The Cedar Tree

As you all must know by now, unless you have been on another planet! The Pop-A-bobbin shuttles are in full production and there are quite a few different woods they are being made out of, which I will try and list soon. Some woods we have bought locally and others have been purchased from overseas. Sharren Morgan asked for a cedar shuttle when the last batch were being made, and so far she is the only person to own one made out of this particular wood. The cedar tree that the wood came from is in these two pictures. As you can see it is very near to the church. About 18 months ago the tree had to have a huge branch cut off it because it was dangerously close to falling on the church and doing considerable damage, particularly as there is stained glass window that would have been badly damaged if it had fallen. One log of the wood was brought around by the Vicar for "i'm in the garage" this was before the shuttles were a glint in his eyes!

Now this particular tree is beside a church that used to have a Vicar who was very fond of trains, his son was born in this area and spent his early years here, he also took up his father's love of trains and became a clergyman himself. His name was Rev Awdry and he wrote the now very famous Thomas the Tank engine stories. So he would have indeed seen the tree and probably ran around it as a child.

You might have noticed a few rain drops on the pictures of the church, I took them last Sunday, it was raining, very cold and I almost fell over a tombstone!

Here is a piece of the original log that was given to us.
It was seasoned out doors for a year and now is being

cut into manageable pieces.



And just to show you that the shuttles are progressing here are a few, I'm sure you can identify the ebony, purple heart and cocobola rosewood.

I have a shuttle that was made out of the old timber from the porch of another church, shown in this post, it is oak. There are a few more shuttles that can be made from this wood if anyone is interested? I have also brought home some yew wood taken from the tree outside this church and it is now seasoning. The stories behind some of the woods that are being used for these shuttles, are fascinating and makes them very special.

Seahorses and Bertie Beaver

I think seahorses are fascinating especially the way they glide through the water, mystic beautiful creatures. But did you know they are the only species in which males truly become pregnant? Well there is an amazing fact! How many times have you heard it said "if men could have babies the world's population would decline?"

These two are now on their journey to Canada, not swimming but in an envelope with an airmail sticker. They are being sent as a way of a thank you to two people who I met from Canada in January. Robin and her daughter Hayley. They both helped find and then order for me an adult beaver costume, which arrived so quickly, it was ordered on a Monday and the parcel arrived on the Thursday! Which could be faster than a tatting shuttle!? Hayley is very fond of sea horses hence the reason why I am sending them. Also in the envelope is of course a tatted Robin for Robin!
The pattern for these dear little seahorses is here on Jane's pattern page.

This is the beaver costume, the one I was carrying the other week, mentioned in this post, and no its not me inside it - I promise! Bertie was invested as a Beaver Scout on Saturday, as you can see he has his own neckerchief and woggle. Beaver Scouts are the youngest members of the Scout organisation they start at six then on reaching the age of eight they can join the Cubs. We had a party on Saturday and 125 Beaver Scouts attended. The noise level was rather high with this amount of excited children and so yesterday it was good to be in a quiet church instead of trying to raise my voice above so many children.

I took a picture of the three different woods now being worked on by "im in the garage" coco bola rosewood, ebony and purple heart. They are actually a bit further on in the shuttle making process but I just had to take this photograph to show you how lovely the wood is. Are you drooling over them? Can you imagine holding them in your hands?!

After reading about how all you folks in Canada have been following the Winter Olympics I thought I would just show you the mittens brought over by Robin and Hayley in January, they are not mine - they are Robins!!! (Robin's English uncle also called Robin)

I must admit I didn't watch any of the Winter Olympics, except for the highlights on the news. So now that they are ended, all of you who have been focused on them will have more time to tat, but then again you must be able to tat and watch television?


And finally Happy St. David's Day to all thoses in Wales.

GOING, GOING, GONE

All the tatting shuttles that were delivered last weekend to Jane have now been sold, it's incredible how fast they went, so it is time to make some new ones. "Im in the garage" has been buying wood off e.bay, exotic woods that will look very beautiful when made into shuttles. But there is a little story behind the wood you see below, it has come from America and is cocobolo rosewood and purple heart.


