Fandango Square

Our visitors from Singapore have gone and we are recovering after a really hectic week.  We visited Stratford-upon-Avon and went around the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, then on to Oxford where we went punting on the river Thames and looked around the Oxford colleges.  We travelled to Lacock Abbey in Wiltshire to see one of the settings for the Harry Potter films.  And finally a trip to the New Forest and a visit to a wildlife park where we saw some fantastic butterflies, so there was not much time for any tatting or looking at blogs. However, I did manage to see the clever design that Valerie Ho discovered from Jane's fandango bookmark. It just cried out for beads, Jane sent me the pattern to try out, although I added a button to the middle and these are the results.

Jane is working on updating the pattern for the beaded and buttoned version.

And because it is "Tatting Tea Tuesday"  here is a cup of tea, yes seriously it is  - Flowering Dragon Eye, green tea.

The colours seem to match the fandago square!

Time for some more shuttles

A batch of pop-a-bobbin shuttles will be travelling to Jane's home very soon, this is one of them resting on some sweet smelling thyme, a herb very useful in cooking.    The shuttle is made from yew.

The rest of them are in a crochet basket sitting in the garden, may be there is one that you would like?

Some Sweet Williams for Gina, can you smell them?

My son and his girlfriend arrive in the UK today from Singapore for a visit, so exciting especially as the same day he boarded the plane (yesterday) he achieved his 1st Dan (his name is Daniel)  in Aikido so he now has a black belt. This is what awaits him,  a belated Easter Egg, he is a big Star Wars fan, 'may the force be with you.' 

Geckos

I have always admired Jane's gecko pattern (Pam's gecko) but it was only recently, with the arrival of some wonderful threads from Sue-Anna that I manged to tat it.

The gecko is now framed ready to go into an art exhibition, the person organising the exhibition said any medium would do, so together with two other tatted pictures it will be on show in July, beside some very grand paintings.

This little one is from Marth Ess's book 'More Critters on the Block' and I made it when I first received the book in a hurry, so not very pleased with the result, could do better!

I had to photograph this metal gecko seen fixed to the wall of an alleyway in the High Street of a town, minus it would seem its left foot! Well when I say a town it only has one street in it a quarter of a mile long. The town is famous or infamous because Edward VII used to stay there in the 1890s bringing his mistress Lillie Langtry with him, although they discreetly stayed at different houses on either side of the river, but with a connecting footbridge.

Finally yes I have visited Tatskool home and seen the geckos which reside there, very impressive, never looked on so many at one time.

Buttons and Butterflies

Thank you to all who entered the give-away, and I hope you found it fun.  I can now tell you that there were 294 buttons in the teddy bear jar, and here they all are, so you can count them for yourself!   The winner is Patty C,  as she was the nearest, and yes you were right Patty there were lots of little ones hidden away.   Please can you e.mail me on popabobbinshuttle@gmail.com.

I decided that the metal clips on the top of the pew ends in this post needed to be hidden, or at least decorated, so I have made eight butterflies, they have not been sewn on yet.  Also six more button flowers are required to be made for the ribbons and then hopefully the pew ends will be completed, no idea when this is going to happen as my days are extremely busy at the moment.  The butterflies are doing a circle dance before they part company.

OR

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The pattern is Janes and it can be found here.  I have a container of beads that I have spilt over the floor at one time or another, they are all different colours and I nearly always use them for this butterfly so achieving a kaleidoscope of colours. It also means that the beads are slowly being used up, that is until I spill some more!

Button Moon - Mr. Spoon - Give-away

Please will you celebrate with me my 150th blog post.  However, I am sorry to say there will be no shuttles to give-away this time as I'm in the garage has been making a toy for himself rather than concentrating on tatting shuttles, boys and their toys!

So instead I am giving away this bag and Welsh Love spoon.  If you want to know about  Welsh Love spoons go to this link, notice this spoon has a carved heart and a cross.  Around the bag is sewn a length of tatting called Nelson and designed by Orsi.  
This is what the bag looked like when I purchased it.  It does seem to be a different colour but the sun must have been shinning on the day I took the photograph, it really is the same bag. I took off the bow and then attached the tatting and the buttons. Also my sister Jane Eborall was with me when I purchased it from Stratford-upon-Avon.

To make the give-away a little more fun and to enable you to win the bag and spoon you have to guess how many buttons are in this teddy bear jar.  Now due to the weight of the jar and buttons I cannot include it with the prize. So have a go at guessing how many buttons are in the jar, please note that you are only allowed one guess so that everyone can have a fair chance. The person to guess the correct amount (or nearest) is the winner. I'ts as simple as that. The jar is 5 1/2 inches in height.

Some of you know that I am rather fond of buttons and especially when tatting with them so this give-away has been inspired by a children's programme shown in the 1980s here in the United Kingdom -  called Button Moon and the adventures of Mr. Spoon and his family, it was very amateurish but the tune is quite catchy!  Watch it on YouTube 

The deadline is Sunday 22nd May to count the buttons in the jar and comment on this blog! 
Good Luck!

Pew Ends

You may remember back in February I started to make some button flowers to hang from the window sills of the church.  Well another idea is to use them on the ends of the pews as they show up better against the dark wood.

The project is very slow, especially when I give the ones I have already made away! Fortunately the 'flower and fabrics' display for which they are intended, isn't until July, but time marches on.   What you see on the chair is the work so far.

Yesterday I visited the church to get an idea of what they will look like once finished, the sun was streaming in through the window when I took this photograph, so it is not brilliant.

The ribbon is very light so there is curtain weights at the bottom and a huge glass button which I managed to buy very cheaply from a charity shop last week.  The shop is situated at the back of the village hall and last week there were local elections, the polling station was in the hall itself, so it was easy to go and have a look in the shop.  Unlike the High Street charity shops it sells odd things like buttons and craft materials and is a bit like an Aladdin's Cave in that respect.  Must remember to go there more often.  These glass buttons are very heavy and they must be at least 50 yrs old.

Be sure to watch out for my next post in which there will be a give-away as it marks another milestone. 

A Heavenly Host

Now I am quite fond of angels and when I saw Sharren's easy, but effective pattern I just had to add some beads and this is the result.    All angels except one have the ends just left loose, and so depending on what I decide to do with them they can be finished off at a later stage.

Thank you to everyone who commented on my last post it was exciting watching the Royal Wedding, although I didn't think it would be. I was also surprised that so many people around the world became so excited about the event. We are slightly worried though that there will be requests for trees to be put into our churches for wedding ceremonies, fortunately only one church is big enough to take any, but the answer is actually "no you can't!"
The honeymoon for the Queen and Prince Philip and also for Charles and Diana started just a few miles from where I live, but for William and Kate it was a secret location, although they only had a short break apparently the real honeymoon is being taken later on.