Let There Be Light

Well I had quite the day yesterday. I started out with a pair of earrings that needed making and then I moved on to my first problem of the day. I had acquired small LED lights that I wanted too use in the jellyfish. They twist on and off and are fairly small, but also kind of chrome in color and just hanging them inside would make them very obvious and I couldn't have that. My first task was making a light cozy. It only took a few tries before I had the right shape and now it hides in the oral arms of the jellyfish much better. I added a hook to the bell and to the light, so that it can be removed and the batteries can be changed. It's so small the battery won't last too long, but that's was we sacrifice for size.

Speaking of the jellyfish, they both got listed after this little problem was solved. Also, wonderfully, the blue one already has a home.  The other one here is still waiting for one. Honestly I am in complete shock that either one of them sold so quickly. I struggled with pricing on these a lot. It's always difficult to price for skill and time when you also want it to not be too expensive. When I settled on a price I could live with, I assumed that they would just sit in the shop as an art display for a long time until they found just the right person. I guess for once, just the right person had already seen it.



I'm also still at work on the larger on in vintage ecru. The bell is complete and I finished one oral arm yesterday with an additional row. I think that put my clock at about 4 hours just for that one part. I think for this one I will do 4 of them, but the others will have only the two rows. Then once they're finished it's onto the tentacles. There is a small chance that I will get this one finished over the weekend, but I'm not holding my breath. Once it's done I will try to make another smaller one in blues, though to keep each piece as individual as possible, I think the colors will be changed up a bit. I may just reverse the two bell colors. I am still just giddy that one has a home and here's to the others finding one as well.

Bigger

I really didn't think I'd get round to doing anything new yesterday, but i did. I was fairly determined to finish the mask I was making for an order and I got in done in record time. That's actually pretty surprising because it's been a very long time since I sold a mask and thus a very long time since I've made one. With that all sorted and ready to go int he mail this morning I had some precious free time.

First I was just going to waste it since I'm in a holding pattern with the current jellyfish. The supply I'm waiting for should be here sometime today and if it's early enough I might actually get them listed. It is far more likely that I get my order in late in the day and won't start listing until tomorrow. Of course that all depends on if I can bring myself to actually put a price on them. I got scads of price advice on the Facebook page, but I still feel add about such a large price point.

I think I got off track there. I was going to stall, but instead I started working out a new, even larger jellyfish pattern. I started working with the vintage ecru thread to start with though. I think I have enough prototype information to go ahead with a final piece even though I am still working out the pattern as I go. After this picture I managed another row, but it is still far from complete. The larger the bell, the longer each additional row is and it's at a good 6 or 7 inches across already. It's curving nicely though so I have high hope that if my order comes late in the day I'll get at least the bell made.

Before that though I did get a small order in yesterday that I will need to get taken care of as well. So today it's order, jellyfish, then secret supply. Hopefully everything goes according to plan, but I'm not holding my breath.

Thank You!

Wow, I shared the Sea Nettle Jellyfish around in the morning and it kept on getting love all day long. It received dozens of comments on facebook and it broke 150 likes. In fact it even got reblogged on Tumblr several times and I never get more than one or two there, so I'm really quite pleased with the reaction. I just wanted to say Thank You for all the nice things everyone has said, wherever you said it!

I didn't sit on my laurels, even though I was babysitting two of my nieces all day. I went straight to work on one that might be sell-able. With all the design work done I was able to work fairly quickly, but that hyperbolic tatting will not be rushed. Not to mention that the bell section needs to be stiffened before I add the tentacles and hyperbolic oral arms and that means it need to sit overnight. So I guess even rushed the jellyfish needs at least 2 days to complete.

This is the bell of the one I'm working on. I decided to try and more closely match the colors of some real Sea Nettles. The top is a camel and the bottom is Lizbeth Spiced Cake. The tentacles will be done with the variegated thread as well and the oral arms on the real animal are lighter so I'm using the same vintage ecru I used on the last one for them.

I should get this one finished today and then the plan is to try and come up with a reasonable price for it, any opinions would be helpful for that as it's my first piece of hanging art, then I'm going to go back and make another in all ecru also for the shop. Obviously it's going to take a few days before I get another done, but I hope after all the attention the ecru one got that someone does actually want to own one. I did think about sharing a tutorial for this and I still might sometime in the future, but for know, it has so many fiddly techniques that I imagine are harder to explain than I am up for right now. If I figure out how to explain in an understandable way, I'll revisit the idea. For now, it's back to work.

