Singapore and more..........

We arrived back home from Singapore late Saturday evening exhausted after a fantastic holiday, which included six days in Java, Indonesia where my eldest son (who lives in Singapore) got engaged to his girlfriend whilst at the top of the Borobudur Temple, very romantic. He also planned the itinerary for the holiday which was filled with so many interesting things to do and see - and we had to stick to it!  Not only did 'Im in the garage' travel out with me, so did my other son.  Strangely though my youngest son seemed to attract the more mature ladies, who either wanted to speak to him, but generally felt the need to take his photograph, no idea why he attracted so much attention, but we all found it quite amusing.


Of course it went without saying that whilst we were there I had to meet up with at least one tatter, this caused a serious problem with the itinerary and somehow the men could not understand the need for a tatters get-together.   In the end though I escaped whilst they went off to watch the science fiction film Prometheus, certainly not my scene.    So I was able to meet up with Val of Val's Simple Passions. 

She took me to some great eating places.

Shopped for beads, books and thread and texted Jane in England and made her extremely jealous that she could not be with us!

And did some sight seeing. Here is Val standing next to an old post box, still a very familiar sight in the UK. However, this particular one is situated in a building which is now a hotel but used to be the main post office in Singapore.

We saw some night life, and can you see who is wearing my hat featured in my lost blog post?!

Sadly all good things have to come to an end and Val kindly took me back to my hotel where she was able to meet 'Im in the garage', who took this photo

Thank you so much Val for a really great afternoon and evening, hopefully we can meet up again when I'm next in Singapore.

I also met another tatter, but more of that in my next post.

Jubilee

I purchased a hat for my holidays to protect me from the sun, this is what it originally looked like. 

Then I took off the string around it and tatted a piece of braid and it now looks like this.

A close up of the braid, unfortunately the original string was glued around the hat and has left a mark, rather like a slug has been around it! However, this does not show up unless you get very close. The pattern is beaded braid from Tatting with Visual Patterns by Mary Konior.

This weekend there will be much celebration in the United Kingdom as the Queen celebrates her Diamond Jubilee, 60 yrs since since becoming Queen.   The weather though is not predicted to be very good on Sunday when the main celebrations are taking place with a river pageant on the Thames in London and street parties up and down the country.
There are union jacks everywhere, but I was given this chocolate which says it all!

And I think most of you will agree!

Bobbin Holders

I am always trying to find ways to tidy all the bits and pieces that are around the house connected with tatting and came up with two helpful ways to do this.  Off I trot to the garage to see if they are possible, so with suggestions from the boss of the garage, we came up with these.

Let me introduce an Aero bobbin holder, they can be loaded with up to six bobbins on each stem, either empty all full of thread.  They are only suitable for Aero bobbins but could (if someone really wanted one) be made to take machine bobbins, which would mean making the stems thinner, at the moment the bobbins fit comfortably on the stems.

Not stopping with one idea the next one is an ez bob holder. It only takes the large and small size though, as they are the only ones I have to gauge the size of the holes in the middle, each size is different.   This is the prototype and the next one needs a wider base as the bobbins slightly over lap which is not ideal.  The bead at the top comes off for loading and unloading and it can be picked up by it as it is a fairly tight fit.

This is what it looks like unloaded as you can see the narrowing at the top is for the smaller size.

Already I am finding these two additions very useful, but not sure if anyone else would? What I like about them is they fit on a shelf or work top and tidy up bobbins that otherwise, well could be anywhere!

A selection of necklaces

As well as the button necklace this has become one of my favourites and I just can't stop making them. They have also been admired by many people who are amazed to hear that they are tatted!

These two are using HDT from Natalie at The Yarn Yard. The one above is called 'Fairground' and the one below is 'Caterpillar'. The colours are so vibrant.

The next two are threads that Sue Anna kindly sent me the first one is 

Lizbeth 'Niagara Falls'

And this one is a HDT called 'Snowflake', these are much paler colours but they still look just as good especially on a darker skin.

