Tatting Treasures Unearthed

Maureen in Brisbane has found some buried treasures and shared them in In Tatters.  They are tatting patterns designed by Norma Benporath that were published in the Queenslander newspapers from the 1930s, scanned and published digitally by the National Library of Australia.

A little on Norma Benporath (1900 - 1998) is provided by the Powerhouse Museum.

As usually happened for scanned documents converted to text, there are bound to be errors when captured by the OCRs.  A number of tatters in InTatters are editing the text for the patterns and correcting the errors. On my part, I have decided to test-tat the patterns after they are edited.

The first one that I am working on is Tatting Designs for Busy People, edited by Judy.  There are two patterns published in this article, a small lace mat and a serviette ring.  I started with the lace mat, which has four rounds.  The lace mat is turning out quite nicely after two rounds.

Tatted with Lizbeth #40, measuring 9cm across after two rounds.

A word of advice to anyone who wants to tat this.  The centre motif may appear all ruffled up as you join the rings, but will eventually flatten out after you have joined the last ring.  It helps a lot if you block or press the motif a bit before continuing with the second round.

Square motif mat finished

The mat made up of square motifs that started with the design that I first wrote about over two months ago is finally finished.

The finished size is 22cm x 18cm (8.5in x 7in) and uses up about one ball of Milford in size 40.  There is still some thread left on the ball but not sufficient to finish another row of motifs.

I decided to make a slight change to the design and in the way the motifs are joined together.  I completed a sample of four squares and then made copies of the image to create a bigger one,

I think the second design looks too dense to my liking.  There is no clear line in the layout that draws the eyes to, as compared to the seemingly interlocking squares of the first design.  It does look slightly better in two colours if going by this rough drawing.

Till the next episode .....

How do you keep your memories & a Giveaway

Have you ever thought about what to do with all the photos and snapshots that you have taken.  I don't know about you but my old photos are all over the place, in plastic pockets and albums from when the cameras were using film rolls.  And now they are in flash drives and hard disks since the cameras have gone digital

I have always thought about getting them properly organised.   And, by chance I was introduced to a software for digital scrap booking from mymemories.com.  I was offered to try out the software for a couple of weeks and write a review of it.  First and foremost, I have to say that I have never done any scrap booking before, either the paper version or the digital version, but I have admired people who can do it.  So, rather than having to purchase the proper kits such as papers, and ribbons and braid, etc.  it would not cost me much to try this digital scrap booking software.

I repeat, I have never done scrap booking before, but I find this software very easy to use.  Everything from page layout, background paper, embellishments and editing features are available, making it so easy to be creative. My problem was not so much with how to use the software but what photos to pick for my first attempt.  And here it is,

And one of you, my readers will get a chance to win this software.  Thanks to the people responsible for this application, one copy of the My Memories Suite will be given free to a lucky winner in this giveaway.  All you need to do is to go to the website by clicking on the link given and choose your favorite digital paper pack or layout  from any of the theme available.  Leave a comment in this post only and include your pick.

I will keep this giveaway open for three weeks until 10th December, 2011.  I think the timing of this giveaway is just right for you to capture the beautiful memories of the coming holiday season.

If you would like to have a go at it straightaway, the people of MyMemories.com have given me a coupon code to share with you, that provides a $10 discount off the purchase of the My Memories Suite Scrapbook software and a $10 coupon for the MyMemories.com store.  Great stuff!
Here is the code for you to use, STMMMS83724 (copy and paste the code to make sure of correct input)

Meeting of Friends - Old and New

One of the reasons that I had not been tatting much the past month or so was because I was organising a reunion of my schoolmates.  The reunion is for the class of 1974 of one of the elite all-girls boarding schools in Malaysia.    It was really hard work trying to get in touch with as many of them as possible and keeping track of the list of attendees.  There were about 170 of us who were in the graduating class of that year.  We managed to get in touch with quite a number but only 61 managed to attend.  Here are some photos of taken on that day.

TKC MCE74 & HSC76

Girls of My House - Selindang Delima (Green)

Some of my Classmates

A Gift for each attendee

opens up into a practical tote/shopping bag

And I met new friends at a craft workshop organised by the Arts & Crafts Guild of KL & Selangor.  In collaboration with the National Textile Museum, the Guild had arranged for a series of workshop on a wide range of crafts.  The teachers conducting the classes are members of the Guild.