Done!

I finished the prototype! Yes, it will remain a prototype mostly because I failed to see that the brush I used to apply the stiffening agent had something purple on it that was transferred to the lace. Of course from a distance it looks fine, so I suppose it's more that this one is mine than it's a box destined prototype.

I'm really proud of this one which is why you get the big picture, well that and I'm fairly certain that no one is counting stitches from it. Hopefully I don't have to tell you that it is a jelly fish, because if you can't tell then I really did fail miserably. It is, in particular, a Sea Nettle Jelly Fish. I have a picture of one taken a few years back at the Monterey Bay Aquarium as my phone's unlock screen. After this year's trip I suppose the combination of ocean inspiration and slow sales inspired me to create something different and decidedly unwearable.

I know it's hard to tell scale here, but it's about a foot long I think.(I'll have to go measure it later and update that with the proper length.) The center, or oral arms, are the hyperbolic tatting I've been experimenting with. The outside, or bell, the motif I've been working on. The tentacles, also know as lappets are crochet chains with tatted rings. Please, please tell me what you think of it!

I don't know yet whether a final version of this will end up in the shop. It is certainly a time consuming piece, so the cost would be rather high I imagine. Whether it does or not, I will certainly make more. I want to play with colors at the very least. The oldest child wants one in black already. So my free time, for a while at least, will be given over to the sea.

Almost There

I made very good progress with my project yesterday, but after an unfortunate minor slip up, it is clear that this one will live on as a prototype as well. I will finish it all the way though and once I do, I can show you what it is I've been trying to make, if you haven't already figured it out. I'm still not positive that it will turn out as I planned, but it's looking like it will at least be close.

I made quite a few small stitch count changes in an attempt to get it to the right shape. The only problem in the last version was an irregular size change from one row to the next. Of course once I changed something at the base I had to change something in each subsequent row as well.  I still wouldn't call it the perfect shape, but it certainly works.

I am stiffening this section of the piece, though it does hold it's shape quite nicely as is. I have several other bits to work on to complete it, but I think I should get it done today, or at least close to it. If turns out at least a little like I want it to, then you'll get to see it, otherwise I might pretend I never tried it in the first place.

Wasted Day

Isn't it crazy how one appointment in the afternoon can completely take over the day. Of course I sabotaged the morning as well by taking time to dye my hair which I never do on a week day. That alone pushed back my morning and then I was drafted to fix a mandala for my mother. Her cat had pulled out a couple of the hanging wool bits which I image have a much nicer name that I don't know. I'm not certain why my mother thought that I could fix it, I've never made one before. After assessing the damage, I realized that I could just remove the damaged ones and shift the existing ones about and it looked good as new without me trying to poorly copy a technique I have no knowledge of at all. So I guess in the end I did fix it, but in the laziest way possible.

I did have a bit of time to get back to the prototype for my art idea after that. I played with it for quite some time before deciding that the design and shape were right. Then I pulled out some vintage ecru thread for what will either be the final prototype or the final piece. I'll know which when I'm finished with it. I've already made a few stitch count changes to see if it lays just a bit better. There wasn't anything huge wrong with the first go in that regard, but that doesn't mean that I can't try and make it even better, right?

I didn't get very far before our family dental appointments sucked the rest of the day away. I should have time to work on the piece today because I don't think I have other plans at all. Though again I shall hope for some distractions during the day. Either way I should at least have something to show you tomorrow, even if you have no idea what it is.

Art

I didn't manage a whole lot of tatting over the weekend, but Friday I did get a few things for my idea project sussed out. First off I tried out a new pattern for the hyperbolic tatting. As much as I think the standard chain only method works perfectly, I think it lacks a bit of character. Plus for my clearly secret idea, it should be slightly less perfect. So this one has more depth in the design and when you pull on the starting chain it comes out of the perfect spiral and into a bit of a crazy frill which works for my idea well.

The next part of the project started with this new motif I designed. There are now several more rounds to this, but no pictures because I was a fairly lazy tatter over the weekend, only engaging in the activity while watching something or other on television. It is coming along nicely and soon it will be time to put away the brown thread I've been using to prototype and get to work on the final piece. Though I think I might also use this center motif for a pendant or something too because, well, I really like the way it turned out.