You will have noticed that in a previous post I ordered the beads for the centres and I thought I had enough findings, until I came to the silver lobster clips and so ended up searching old jewelry for them! Must go and buy some.

Most of you have probably heard by now that I am accompanying Jane (well she is actually looking after me!) to the Palmetto Tat Days in September - this will be a new experience as I have never been to the USA before and I am so looking forward to seeing people that I have come to know through this blog.   I think we should be called the 'shuttle sisters', what do you think?

Mr. Beaver

For over 25 years I have been associated with the Beaver Scouts in the UK, they are the youngest members of the Scout Organisation aged 6 - 8 yrs old.  So every-time someone wants to design a tatted animal and doesn't know what to choose, I shout 'A Beaver' in a very loud voice.  I have even nagged Jane for years and years and so she finally designed one as a doodle, which she will put on her web site next week and here he is. I just love his huge white tooth.

These are my beavers, I don't consciously collect them, they just happen to come my way, the one on the far right at the back I won in a raffle. The Canadian Mountie and the one at the front were brought back from from Canada by friends, and the other two are associated with Beaver Scouts.  I have no house room for anymore!

About 15 years ago I acquired quite a large stuffed Beaver and it became our colony Beaver Scout mascot and we named him Boris.  Unfortunately the older Scouts got hold of him and put a cord around his neck and hung him in the Scout hut with a note on him saying "who killed Boris?"  Such a cruel thing to do, after rescuing him from his fate he disappeared never to be seen again.

We do not have real life beavers in England, except in zoos but they are trying to re-introduce them to remote areas of Scotland.

The Owl and the Pussycat

Today marks 200 years since Edward Lear was born. He was an English artist, illustrator, author, and poet, renowned today primarily for his literary nonsense, in poetry and prose, and especially his limericks, a form that he popularised.  
Almost everyone knows his nonsense poem  "The Owl and the Pussycat"                                                                     

The Owl

 and the Pussycat

 went to sea

In a beautiful pea-green boat,

They took some honey,

and plenty of money,

                                          Wrapped up in a five pound note.

                                     The Owl looked up to the stars above,
                                                           And sang to a small guitar,

‘O lovely Pussy! O Pussy my love,

What a beautiful Pussy you are,

You are,

You are!

What a beautiful Pussy you are!’

II

Pussy said to the Owl, ‘You elegant fowl!

How charmingly sweet you sing!

O let us be married! too long we have tarried:

But what shall we do for a ring?’

They sailed away, for a year and a day,

To the land where the Bong-tree grows

And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood

With a ring at the end of his nose,

His nose,

His nose,

With a ring at the end of his nose.

III

‘Dear pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling

Your ring?’ Said the Piggy, ‘I will.’

So they took it away, and were married next day

By the Turkey who lives on the hill.

They dined on mince, and slices of quince,

Which they ate with a runcible spoon;

And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,

They danced by the light of the moon,

The moon,

The moon,

They danced by the light of the moon.

Now it is confession time!   I did not tat the owl, Jane did and I borrowed it from her many years ago on the understanding that I would tat one myself and hand it back to her. I will one day, promise! But in the meantime here is the pattern.  Just looked at the top scan and think I got his beak folded under!

I did tat the cat (gosh that rhymes!) and it is taken from a book called Tatted Animals by Inga Madsen.  I have owned the book for a very long time and remember starting the elephant and then getting completely lost so gave up and have never had the bravery to go back to the book, until last week.  Now I am really looking forward to tatting some more animals from Inga's book.

Winsome necklace

Having made so many of Jane's winsome earrings I decided to make a necklace using the same method and here it is. Quite a long necklace!

I must admit it was a bit of a fiddle taking the thread off the shuttles each time and feeding them through the beads, but it was well worth the effort.

I purchased some beads before the postage went up in the UK, being particularly interested in the flat shell beads which are so useful for both earrings and necklaces.  I was going to wait and look for these on holiday but decided that if I saw more I could buy them, as long as I remembered the colours that I  already have!  In the meantime I am actually using these beads now, so they were well worth purchasing.