After it was ordered and paid for, the person in America sent an e.mail to say that he was sorry but he had been rushed into hospital for emergency surgery but would post the wood as soon as he could. So we thought, the poor fellow must have had an appendix removed or something like that, so we sent our good wishes for a speedy recovery and said there was no hurry for the package to be sent. However, in due course the parcel did arrive, sadly not in a very good state, the Royal Mail had put a polythene bag around the original package and our first thoughts were, have we lost any of the wood? Delivery was also delayed to our home as we were away visiting family when it arrived on Saturday. In the meantime another e.mail was received from this poor chap to say that the reason he was in hospital was that he had cut his thumb off whilst using the table saw! Yikes!!! No the thumb wasn't in the package, he had it sewn back on again, hence the emergency surgery! And no there was no blood on the wood either! And yes all the wood was enclosed in the re-formed package.

But this wasn't the first consignment of wood ordered on e.bay. I received a phone call two weeks ago from someone in England who had posted a parcel to us, it had arrived safely to our home and was ready to be opened by "im in the garage" when he returned from work. However, this fellow asked if I wouldn't mind opening it because he thought he had sent the wrong item! Too true! When I opened the package there were these plastic strips! Apparently he normally does the cutting and leaves the admin work to someone else, but they were away so he had to do it himself and sent our wood to the person who was meant to receive the plastic. So the fellow who received the wood forwarded his parcel onto us and we sent ours to him. But these bits of plastic were so pretty I almost kept them!

Now here is the vast collection of different woods ready to be made into shuttles, there are about 17 different varieties of wood in this picture some are English woods and others are woods that originate from other parts of the world.

So the excitement grows as we all wait to see how the exotic woods will look when made into tatting shuttles, I think its time to put my order in!

Busy, busy

Now one of the things you will notice straight away is that these earrings are for non-pierced ears, thats me! So I actually wear these myself. I found the mother of pearl hearts at a car boot sale, a small packet of them in different colours, but good strong colours. I have only used the two hearts shown here so far. The glass beads I found in an antique shop, they were broken and were in a little plastic packet so were priced very reasonably. I have not had time laterly to do much tatting due to the pop-a-bobbin shuttles and a very busy life.

So shall we have a little peep in the garage? In the container are some shuttles that have been cut out and sanded, before varnishing.

Now you can see "im in the garage" sanding them on this clever bit of equipment.

We went to see Jane on Saturday and delivered 30 shuttles, most of them have now been sold. In the last week quite a few different woods have also been delivered to our house, so there is soon going to be a bigger variety of shuttles to choose from. I will try and find out what these woods are and then let you know. That is one thing about wood it changes so much as it is worked on, an ordinary block comes alive after it has been cut and shaped, and the beautiful grains are exposed. Tatting shuttles certainly lend themselves to being made out of wood.

Pancakes, Pretzels and Pennies

Today is Shrove Tuesday the day that we make and eat pancakes to symbolise the using up of the food supplies in our home, ready for the penitential season of Lent, which starts tomorrow Ash Wednesday. Shrove is taken from the old English verb shrive, meaning to obtain absolution for sins. It is also quite common on this day to have pancake races, with groups of people running along the street with frying pans and tossing the pancakes as they run.

No this is not a tatted valentine heart gone wrong! It is supposed to be a pretzel. Pretzels I discovered have a deep spiritual meaning for Lent. In fact, it was the ancient Christian Lenten bread as far back as the fourth century. In the old Roman Empire, the faithful kept a very strict fast all through Lent: no milk, no butter, no cheese, no eggs, no cream, and no meat. They made small breads of water, flour, and salt, to remind themselves that Lent was a time of prayer. They shaped these breads in the form of crossed arms for in those days they crossed their arms over the breast while praying. Therefore they called the breads "little arms" (bracellae). From this Latin word, the Germanic people later coined the term "pretzel".

So in church on Sunday I gave every one a little bag of pretzels tied with purple ribbon, the real ones not tatted ones! Of course Sunday coincided with Valentine's day so may be I should have tatted them all hearts!

Now it was forty years ago this week that we here in England said goodbye to our beloved £ s d.