I woke up with a pretty persistent headache this morning and we also have our family dental appointments today so I don't know how much motivation I'll be able to scrape up to work on the project, but hopefully I again get distracted from it by sales. Partly because I'm pretty sure my art project here isn't going to net me a dime and partly because I think the distraction actually helps focus me a bit. I'm still going to make it of course. I need to get the idea out of my head and into thread.

Well, That's Done

The morning was all used up by errands and schooling, so again it was into the afternoon before I had any time to call my own. The children had seen me inking over my pencil drawing and when I explained what I was doing, they both 'had' to do it as well. So one of our errands was to Michael's to get more "real" pens. As the oldest child immediately discovered, it just doesn't work right with a ball point pen.

So we all drew and they painted with stencils and made a mess. It was quite the creative artist retreat around here for a few hours. I did finish the piece I was working on, so I felt like at least I had accomplished something for the day. Of course I've no idea what I'm going to do with it, but it's done, so I can get back to tatting, until the urge hits me again.

I did make up the tatted ears I needed to, but I also realized that the headbands I have left needed another coat of paint before I sewed them together which meant drying time would also be needed. So that's what I get to get back to this morning, sewing ears to headbands. Then I suppose it's back to snowflakes for my mother-in-law. It sounds as if she's putting me on retainer for whenever she'd like some to give out. Again, I don't mind too much as she is not asking me to do all this for free. After all the horror stories I've heard from other makers whose families ask for labor intensive free things all the time, it's wonderful to know that mine respects my time...mostly. I think that's about it, no new orders, no new ideas and a nice rainy day ahead.

What I Really Wanted To Do

So, as I thought, schooling again took up the entire morning, so I didn't even get to worry about what I was going to tat until well after lunch. I had started the kids on the task of writing a letter to some cousins and drawing some pictures for them. While they were at it, I kept feeling compelled to make something new. So I tried and I tried again and I failed repeatedly to come up with something interesting enough to keep working at it.

So I sat down my black thread and picked up the white and worked on the TIAS. At least then I would be focused on making something, if just for a few minutes anyway. Yep, still no clue what these are pieces of. Unfortunately, it really did only take a few minutes to get day 11 made up and then I was right back to this strange, undeniable urge to create something.

It took me a while to realize that it was the kids drawing that was compelling me. What I really wanted to do was draw something. I can't tell you how long it's been since I took the time to do that. So I buzzed around the house looking for my drawing pad and good eraser. Then I drew for a while. I drew long enough to get the piece inked before I headed up to watch television with the family. It felt good, though it's not great art or anything, it felt nice to create something from scratch...in a different way than usual.

I'll likely finish adding ink to the piece today. I don't want to stop until I've finished it, but after that I've got cat ears to tat up again. In fact I think it might be time to finally order more headbands. I'm always terrified that the ones I use won't exist anymore and they work so perfectly for sewing the lace on. Most headbands are covered using satin ribbon and they just don't lend themselves to the process as well. So here's to finishing art, finding supplies and maybe an order or two for the day as well. Yep, that sounds like a fine plan for the day.

That's Better

I decided yesterday after I wrote my blog post that if I wasn't going to get sales, I was going to at least get a little attention or interaction at least, so I offered up a necklace as a giveaway there. Thankfully a few sales came with it as well. I honestly forget, after a giveaway, how ego boosting they can be for me. I ask for comments to enter and people tend to offer up compliments. Of course I use a random number generator to pick the winners so they don't really need to bother, but it definitely picked me up out of my slight depression and resulted in a nice productive day.

I had a back drop necklace to make so after a walk with the family I was busy with that most of the morning, but I also took a break from that to remake some chain maille pieces that sold. In fact I worked quickly enough on that, it made my fingers hurt. After I finished the necklace it was back to the art piece. After staring a while, I figured out my first picot changes and then remembered to take a picture of the one I finished over the weekend. It hasn't been pressed, so it's a bit off, but there you have it. I only got the first two side motifs done on the third and just started the first side round. Hopefully I can get it finished up this week. I plan on washing them thoroughly before pressing, just in case all my cleanliness and cat avoidance efforts failed and then I'll be done...I think.

We're back to schooling today, so I won't have as much time to work or worry about sales either. I think I may have just had too many days off from schooling the kids and that got me maudlin over sales, not that it wasn't a legitimate concern, but I really ought not whine too much. My life is otherwise just lovely. So after schooling I have a custom bracelet to make, a necklace to remake and the last white art piece in queue. It's going to be a busy, busy day and I'm very glad of it...and because I can, I leave you with a picture of Neko, the cat.

