Showing posts with label link. Show all posts
Showing posts with label link. Show all posts

Monday, April 14, 2025

It's been a month plus?!

 

I finished my 1st draft of my Morse code edging. I used single picots for dot and double picots for dash. I’m not that happy with it. It seems visually noisy.

Ring and chain edging with varied picots


There are other options. I could do SCMR (self closing mock rings) and so single picot for dot & Josephine knot for dash.

I could use a picot for dot & bead for dash. Or bead for dot and 2 beads (1 up and 1 down) for dash. I could even try, although I’m not likely to, using seed beads and bugles beads for dots and dashes.

I finally finished a bear from Loomahats book with tiny loom knit bears (look up title). I wanted to use up some yarn left from another project but there wasn’t very much. The bear body took most of it, but I wasn’t sure there was enough for the limbs, so I used leftover coordinating yarn for limbs, ears, and snout. Plus a 3rd yarn for the headband. I think I will also add tatted flowers to the headband. I wish I had thought of that before I sewed the headband to the bear.

Knit teddy bear in fuzzy yarn with smoother yarn limbs and headband


There’s a peanut butter snack ball recipe I’ve had for over a month. I finally picked up the last two ingredients. There’s an optional 3rd ingredient I don’t have, but it’s optional. And kind of expensive for the amount I need for the recipe.

Spring has sprung, in all of its pollinated glory. At least the flowers are pretty.

My friend with the mid-March birthday celebrated late this year. He rents a picnic pavilion at a park, as his house isn’t really big enough for all the guests. He makes it a cookout and provides the charcoal and everyone brings good. C made burgers and my favorite fruit dessert. C takes raspberries and blackberries, muddles some with honey and lime; he added fresh rosemary this time. Then mixes crème fresh with mascarpone, honey, and lime. Layers the fresh berries with the muddled berries, then covers the whole with the crème fresh/mascarpone frosting-like. The berries are quite tart and the frosting is creamy and they work together so well. Sorry, I don’t have pictures because I forgot.

March 29th, Tri-Tatters did our demonstration on the Matriarchs of Mordecai day. There was a lecture in the visitor center, so we were on the porch of the big house, aka the yellow house. If you look carefully, you can see the shadows of the display in the pollen on the tablecloth.

Shadows where items were, outlined by pollen

 

And footprints in the pollen on the porch (oooh, alliteration).

boards with smears in pollen

 

At the Carolina Fiber Fest I talked to a woman who concentrates on linen and cotton. She recommended I use 100% cotton thread to sew my linen edging to my linen hankie, since I am highly unlikely to find linen sewing thread.

If Michaels has 100% cotton thread, I didn’t see it. And of course, the thread rack at Joanne’s is denuded. I emailed one online company because I wasn’t sure which of 3 colors would work best, and you can’t really trust what you see on a computer screen. They were not helpful, ‘whichever one you think is closest.’ I understand them not wanting to take a chance since I asked for ‘closest to unbleached linen,’ but still. I’d rather have a ‘we do not have enough information to give you a reliable recommendation’ than telling me to trust my video card. The whole [gold and white/blue and black dressfiasco] proves that you still can’t trust video cards (although one article I read blamed other factors like people perceiving the color difference due to whether they think it’s in shadow or not and in artificial or natural light). 

I volunteered to make motifs for pin cushion/needle something for part of NCRL’s provided goodie bags to next year’s IOLI. I plan to make 25 and I made 14 in less than a week. I need to have them done by May 3rd, the NCRL Spring Lace Day. Sumiko is doing the sewing and she needs to have them on hand. 

pile of tatted motifs

 

I also need to recover my headphones. They are very expensive ones that I got secondhand for a really good price. Alas, the cover has split on one ear and I need to cover it before it gets worse. And if I’m covering one, I should cover the other. I have some nice, soft knit to use; black with white print.

I got the knit to make shorts or leggings but I’ve been using it to patch stretch jeans, etc. Both because a stretchy patch is better for a stretchy garment and because knits don’t need to be hemmed.

If you’re wondering why this post is so long, there are 2 reasons. One is that it has been a long time since my last post. The other is that my supervisor has requested that I avoid social media during working hours. Which wouldn’t be a big deal except the only people who can see my screen are behind me. I have a privacy screen on my display because I sometimes look at sensitive information. And there are times when I am quite busy and there are downtimes when I don’t have anything to do.

I can’t do trainings during slow times, because between the noise of the area and the poor quality of the speakers, I can’t really follow anything. I have old tv, radio, and movies playing because I feel no need to follow the plot and don’t need to watch them. I do have headphones, but they were ordered when I thought this change was temporary and I only needed them long enough to listen to voicemails, which are rarely more than 2 minutes long.