The series of workshop started on November 1st and will continue until 18 December. The best part is that all the sessions are free and open to all.  All material and supplies for each craft are provided by the instructors.  You just walk in and join any sessions that you like.

The coming schedule of workshops are during the weekends on the following dates:

12 Nov SAT 10am-1pm Wire Jewellery -Swirl Ring - Mastura Mustafa
12 Nov SAT 2pm-5pm Recycled Weaving - Bremen Wong
13 Nov SUN 10am-1pm Shibori (Japanese textile art) - Fatimah Chik
13 Nov SUN 2pm-5pm Wire Jewellery - Romantic Garden Pendant - Mastura Mustafa
19 Nov SAT 10am-1pm In Love with Beading - Flower Ring - Eva Ng
19 Nov SAT 2pm-5pm Shibori (Japanese textile art) - Fatimah Chik
20 Nov SUN 10am-1pm Recycled Weaving - Bremen Wong
20 Nov SUN 2pm-5pm In Love with Beading - Bracelet / Charm - Eva Ng
3 Dec SAT 10am-1pm Smocking with Hand Embroidery - Nirwana
3 Dec SAT 2pm-5pm Recycled Denim -What can u do with a pair of old jeans?- Norlie
4 Dec SUN 10am-1pm Smocking with Hand Embroidery - Nirwana
4 Dec SUN 2pm-5pm Recycled Denim -What can u do with a pair of old jeans? - Norlie
17 Dec SAT 10am-1pm Furoshiki - Japanese Fabric Wrap & Carry all - Crazeepatches
17 Dec SAT 2pm-5pm Handmade Stamp on Fabric - Ellie Ng
18 Dec SUN 10am-1pm Silk-screen Printing and Resist - Ellie Ng
18 Dec SUN 2pm-5pm Furoshiki - Japanese Fabric Wrap & Carry all - Crazeepatches

National Textile Museum
26, Jalan Sultan Hishamuddin,
Tel -  03-2694 3461, 03-2694 3457

I was there for the session on Quilted Mug Rug, taught by ZarinaZA.  Here are some photos that I took while I was there.

The Chong sisters, two tourists from Hong Kong who came in to escape the heat and stayed  on  for the workshop

My quilted mug rug - work in progress.  I may add some tatting to  it later. 

Zarina, the instructor, is the one in the middle.

Towards the end, I took out my tatting that I had in my bag, and that drew a lot of oohs and aahs from the ladies who were there.  Let's hope that the Guild will include tatting in the list for future workshops.

Still not tatting much......

.... but here is a picture of my niece wearing a tunic with tatted edgings attached to the sleeves and neckline.

More on the Square

This is as far that I have reached working on the square that was from here.

I have started over with a new thread for this piece, which is Milford size 40 in variegated blue.  I have been very good and had hidden the ends every two or three motifs.

This will be my working piece to keep me tatting, re previous post. I will go on until I finish that ball of thread shown in the corner. As it is now, the size is 19cm by 15cm.

This is my own design.  At this time, I am not sure if I will share the pattern.  I am not enjoying the creating and designing part of tatting right now.  Maybe I will when I get that excitement back, :(

A drought, maybe?

I know I have not blogged for quite a while.  The truth is that I have had my hands full with non-tatting work.  And after such hiatus, my creative juice may have run dry.  That is just it!

I don't have the feel for designing right now.  It used to be that ideas are playing in my head at the same time that I was working on some new design.  But I am afraid to stop tatting in case it really turns a tatting drought.

I think I should work on patterns by other published designers so that I can keep tatting, which is what I did here.  These are a couple of designs by Mary Konior that I have turned into bookmarks.

Curds & Whey (I think) in size 20

Black Magic in size 80

One of the non-tatting work that took much of my time was organising a school reunion for my school year f 1974.  Yes, from 38 years ago.  I attended an all-girls boarding school and for that year there were 160+ of us from 5 classes, and 61 attended the reunion.  Each of us brought a gift to be exchanged and my gift was a book with the Black Magic bookmark included between the pages.  Names were drawn to see who gets whose gift.  One of my classmates was picked to receive my gift. I hope she likes it.

The Curds & Whey bookmarks were also supposed to be given away in a lucky draw during the event but I was too busy with the organising, I forgot all about it.