Ah, Friday

Another uneventful day...seriously, I'm about to write the whole week off as a complete waste of time. Of course that's not entirely true. I have gotten plenty of work done. It just wasn't interesting or note worthy and we're going on day 4 with no activity in my shop as well. Let's just say, I'm glad that today is Friday and perhaps the weekend can reset the whole mood so we can start fresh next week.

Before schooling I did get day 10 of the TIAS done. It was a longer bit than most of them, but split rings with the needle are fairly easy so, it was still done quickly. Jane really is one crafty, inventive designer. The patterns she comes up with to create recognizable shapes are just so clever. It occurs to me just now that I didn't email my picture to Jane though...oops. Not that she needs my picture, there are countless folks participating.

After schooling it was back to the white thread just like the day before and the day before that. I did get the first piece done and I started on the second. I am going to be making some aesthetic changes with each piece. It won't be anything structural, but a different picot combination here and there, just to give each piece a little more of its own identity while keeping them clearly related. Again, I felt the need for a nice abstract picture to fill in the boring blogging.

As you already guessed today shall be the same routine again. After teaching the children, the white thread will come out and I'll work on that until the evening or until something else takes my attention. Although the way this week is going I don't have much hope for distraction. I really need to think on something new to do or make soon...yeah, I've got nothing. Here's hoping the Universe sends some sales, a project, or a muse, whichever the Universe prefers is fine with me. And now, because I felt like it, I will end the post with a lap cat picture.

Monotony

Another day of exactly what I planned to do, no surprises, no extra entertainment, just schooling and white thread.

Directly after schooling ended I got back to work on the art project and that was most of my day. White thread, careful counting, stopping very so often to inspect the work for stray hairs and mistakes. I managed to get the first and second rounds done on the first piece, but I only stopped to take this one picture. I decided since you've seen the pattern already I'd go for a nice abstract lace picture. This is as I was working the end of the first round and the whole length is dangling from my needle...cascading lace into darkness. Can you tell the monotony is getting to me a bit.

I did get one reprieve from the task at hand as my mother-in-law came by in the afternoon to get a crocheting lesson. When I met her she was solely a knitter and not a very ambitious one, but she literally knitted dishcloths everywhere she went...everywhere. Since then she's enlisted me on countless occasions to help expand her repertoire and knits all sorts of things, uses the knitting loom and now crochets. I think she still thinks tatting is too small, delicate and requires too much attention to bother with. Maybe one day.

So I see today the next part of the TIAS up so I'll get to that this morning. Then after schooling it's again back to the white thread. I should manage to finish the first piece today and then I suppose I'll start the next. I have been pretty good about ignoring the state of the etsy shop lately, but I just checked and so far this month, I've pulled in 2 sales and that is not good. So I'm starting to stress on that a bit now. It is a traditionally slow month, but I haven't even gotten any Valentine's purchases which has me worried for the rest of the month. I suppose it's a good thing I have a project to focus on or I'd be racking my brain for ideas to pull out of the slump. It won't stop me from complaining here a bit though to get it out of my system. Again I leave you with the hope for a nice surprise today, a sale, a request an interesting message, anything that will stave off monotony.

As Planned

When days go exactly as planned I find that I have little of interest to share the next morning. There was early morning schooling with little complaint and then it was straight onto tatting the barefoot sandals that needed remaking. The only surprise there was that I really ought to inventory what thread I have so I can order more of the colors I have been using the most of. The teal thread I used yesterday is almost at an end and I find that I never "need" thread until I'm almost out.

Once those were made, it was scrubbing up for the white thread work again. It really is cumbersome to make certain that all the thread and lace stays inside baggies or hovers over them while I work. To make matters more interesting my oldest cat, who is a black, longhair cat, has been particularly needy lately. His fur is absolutely the worst when working with white. I actually draped a shawl over him yesterday as he wouldn't leave my lap and that was the best way to separate him from the tatting without being mean. I didn't stop to get any progress pictures, but I'm not even finished with the first round yet so I'll be back at it today.

No new tatting orders in the queue for today either, so it really is just the art project. I'll try to remember to get some pictures so you at least have something to look at tomorrow. Here's hoping something interesting happens today though. I need some interesting soon.

White

Before schooling yesterday I had time to get the day 9 of the TIAS made up and I actually remembered to send a picture to Jane this time, I forgot on day 8. It's become pretty obvious that it's a pram, as the British call it, baby buggy, old fashioned stroller...yeah, I like pram better. Definitely not something I would have tatted otherwise, that's for certain.

