Ring out those Bells!

The person that makes the card inserts for the pop-a-bobbin shuttles is an ex-printer and is an absolute genius when it comes to anything to do with printing. His name is Mr. Bell and of course he is married to Mrs. Bell, so with that in mind I have tatted them some bells!

The pattern is Yarnplayer's joyful bell pattern with beads plus the addition of tiny bells which I purchased awhile back, recently I bought the bigger ones you see in the picture, but not sure what to do with them yet.  It is a quick and easy pattern but so effective, thank you Marilee.

Three of our churches have bells but they do not have bell towers. This picture shows some ancient clangers that are on the wall of one of them, they are said to be from the 13th century.

Now the rope that you see bell ringers holding on to as they ring the bell has a coloured piece called a "sally".  This Sally used to be a bell ringer  at a very famous church and below is a very old photograph to proof it.  

                              Can you spot which one is me?

This time next week the bells will be ringing out to celebrate Christmas.

Shuttles and Christmas Trees

Just to let you know that Jane is going to be selling a variety of shuttles in her Etsy shop tomorrow, the holly ones, which were on my previous blog and these larger shuttles, one with a hook and the other without a hook. As you can see they are all dressed up for Christmas!  I'm in the garage has been very busy and although the garage is so very cold, he is planning on making more shuttles in the next few weeks.  But is anyone interested? Not sure if there is a demand for wooden shuttles at the moment.

Here are some of Jane's Christmas Tree ear rings which I started years ago and have recently found in a box.  They are all at various stages of construction, but as you can see the two that are finished are not even identical! Really must either finish them off, or probably best if I abandon them all together as I'm not sure if I have the thread anymore.  Strange though I did take one completed pair to a Christmas Fayre recently and sold them before the event had even opened!  Also not particularly pleased with the quality of the tatting, the deciding factor - start again!

Hollywood Close

"I'm in the garage" - a very very cold garage, has spent the last few weeks making these post shuttles.  Sadly though it doesn't look like they will make Christmas for those of you who live over the pond.

You may have spotted these shuttles in my new profile picture. The picture was taken before the snow disappeared.  In fact the snow had really turned to ice and they kept sliding like little toboggans!   The ones with two sprigs of holly on them are a little larger,  3 inches long as opposed to 2 1/2 inches. 

The larger ones do not appear so shiny because they have only just had their sprigs of holly put on them, the finished ones will look smoother and shinier.   This street name is a short walk from where I live and by coincidence a person I know lives there who tats!

Not the famous Hollywood in the USA!

All these post shuttles and some pop-a-bobbin shuttles will be on their way to Jane over the weekend, not by mail - because if you have been following her blog you will know that the Royal Mail is not very reliable at the moment.   Therefore it will not be until next week before she will get them into her Etsy Shop.




This particular holly wood came from our late father's garden so before all of it goes Jane and I must have a shuttle or two made from the wood.

Patterns

One of the delights of having a blog is being able to share patterns with others, and thank you to all who do post such wonderful patterns, there are so many talented people who are generous in this respect.  I have only put very few on my blog over the past year and have never seen any of them actually tatted by someone else.  This could be because my instructions are difficult to understand, which rather scares me, I wouldn't want that to happen. Or of course no one has got around to making them yet, which is very understandable as there are so many other much better patterns out there to choose from.

Snow and ice slowed things up here in England over the past two days, which meant that as I couldn't get the car out so the funeral director had to pick me up and take me to the crematorium to conduct a funeral service yesterday.  I didn't want to risk having an accident and not getting there on time, or not at all.    So when I arrived home I was able to spend a fruitful half hour or so looking at the blogs and went to Gina's blog and found this snowflake, and then popped across to Spulni-Blog

I was so impressed with the design and then when Gina added beads, well I decided to add more, especially since receiving 20 packets in the post!  Also I changed it very slightly.
But is that right should we do this to people's designs?  It feels like we are being critical, or it could be classed as imagination?    

The blue snowflake was my first attempt but it was a bit squashed in the middle.  
Thank you to Orsi and Gina.

Three Button Necklaces

Thanks to Jane's help I have at last written this pattern out.   

Just can't give this one away, the thread is beautiful and was given to me by Sue Anna.

The yellow one has Swaroyski beads in it .

