Tatting at 2015 Carolina Fiber Fest

Once again, my tatting group, Tri-Tatters, demonstrated at the Carolina Fiber Fest in Sanford, NC. This year only two of us could make it, but nevertheless we were able to connect with many tatters and tatter wannabes. I'm so glad I could make the event, especially since we are not getting as many exhibiting opportunities as we would like.

Here's our demonstration/display table with the banner I made for our public appearances. It's apparent that this time, because there are only two of us, I have managed to hog most of the table space with my tatted pieces.

This is my tatting buddy Anitra having a great time tatting butterflies for earrings. Each year, she demonstrates and sells her tatting in the Village of Yesteryear at the North Carolina State Fair in Raleigh.

Below is a photo from the Carolina Fiber Fest's Facebook page. I'm not tatting here, but "retro-tatting" a mistake I made. I always have trouble tatting mistake-free in public, but this time I only messed up once, which was pretty surprising.

Off the Shuttle: Tatted Paper Eggs

Here are all the paper eggs with tatted edgings that I've finished so far. Threads are all size 20, either Lizbeth or DMC Cebelia. All the rings are four sets of 5 double stitches separated by picots with the middle picot attached to the paper. The chains are either 3ds 3p 3ds 3p 3ds or 3ds 9p 3ds. Embellishments are a variety of stickers. More detailed instructions are on my posting at 

http://shoppingmystash.blogspot.com/2015/03/off-shuttle-tatted-paper-egg.html

These work up very fast and can be hung with thread as ornaments or used to embellish greeting cards. I'm finding them a nice little giveaway to let friends know I'm thinking of them.

The two below will be sent to a friend's daughters. One loves pink and the other likes purple. They are growing up so fast so I hope they still like getting little trinkets in the mail.

I gave this one to a family friend as a thank you for her Easter luncheon:

This one is on its way to an online tatting friend in Tennessee (you know who you are!):

This one is on its way to Staten Island to a pen friend with terminal cancer. I hope this cheers her up a little, but tatting seems woefully inadequate as a way to lessen my sorrow for her.

Off the Needles: Tweedy Cotton Scarf

I just finished this light-weight scarf suitable for cool, rather than cold, weather. The yarn is from stash I bought about three years from a yarn shop in Hillsborough, NC, on a visit to the town with my daughter. It's Noro's "Sekku" in colorway 1. The yarn is a blend of cotton (50%), wool (17%), nylon (17%), and silk (16%). 

Some parts of the strands were really thin, almost like heavy sewing thread. I'm not sure how well an item knitted with one strand would hold up with such thin areas in the skein. Fortunately, I bought two balls of the yarn so I could use two strands of the yarn for the project.

The pattern is adapted from "ZickZack Scarf Pattern," a free pattern on Ravelry. The original version is 96 stitches wide; my version is 60 stitches wide. Each row is knitted the same:[k5 k2tog k4 kfb] 5 times. I used size 3 needles.

Once again, I'm still fiddling with my digital camera to get the colors right. From what I've heard from others using similar cameras, achieving true colors of craft works is almost impossible without moving up to more expensive, professional equipment...which I'm not ready to do. What is showing up here as blue is really purple and lavender; there actually is no blue in this colorway of the yarn. The other colors in the photo, however, are accurate.