crazy I know, but I count my blessings as they come.

Suttleless Tatting

I'm working on a doily by the amazing Jon yusoff. It has three motifs that you tat together. I'm doing it in size 40 green (Christmas) variegated thread by HH Lizbeth. So my tatting is a lot smaller than the picture from Jon's site. It's lovely and when I get more done and my end hidden (which I stink at) I'll take pictures.

Last night I was adding a third clover circle when I got to the end of my thread; metaphorically, metaphysically and literally. Here's the short version.

There are 8 clovers, I just started the 7th one when I realized that I had made a join wrong in the 5th one. Do I cut it off and try again or undo all the tatting. (some may say tatting is undo-undo-able, but I've gotten very good at it) It would take me the same amount of time to tat anew as undo and fix so I chose to fix it. *sigh* I was near enough to the end of the shuttle thread that I just took it off for the undoing. Then I started to tat again. As I approached the 8th clover I found I had enough thread to finish, but not enough to loop it all around my hands like "normal" shuttle tatting. So what did I do?

Yep, I took it off the shuttle again and did it with two loose threads. It worked out and the tension is fine, but boy howdy was it a pain. I felt like it was me vs. the tatting.

Today I write fiction and work on the books.