Tuesday 24 February 2009

Valentine Tea Towel Exchange

Now that I finally know that Irma in Chile got her tea towel I thought I would post the pictures I took before I sent it. Sorry some of the pictures aren't very clear.
This heart is Brigit's SweetHeart.



Clockwise, the pink heart is Ruth's Medallion Heart from the Tatting Calendar, the next two are also from the Tatting Calendar - the tiny red one is Ruth's Easy Little Heart and the little green one is her Spiral Heart; The larger red one is Brigit's Li'l Heart.

















The edging is a variation on Jon's Dimpled Chain - I made every second chain plain with 3 picots.










This is the whole bottom edge.




I also sent Irma a chocolate heart and a tatted bookmark.



Saturday 21 February 2009

Which book is this in? & Thanks

I came across this online today and think it is from one of the japanese tatting books - does anyone know which one?



I would also like to thank everyone that has made comments on my blog it is much appreciated and I look forward to reading them - just wish sometimes there were a few more!!! ;).

Monday 16 February 2009

Wee Heart Pattern & sidetracked

Sorry _ I had intended to post this on Sunday but got sidetracked as we took my wee boy to ToysRUs to spend his Xmas vouchers (we had tried before but the shop was nearly empty!!!!) and amongst other things he decided to buy the Professor Layton game for the DS. Once he got it home and tried it out he wasn't so keen so Mummy tried and loved it - if you are into puzzles like I am it is compelling!

Anyway, this is the link to the Wee Heart Pattern - it is in pdf format. Please use as you will but please credit me. Thanks.

Saturday 14 February 2009

Wee Heart

This is my Wee Heart



What do you think? Would you like the pattern?

Friday 13 February 2009

Another moan & saddened

I am very sorry but feel I just have to get this off my chest.........I am incredibly disappointed and saddened by some of my recent experiences in our tatting family.

I never realised until recently why I generally always lurked on the various tatting lists and groups - some of our friendly "family" are not so friendly as outward appearances would make them seem, unless apparently you are part of the clique. Obviously I am not part of this. Over the last 8 or so months I have tried to "speak" to a number of our "family" - and on various occasions I have been totally ignored - two different personal vendors (ie not businesses) have ignored totally, questions put to them which would have probably resulted in a sale (to their benefit); one other bothered to get back to me weeks later even though their blog was maintained nearly daily at that time; another individual replied eventually and asked me for snail mail details which I supplied and that was the last I heard of the matter even though it is over 6 months ago and I have sent emails since, which have all been ignored. I think what really upsets me is this has happened to me with at least 5 different people.

I fully understand that people have lives outside tatting and that often your hobby takes a back seat as my own experience in the SS exchange showed - I had to apologise to Karey through Gina that time had got away and only part of Karey's present could be sent before Xmas. I at least had the courtesy to explain my problem and apologise. My Secret Valentine tea towel partner has also had a problem and has apologised for the delay - I fully appreciate that apology and applaud their honesty - I just wish this attitude was more prevalant. All of this is, of course, not across the board and I have had almost immediate and genuine responses from others. I know this is not a phenomenon restricted to our family but it just upsets me that the few spoil and tarnish it for all.

Sunday 8 February 2009

What a lot of creative talented & generous people there are

I have spent a bit of time over the last few days wandering around the One World-One Heart Gypsy Caravan that both TattingChic & Marilee are very generously participating in. (I wish I was more organised and then I might have been able to participate in it as well, hopefully next year). I am just staggered by the generosity, talent and creativity there is - the only thing I would have thought to do with a rusty key was throw it away not use it for any type of craft purpose!

Back to tatting for a while. I have finally designed a pattern I am happy with - a little heart - so after writing it down I will possibly post it. I have doodled with designing for a few years but am usually not entirely happy with the end results so have never taken them any further - maybe I should try again? What do you think? I am going to do the thread exchange with the celtic group so may send a little heart as well!

I am nearly finished Jon's "Quantiesque snowflake" in variegated red and variegated green, but think I shouldn't have combined the two threads for the last round as it isn't quite right colourwise. We'll see when I finish it, I'll post a pic and see what you think. I have also been using my Silent Tatter shuttle from Roseground, which I must admit I find hard to use but love the feel of it in my hand - it is just a fraction too heavy (I keep dropping it) after the Aero Englands I love & use always. I have had it for about 3 years now and keep trying it every so often, but I suppose to be fair I don't use it enough to get used to it. It's funny how the shuttle you learn with remains your favourite no matter what - or so I've found anyway.

FIL got out of hospital on Thursday but for how long is anyone's guess. We were up to see him today and he does look better than he did but still terribly unwell. I just hope he doesn't suffer too long.