I have ordered new earbuds. One, I only need to wear one, so I can attend to people at the counter without an earbud that suggests I’m not paying attention to them. Two, I can actually hear training videos without ear pain. Most trainings can be interrupted, although being able to take them without interruption is better. That’s not going to happen, so I need to work with what will happen.

Obviously, I can’t tat or loom knit either. I hate having to look busy. I don’t mind being busy, just having to look busy when it’s not.

And I can’t go far from the counter for very long. Yes, other staff can handle it but the counter is my primary responsibility.

Instead, I will work on my writing. Thank goodness for the ergonomic keyboard.

Monday, March 03, 2025

Other resources online (free)

 Arizona University

Last modified Wednesday, October 19, 2016 8:36 am

On-Line Digital Archive of Documents on Weaving and Related Topics

The On-Line Digital Archive of Documents on Weaving and Related Topics contains material on weaving, basketry, lace, and related subjects.

Most documents are in Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF). See the tutorial on PDF. Acrobat Reader 4.0 or higher is required to access the PDFs on this site. It's free and available for a wide range of platforms.

The documents on this site come from a variety of sources. Most are digital facsimilies of paper documents created by scanning or, in some cases, digital photography. Some documents were written for online publication. Other documents were obtained from the Web and other sources.


Thursday, April 25, 2024

Fish and Lace (sorry it's been 2 weeks)

There is a boat lock in Utrecht (Netherlands) and it's on the fish migration route. So they put in a gate, to admit fish through, but of course they can't keep it open all the time. They noticed predators had gathered to take advantage of trapped fish. To expedite fish passage through the gate, they crowd sourced it. They put a camera on it and when viewers spot a fish, they click on the 'doorbell.' That photos the fish and someone at the dam opens the gate. The lowest watcher count I saw was in the 600s.
Last Thursday, I finally spotted some fish and managed to ring the 'bell.' But the pictures are not good enough for the weekly fish report.
I've been sub'ing in another part of the department. At first, I felt nigh onto useless. I spent a lot of time reading and tatting. This week makes up for it. Lots and lots of work, and I was on my feet most of the afternoon.
Last Saturday was the NCRL spring lace day. I donated a bracelet for a door prize (Marilee Rockley's Beaded Path) and I taught beginning tatting to 4 people.
These are most (but not mine) hedgehogs from the class last NCRL lace day. I gave mine away as a gift, so I didn't bring it.
And we had gaming on Sunday. It was surprisingly chilly and rainy. After Saturday's warmth, it was a real shock. We didn't quite finish Dragon's Demand. We need to level before the end. I didn't take a lot of pictures during the partial eclipse on April 8, but some.
I also found my scrap bag and added some to it.

Thursday, December 07, 2023

It's Snowing!

 Sort of. I have tatted Harmony of Hearts snowflake from A Veritable Tatted Blizzard. Due to not reading ahead, I ended up with 2 variations of the same flake. I did make 1 change, I used a split chain to go from round 1 to round 2. Note: I started with 4 yards on each shuttle, then ran short of thread on shuttle 2 (lots of chains, no surprise), SLT and still ended up with over a yard of thread on shuttle1. Next iteration, I'm going to use 3 yards on shuttle 1 and 5 yards on shuttle 2.

I'm working on my Solar Flare in silver and round out of thread. This wouldn't be horrible, but there are beads involved. 

I did get my teacher application for Palmetto Tat Days submitted. I'm not 100% happy with the diagrams, though.

UNC winter blood drive was today. I successfully donated. Since I didn't manage to sign up for a volunteer shift I helped with set up last night. The person who usually helps set up the canteen wasn't available so we went off our best memories of the set up (folks who do usually work that station had a good idea how it's supposed to be). So once we were done, I took pictures so we'll have them next year. 

I lost Whamageddon, though.

I ordered maps for Rosemary. She had bought them but needed them printed out. And it's much easier and faster to get them printed on big paper by a print shop than print them on 8.5x11 and then tape them together.

Hanukkah starts at sunset. May your life be filled with light. Yes, I know what's happening in Gaza. What Hamas did was horrible. And Israel's leadership has done some US level horrific actions (Japanese internment camp and Native American Reservation level of horrible), so they don't have clean hands. It's too much to hope that children should be able to be safe, warm, and fed, I guess.

And the so-called Republican leadership in Congress is just embarrassing. They're so busy bickering and yelling things for the social media engagement that they aren't leading. Never mind paying attention to what would actually help their constituents and the nation, that never seems to cross their mind. The closest I've seen is an attitude of 'this is what I want so it must be what everyone wants.'

Oh if you want an idea about the reliability and/or bias of a news source, here's a handy dandy chart.

Monday, March 13, 2023

Carolina Fiber Fest 2023

 Fiber Fest at the State Fairgrounds again (in the nice, large expo hall, yay). And once again, shared parking with 2 other events. One, if someone hadn't told me they were there, I wouldn't have known about them. OTOH, the other group has a subset of 'we have an RV, who cares about parking spaces'. 

