I’m wrapping up my patterns for my April Shuttlebirds classes and am looking for test tatters.  I’m also looking for test tatters for the pattern for Section 1 of the Tea Cloth.  Here’s pictures of the finished pieces:

All pieces except for the earrings include split rings.  Other than that, it’s just rings, chains, picots and joins.  If you’re interested, send me an email or comment below with your email and which pieces you’re interested in test tatting.  Thanks!

I’m looking for a test tatter or two for the earrings I posted earlier this week.  I plan to send the pattern to the IOLI who are looking for lace patterns to include in their CD for this year’s convention.  Don’t know if they’ll choose it, but it would be awesome if they did.

Submitting them means that I would need feedback on the pattern in the next day or two.  Anyone interested?  I’m pretty sure the pattern is free from any mistakes, but would like to have someone else tat it to be sure and to check for any wording that is awkward or unclear.  They earrings should take under an hour to make, I think.  I’m not always a good judge of that, but they’re not very complicated.  The pattern does include split rings and shuttle joins.

I’m going to make this the free pattern pulled out of the book of other patterns inspired by this edging from the Priscilla Tatting Book, so if you can’t get to it in the next couple days, don’t worry, this will not be your last opportunity.

Leave a comment with your email, or send me an email at jessica@snapdragonlace.com.  Thanks!

Now live on Etsy and Craftsy!

I had an order today for my Variations on a Theme booklet about the magical transforming motif and all the different things you can do with it.  The customer also ordered the pattern for the large gloves variation, no realizing it was already included in the booklet.  I offered to either refund her money for the glove pattern or send her the pattern for these scalloped gloves (which is what she chose).

I’ve had the pattern for these scalloped gloves done for over a year now, but had never gotten around to listing on Etsy or Craftsy.  I finally got it listed tonight and it’s nice to have it up and available.  I think this counts for my UnFinished Object of the week.  (I have a project from last week that I finished too, but haven’t gotten around to posting about it yet.)

It’s also occurred to me that I should put my handout on non-double-stitch chains up on Craftsy as a free download.  I usually send it along with my other patterns on Etsy, but Craftsy is an automatic download for the user, which is VERY nice for me, but means they don’t get the handout.

At some point I will also list the pattern for the coin purse which I also basically have done, but want to run though again before listing.  The tricky bit with the coin purse is that it’s designed around a specific size and brand of purse clasps.  It’s the smaller sized of the Everything Mary brand.  I’ve found it at Joann’s and had no problem finding it in Southern CA, but so far have only found one Joann’s store in the Seattle area that carries it and of course now I can’t remember which one it was.

I’m thinking about doing 3 listings for the coin purse.  One with just the pattern, one with the pattern and a clasp for those who can’t find them locally, and one that’s just the clasp for people who want to make more than one.  What do you think?  Does that seem like a reasonable solution?

I suppose it was silly of me to expect to finish the scarf by the time we made it up to Seattle.  I did get both of the white rows finished and (just barely) started the first of the purple rows.  Figuring out how much yarn to expect to use was a bit of a pain in the butt.  As was working with overwound Tatsy shuttles (I didn’t want to have to do much adding of thread and hiding of ends so I started with it over wound).  I’m going to follow the pattern as shown in the Priscilla book, even though it has a asymmetrical aspect that bothers me.  This asymmetrical bit should make it possible to finish the pattern with the yarn I bought without needing to find more.  It would be annoying to have to buy more since I bought it on clearance in Los Angeles and don’t want to spend more on this experiment.  I was surprised by the “fraying” of the picots, but I suppose that’s what happens when I choose to tat with a yarn without a strong twist.  It’s an interesting effect and should work out though.  It will serve as a nice contrast to the general tightness of the tatting.  (btw, the yarn is Debbie Bliss – Eco Fair Trade Collection.)

I want to give a big thank you out to those who test tatted my choker pattern for me!  Now that I’m up in Seattle and settling in I’m finally going back and making the corrections.  Handouts for the Shuttlebirds conference are due at the end of the week if I want them to make copies for me so I’m finishing up my last two now.  If I don’t finish by the end of the week it’s no big deal, I’ll just run the copies myself, but I like to have an early deadline and it would be nice to have them all finished.

Does anyone have experience using Illustrator to do diagrams?  I’m having trouble getting nice even (and symmetrical) chains.  What tool do you use to do it and do you have any advice?  I’m seriously considering taking Illustrator and In Design classes as soon as I get more settled in.

I have just discovered Craftsy.com.  Despite being in the middle of a move from San Diego to Seattle (I start the drive on Wednesday!) it’s managed to suck me in and I spent more time than I should have exploring.  Very cool!  I can’t wait to do more exploring and take some classes.  I’ve been wanting to learn to knit socks for quite a while. Perhaps the introductory $25 price for your first class will actually get me started.

I’m also very excited by the fact that they will host patterns and allow for an automatic download.  My patterns will, of course, continue to be available in my Etsy shop (More coming soon, actually.  I have the patterns ready, but need to write the descriptions), but I like the automatic download feature of Craftsy.  I just posted the pattern for my fingerless gloves and a little later will my book of patterns derived from the transforming motif that I love so much.

In filling out my basic information to register for Craftsy I put Seattle, WA down as my location for the very first time.  I’ve very excited about the move, but so much more to do to get packed up and only two days left!  Yikes!