Monday 2 February 2009

God give me strength!!

.......and save me from moronic men! Please excuse while I rant awhile as I can't think who else to rant to and DH has heard it all before.

As I mentioned in a previous post my FIL has inoperable pancreatic cancer and is going downhill visibly week on week. Since the first diagnosis he has decided to cope with this by pretending it isn't happening - I can't see the logic in this but can't comment more than that as I am not in his shoes, and if this is his way of dealing with it, so be it.

What I find gobsmacking however, is the attitude of his sons (the eldest, and for once, the sensible, son is my DH). The youngest is Trouble (with a capital T) and has always been - trouble with the police, drugs stealing etc, leaves his partner with 3 small children on a monthly basis, thinks he knows everything about everything and is a general b**lsh***er etc (you know the sort) is aged 35 now and should have grown up by now but obviously it will never happen. It is no suprise that he has decided he is in charge of everything now and as such this involves doing exactly the same as his father...."Dad's fine", etc.

Anyway, to explain this rant, I need to start on Friday early evening when we got a panic phone call from son #3 to say Dad is bleeding heavily and shaking uncontrollably and the doctor has rung for the ambulance. To which we assumed pretty much the end had come but had to wait until FIL was seen in the hospital as to what we needed to do, ie whether we needed to take DS down to my uncle & aunt so we could spend however long at ARI (Aberdeen Royal Infirmary). So, move on 1 1/2 hours and we get another phone call to say that FIL is okay but will be kept in and needs a blood transfusion. We go in to see FIL on Saturday and the difference in him in the 2 weeks since we've seen him is startling (we had to avoid him for over a week because of all the colds we had). His upper arms are no bigger than my wrists and this exceptionally proud and often belligerent stubborn arrogant man had an accident while we were there. While all was being dealt with I went and talked to a staff nurse about what point we were at and she told me nothing positive which was what I expected. We got to talking about the local hospice which offers different services from day-care, to 2-3 day stays to long-term etc and she asked had we talked about it. I answered no but would talk it over explaining that FIL and son #3 were playing ostriches by burying their heads in the sand and pretending it wasn't happening, but that I didn't know what son #2 was doing as I hadn't spoken to him directly but that he was more likely to be being realistic as he is quite sensible.

Roll on Saturday evening and DH phones his brother (son #2) and whilst talking to him is shaking his head at me, I thought no, it can't be. So when I take the phone the first thing I said was "Doesn't he (FIL) look awful?" to which son #2 answered "No, he's fine" and further into the conversation "When Dad recovers....." (to which I couldn't help myself and said you know that 97% of patients do NOT recover to which there was no answer!!!!! I honestly couldn't believe what I was hearing - son #2 had also been in to ARI to see FIL that afternoon so unless he was visiting another patient I don't know what he saw - what I (& DH) saw was a reasonably heathly specimen for a skeleton but as a human being, beyond description with skeletal arms and legs, bloated abdomen and a curious shade of grey. So I mowed on and tried to talk about the hospice, needless to say was told that Dad didn't need that etc. Now obviously after our call son #2 rang son #3 and we got an abusive call first thing Sunday morning from son #3 to say that that Dad didn't need the hospice and that we were NOT to mention it to FIL. Now, when someone orders me not to do something that is like a red rag to a bull, so I was determined to at least see what FIL said about it even though I thought the answer would be an explosive NO. So on Sunday when we were up at the hospital I plowed on and only got a couple of wimpering no's before I finally got him to agree to at least think about it. Having said that his next comment was that he has decided that when (more likely if) he got out he was going to go on some of these 5 days coach trips he had been on before!!!!! To which I said you won't get travel insurance and explained that a programme of the TV earlier last week had asked the 5 biggest insurance companies here about insurance for a 2 year "cured" prostatic cancer patient - all 5 had refused to insure him but had the programme had eventually tracked down 2 companies that would insure that man but not for anything related to the cancer and for a £250 holiday the insurance for a week would be £3500!!!!!!!

Let us examine FIL further
- 73 year old male with inoperable pancreatic cancer
- on second blood tranfusion in as many weeks (this time 2 units still only raised his blood pressure to 97/51
- goes into shock through haemorrhaging piles due to 10+ day long constipation
- is only 3 treatments into 12 treatment course of chemo as 2 have been delayed as he has not been well enough
- weighs 54kg
- has fairly frequent bladder (and probably other if wasn't constipated) accidents

and according to himself and two of his sons - Dad is FINE and is going to go on holiday soon!!!!! If it wasn't happening to us I REALLY wouldn't believe it was happening.


On a happier note I sent off my Valentine exchange today having finally sewn onto the tea towel all the stuff last night so I can feel partly virtuous (Karey excepted).

Must go