Or pounds, shillings and pence. Here is a farewell pack, to remind everyone of the days when there were twelve pence in a shilling. Which leads me on to say that Lent consists of forty days and forty nights - a time when people choose to give up something for Lent, like wine or chocolates and give the money they would have spent on these luxury items, to a worthy cause. Other people take on more tasks during Lent. All I can say is that in our house we will still be eating, milk, butter, cheese, eggs cream and meat during Lent! After all 'im in the garage' needs them to give him energy to make more shuttles!

Him in the Garage!

It is the eve of Chinese New Year so thought you might like to see the Christmas present my son who lives in Singapore, gave "him in the garage". This sign is now stuck on the door of the garage which leads from the hall way of our house and it is where the shuttle making takes place. And the bottle opener which was also in the Christmas parcel

Here are the wood blanks ready to be shaped into shuttles, note the ebony on the right of the picture, which arrived by post this week.

Last Saturday morning you would have seen me walking through the streets of our nearest town carrying an adult beaver costume in one hand and a parcel containing tatting shuttles in the other, as I made my way to the main Post Office. If I had been wearing the beaver costume people would have probably noticed me! Instead as I queued in the Post Office, I looked like any other person on a busy Saturday morning. After a little while I was directed to a counter by a number and handed the precious little parcel to the woman working there. She did ask me if there was anything valuable inside, anything valuable?! Of course there was, but she hardly wanted to hear that it contained tatting shuttles, she probably didn’t know what a tatting shuttle was. I said farewell to the shuttles and wished them a safe journey from the South to the Middle of England and they duly arrived at my sister’s house on Monday morning. In the afternoon she started to sell them and now they are all gone, it was amazing how quickly they sold and some are probably still flying around the world somewhere!

Hopefully, there will be quite a few shuttles ready by next weekend when we plan to take ourselves and the shuttles by car to the Midlands.

(In case you are curious to why I was carrying an adult beaver costume, well I was on my way to a Scout meeting - will show you pictures of the costume at a later date - but not with me wearing it!)

Pop-A-Bobbin shuttle

INTRODUCING THE POP-A-BOBBIN SHUTTLE . . . . . . . . . .


After a few disappointing and frustrating set backs with the design of a wooden shuttle that would have a removable bobbin and did not involve too many complicated parts, we have now come up with what we believe is a unique and clever idea.

Here it is prior to being assembled (with an extra plug). The bobbin is placed in position and a plug is pushed through the centre hole of the shuttle and through the bobbin. To remove simply use the popper tool on the left of the picture to push out the centre plug and listen to the pop!

The popper tool is tapered at one end in order to push out the centre plug. The plastic bobbin can be placed on the other end of the popper tool to wind thread.

The hook on the end of the shuttle is also handmade from stainless steel.

It is hoped that those who use this tatting shuttle will find it comfortable and practical to use, especially as there is a slight indent for your fingers in the middle.

I wanted to show you this shuttle earlier but due to the extremely bad weather that hit England working on them became impossible, and then of course Jane and myself needed to test them.

Many of you prefer a shuttle with a removable bobbin, as it easier to wind/unwind and usually holds more cotton However, my shuttle maker (aka husband) can make post shuttles but he is at the moment concentrating on these bobbin ones.

Again some of you do not like a hook attached to the shuttle, there will be some that will be made without hooks, don’t worry – just let Jane or myself know if that is your preference.

You may be wondering how you can purchase one of these shuttles - well 10 of them are at the moment winging their way to Jane’s home via the British postal service and as soon as she receives them they will go into her Etsy shop, hopefully before the end of the week.

The shuttles are being made in a variety of British woods, which include elm, cherry, walnut, ash, sycamore and cedar. We are in the process of buying some exotic woods such as ebony and iroko to make them from but obviously these will cost a little extra. I will show you one of them in a future post.

The shuttle is to some extent modelled on the Aero shuttles, but of course with the wooden plug in the middle there is no clicking sound!

As some of you will have already realised my husband is a very talented woodworker so this is a really good way of combining our talents, and with the invaluable help of Jane, who passed on her suggestions during the project we hope that we have come up with a shuttle that will be a faithful friend to the many tatters around the world.

You all should know by now that Jane is my sister, we were both taught by our grandmother to tat when we were children, Jane being a little older took it more seriously than I did at that time. I've only come back to tatting with renewed energy in the last 10 yrs, so have lots of catching up to do!

After this post I'm sure we can rightfully be called "The Shuttle Sisters"!