After schooling, there were several chores that needed doing before I busted out the white thread. In fact I did everything I could think of before that, laundry, dishes,seasoning a new griddle. Then I felt like I was scrubbing up for surgery as I made sure my work space was extra clean and relatively cat free. The lace went in a bag as it was being tatted and the thread was in a separate bag as well. Tatting in white is so nerve racking. I managed to get the piece for an exchange done and then just the two end motifs of the first art piece. I'm doing some extra careful tatting again as mistakes are easier to see in white as well.

I have a pair of barefoot sandals I need to get remade today and then I'll get back to the white. I fear it's going to be slow going as I only have enough patience for so much white tatting in any given day. I need to be able to scratch my face and run my fingers through my hair and that's a big no no with the white as I fear trace face oils and residual hair dye. I also have to keep the cats further away, no lap sitting as their fur aspires to be part of any piece of lace I tat. Tatting with white thread is just so much more of a chore for me, but it should look amazing when it's done, so I persevere.

Accepted

I should never, ever start a day without designating a tatting task of some sort for later. When I don't, I end up doing something unpleasant, like the other day when I stress cleaned. What unpleasant thing did I do yesterday morning? I organized receipts. Now if I kept track of them like I say I will at the start of every year, this would not be a problem. I, however, clearly don't. No, I throw them in a pile until half my desk looks like a hoarders house and then I have to spend an hour sorting business receipts from personal and getting them placed in their accordion folders in some semblance of order so they can do me some good when tracking write-offs. This is all in anticipation of taxes which I can't do until I get all the forms from all the people who must send me forms and some of them wait well into February for overseas investment reasons. So, fun morning then.

After that I took a final laid out picture of the art project prototype to send the artist. Thankfully it was well received. I always, always worry about the acceptance of commissioned pieces. What if I had completely misunderstood the idea, the function? Don't laugh, it's happened at least once before when I was asked to make a mask for a photo shoot. The final piece turned out to be my favorite fancy design, but the photographer was ridiculously unclear as to what he wanted and I had gone far past it. The best part is once I made the one he did want for the shoot, he fell off the face of the earth and I just sold it in the shop. This is why I'm gun-shy.

So today I shall begin work on the final white art pieces. There are a total of three of them and I may add a slight variation to each one, but I'm not certain what that will be. Likely a change in decorative picots here and there just to give each a slightly different personality, but the overall design and structure is set. I've also got a couple of pieces back in the queue to be remade, so I have plenty to do this weekend and there will be no need for silly unpleasant tasks...I hope.

Done For Now

I had a major bout of the 'clean the house' illness yesterday morning. It's a condition related to stress and since I was stressed I needed to clean and do laundry and dishes and vacuum. All this until I got a slightly stress relieving call just before lunch. Then I calmed and I tatted.

First up is day 7 of the TIAS. Jane certainly has a way with tatted structures. We're clearly, slowly, building something I would have never thought to build and in a way I probably would never have thought to do so. She loves split things and mock things and it has been a pleasure to work outside my norm a bit.

Then I got back to the art project. The next row went above just the two sides and again there were a bunch of small changes made so that it didn't change the basic shape of the piece. I was afraid some of the joins would pull the piece out of alignment, but I needn't have worried. It stayed just as I wanted it to.

Next up was the very last addition to the piece. This was the part I really liked as I added it to the smaller bits of prototype, the scallop edge. I've been playing with this design element in my other pieces for a while now and they add something frilly back to the lace that I often take away by decreasing the amount of decorative picots. It's tricky business though as they need to be just the right size and distribution to pull the lace into a small frill at the edge without disrupting the overall shape. I still need most of the width of the piece to lay flat.

I've got the whole prototype done and pressed now and so I'll take a break to share it with the artist and make sure we're on the same page before proceeding with the final pieces in white. I do have a nasty habit of getting ahead of myself and even though I think the design is pretty perfect, I certainly don't want to assume anything.

Since I have no orders to fill and the project is at a stopping point, I have no idea what I'll get up to today. Here's to something wonderful surprising me with something exciting or at least interesting to do.

More Art

Another day another length of lace. In fact until the evening when another bout of "family issues" reared its ugly head, the day went exactly as planned. After schooling I got a necklace remade and then almost immediately went back to work on the latest prototype for the art piece.