BUTTON NECKLACE © Sally Kerson 2010

Abbreviations: R ring

Ch chain

Cl close

p picot

BP long bead picot

p very small picot

R split ring

RW reverse work

+ join

B bead

Cl close

Btn button

DNRW do not reverse work

SLT Shoe lace trick

T & C tie and cut

Materials required: size 20 thread, 14 buttons, seed beads, 14 larger beads, necklace findings

Wind 2 shuttles with thread, adding 14 beads to shuttle 1, the rest of the beads are added as the necklace is worked

Bottom half of necklace

Sh 1 attach to finding with 1 ds take sh 2 and do the same

SR1: 5 – 1 / 5 – 1 Cl

SR2: 1 + SR1 4 – 1 / 1 + SR1 4 - 1 Cl

SR3: 1 + SR2 4 – 1 / 1 + SR 2 4 - 1 Cl

SR4: 1 + SR3 5 / 1 + SR3 5 Cl   (Fig 1)

Move B on shuttle 1 along to last SR before starting

R1: 3 vsp 3 + 1^st btn hole 6 Cl rw

Ch: 6 LBP (5B) 3 rw

R2:* 6 + 2^nd btn 6 Cl rw

Ch: 3 + LBP on last chain, 3 LBP (7B) 1 + LBP 3, LBP (5B) 3 rw

R3: 6 + 2^nd btn hole 6 cl rw

Ch: 3 + LBP on last chain, 3 LBP (3B) 3 rw

R4: 6 + 3rd btn hole 3 vsp 3 cl move bead from shuttle 1 DNRW

R5: 3 vsp 3 + next button 6 cl rw

Ch: 3 + LBP on last chain, 3 LBP (5) 3 rw  (Fig 2)

REPEAT FROM R2* 13 more times until R3

Ch: 3 + LBP on last chain, 6 rw

R 4: 6 + 3^rd btn hole 3 vsp 3 cl move bead from shuttle 1DNRW

SR5: 4 – 1 / 4 – 1 Cl

SR6: 1 + SR5 4 – 1 / 1 + SR5 4 – 1 Cl

SR7: 1 + SR6 4 – 1 / 1 + SR6 4 – 1 Cl

SR8: 1 + SR6 5 attach finding / 1 + SR 6 5 cl T & C

Top half of necklace (when necklace is finished each button hole is joined into twice

R1: 6 + btn hole with last SR attached to it 4 + vsp 6 Cl SLT rw

Ch: 4 *

R2: 4 + 4^th btn hole 4 (last btn hole remaining without a join) Cl rw

Ch: 4 rw

R3: 4 + 4^th btn hole 4 Cl rw

Ch: 4 rw

R4: 6 + next btn hole 4 + vsp on SR between btns 6 Cl rw

Ch: 6 rw

R5: 6 + vsp on next SR between btn 4 + btn hole 6 Cl rw  (Fig 3)

REPEAT FROM Ch 4 *.to R4 then 6 + into final btn hole 4 + vsp on last SR 6 CL T & C.

Saints and a Prince

Unless you have been away on a desert island you cannot fail to have heard the news of the Royal engagement here in Britain. This week the date of the wedding between Prince William and Kate Middleton was announced.

St Catherine of Siena, the saint whose feast day falls on April 29 has been chosen as the day the couple will marry next year in Westminster Abbey.   St. Catherine was the daughter of an Italian cloth dyer and she died in 1380 and is known for her spiritual writings.  However, today is the feast day of St Catherine of Alexandria and she is know as the patron saint of lacemakers.  Here is the link to my post last year giving a few more details of how she has been adopted as the patron saint of Tatters!

This is the nearest I have to a Catherine Wheel, but the stars remind us of the universe.

This is the nearest I could find to a saint! The picture was taken in an ancient, and now redundant church, near where I live. There is no indication of when it was put there, or who it is supposed to represent, it does look quite mysterious!  

The view at the side of the church.

Jane has kindly made some drawings for the button necklace which I have designed, it will be in my next post together with the instructions.

Beaded Purse

Jane mentioned yesterday that I was making one of her beaded purses, so here it is, the completed item.

As she says it is an easy pattern but takes quite a long time to complete mainly because you have to keep loading beads onto the shuttles, 175 beads on each one.  The beads make the purse very solid and weighty and for this one I have used orange beads but not all the same shade.  The little figure sitting beside the purse was originally a necklace and it was purchased in Macau when I was there over 30 yrs ago.  Some of the beads are from the string that was attached to it.   The bead in the middle of the purse is orange but has got glitter on it and because of that doesn't look like it blends in, but it does, it is just the photograph has changed it.  I fully intend to wear this purse, the cord is made out of split rings, unfortunately my attempts at making the double double stitch failed, need to practice the technique first.

The purse reminded me very much of the flapper dresses of the 1920's the way the beads form a pattern of dangling fringes!

Now further developments on my last post, I went to a garden centre where they are now giving lessons on decoupage and so I was able to pick up this special glue and brush, so now it seems I have the right equipment.

I can't wait to start the decoration on the shuttles, but as yet they haven't even been cut out!