Most of them with RVs are not like this. They park in the camping area, which admittedly is not particularly close to their event location. There's some though, that take up 2-10 (and no, that is not a mistake, I counted) parking spaces. Which again, is okay if no one else is using the lot. Like someone who parks their car over 4 spots at the far end of a lot where it's completely empty, if it's not disrupting other people, then who cares.

And that is why my friend and I arrived at 7 am for an event in which the doors open at 9. We did need to be there enough before 9 to get our tables set up, but if it weren't for the parking issues, we would have aimed for 8 am. 


 We were towards the back, near some of the classrooms. We were also near this display about flax and flax spinning (picture is only part of display).


There were 2 spinning wheels, some fabric (both recent make and vintage), sample of linsey woolsey tape, 3 linen stricks,  and flax in different stages of processing. There were also brochures for a book on homegrown flax and cotton.

I also bought a couple mini-skeins of linen yarn to try it for tatting. I bought some burgundy and black. I'll need to be careful of slubs, but it tats pretty well. The hanks are DK weight, so about size 5 for tatting, I think.

 Here's the edging sample I did.

 Pattern from New Dimensions in Tatting by To de Haan-van Beek

I saw lots of fiber friends; other members of Tri-Tatters, Sir Walter Lacers, weaving group, machine knitting, etc. I also saw Danielle, who I haven't seen since she moved to Texas. I also met her wife, Jen, who I only know from Danielle's FB posts. They've moved back to the east coast.

I also bought a nalbinding needle and then won some wool yarn! How about them odds. I only bought 1 ticket in the drawing. And funny enough, while I was up there getting my 'here's the cert for you to claim your prize', the vendor came up to see if the prize they'd offered had been claimed. I didn't have to search for their booth, they lead me right there.

I finished Jane Eborall's Tat It And See, although I used 2 different colors. I want to do this in light green and in grey, too. For reasons.

 


I've also been playing around with Mandala by Nami Art Patterns



You can't tell from the pictures, but the top one is size 20 and the lower one is size 40.

I also took some of my bits to mend a skirt. It's cotton gauze, so I stabilized the holes and then sewed tatting over them.


 And of course, glued flowers, etc to a card.



We play the Pathfinder game again this weekend (crossed fingers) and our 5e game continues. 

In the 5e game, we learned what poisoned our oldest sister (cousin for 1 player). We did some local investigating to see if there's a cure available locally and tried to get some information on who created the poison. We did learn a few things, but we had to go to another town, on the recommendation of someone we contacted, to someone who might know more. 

Cousin (PC is 16, player is my age) continues to underestimate my PC, possibly because of jealousy. My PC went to college in the capital, is beautiful, and cosmopolitan. She (PC) is the smartest and most beautiful person the room; she says so. 

Please note, the player is a good friend and it's all in fun.

I can't believe we had sleet/snow yesterday. Last year, we had snow (no accumulation) as we were leaving the Fiber Fest. And it's supposed to freeze tonight.




Tuesday, November 03, 2015

NaNoWriMo

Guess what I'm trying to do? It's NaNoWriMo time again. I'm behind in my wordcount already. I'm only at 2900 words, when I'm supposed to be at 1800x3 (3rd day of November, 1800 words per day). I have done the prologue, chapter one, and started chapter two.

I won't be writing much of a blog this month. Sorry (not sorry).

Halloween we had 9 trick or treaters come by. Not bad for our neighborhood.

Oh, to console you regarding the lack of post, here's something from The Bloggess. Do not read while eating, drinking, or while in public.




Saturday, March 19, 2011

Great Time Had, After a Lousy Lead-in

Last night was a birthday supper for one of the Davids. We were meeting in Raleigh, because everyone else lives or works in Raleigh and it was where that David wanted to go. I got directions online, because I'd never been to that restaurant. It was to take about half an hour, figure about 40 minutes with traffic. I left at about 6:15, to get there by 7 pm. Except.

I got stuck on the on-ramp. I checked the clock; 6:21 pm. After 10 minutes, I'd gone approximately 1 mile and I had seen a sign that said 'major delays for the next 3 miles. I called to let folks know that I was caught in traffic and I'd be late. 40 minutes later, I was finally going more than 20 miles an hour. It took me 50 minutes to go those 4 miles. Ugh. The rest of the trip only took 25 minutes. I got there as the appetizers were being served and quickly placed my order. Luckily, I'd looked at the menu online and had an idea what I wanted already.

There were enough of us that I didn't get much interaction with the other end of the table but I did have a great time with the three people near me, plus a couple interjections from the folks in the middle. I shared this video with RW (mild swearing). Warning, if you follow the link, put down your food and drink. Really. I mean it.

After the supper, it was off to stay with A and S. A and I will go to the bead show together & from there it's the tatting meeting. Squee!