 Sometimes I worry that small changes won't make any difference with the final piece, so I'm often quite surprised when my choices add up to something even I'm impressed with. The first thing I noticed as I worked the first row to length is how much better it was laying already.  I made several stitch count changes and made more joins and the resulting piece has a much cleaner curve than the original.

I've now got the first row completed all the way around and again I'm quite pleased with the shape and the small details I've added already give the lace more character. Well, I think so anyway. I've got two more rows to complete on the exterior which should add some more dimension and pull the separate elements together better.

I don't have any tatting in queue today so I'll be working on this project again unless of course something pulls me away. I won't know for certain if the piece works until I get the prototype completely finished, so I'm a bit focused. I'm also crossing my fingers because it's an awful lot of work to do and then fail. I am cautiously optimistic that I've got it though. Now if only stitch count changes could fix the "family issues". Then I'd be onto something.

Art

I'm not certain what finally made me pick it up again, it might have been the bright sunny day, but whatever it was I was back at the art project all day long. The project doesn't have to be completed until the summer so I've been kind of laissez-faire about the whole thing. The last time I worked on it, before the holidays, I thought I was done with the prototype. I figured the next time I picked it up it would be for a final pattern adjustment and just making up the pieces. Instead the time away allowed me to look at the whole thing with fresh eyes and realize that I was most certainly not done.

My part in this project was given certain parameters to work within. I needed to create something a certain size and shape to be added to the final project. When I worked on it before that was all I did, I used existing patterns as a base and adapted them only as needed to fit. What I didn't do was add 'me' to the project. When I looked at it yesterday I knew I needed to add elements that meant something and contributed to the theme of the project as well as made the pieces distinctively mine.

This meant I spent all day making and remaking elements of the design and re-piecing them together to keep the correct shape. So in essence I started all over. I used brown thread because I bought a load of cheaper browns before Lizbeth started making a similar color. The final project is going to be white, but I didn't want to waste good thread on all this planning and designing. I think I've managed to work out all the changes I will need to make, and there were a lot, so I'll make yet another full sized prototype next to see if it all fits together like it's suppose to. If it does I'll finally be ready to make the real pieces.

That might not get done today though as I do have a couple of smaller pieces that need remaking today and they'll be my first tasks after schooling wraps today. I am feeling really good about the art project changes though, so there's a good chance I'll actually want to get back to that and at least get it started today. It should be another sunny day as well so I have high hopes all around.

Super Secret Art Project

I'm certain I mentioned this a bit when I was first offered the opportunity to participate in my first real art project, but since the project has a long timeline I had yet to actually get to work on it. Yesterday I finally got some time to sit down and really get to designing so I thought I'd share a little bit of the process. For this commission I've been given all the particulars of the art installation and a scale image of the shape I need to fill. The artist has been very communicative and I've been given free reign to design within those parameters.

The first step for me is to use what I have already made to approximate the shape. So I dig through my finished pieces and begin by laying out several different ones trying to see which designs comes closet to the right degree of curve. I's hard to see in the pictures, but at this point I have three different pieces representing different techniques I wanted to try. I don't plan on using any of these exactly as they are now. Everything will be modified and adjusted so I know I need to work up prototypes first.

These are something I rarely do, prototypes. I like to know where I'm going when I start tatting and I like the finished piece to just be there at the end of my first try, but this is something extremely different and it's worth the extra design steps to make sure the final pieces are gallery or museum ready, I'm not really sure where the final piece is going to be yet. I'll let you know when I do. Since this is a pretty large piece, I don't expect to have the prototype ready for at least a few days which is frustrating as well. I have little patience waiting to see if the design will work.

As expected I have already mucked up several times and have had to adjust my ideas repeatedly. I no longer regret going the prototype route at all. The exhibition isn't until next summer, but I thought getting a jump on it while the shop is a virtual ghost town was a good idea. Normally I would have complained about that this week, but with the cold, it was actually well timed. I'll keep working on this until the shop tears me away which will be soon...hopefully. Then I'll have plenty of time at the start of the year to work on it. It's always back to ghost town in January and February which is still ages from my deadline. I'm kind of ridiculously pleased about the idea of being named in an art exhibit so I'm crossing my fingers that nothing goes awry since there is so much time for it to do so. I'll just put my head down, get the work done  as perfectly as I can and knock on wood periodically. That should work right? right?

60

Today is my mother in law's birthday and yesterday, for some unexplainable reason, I decided that I should draw her something for the occasion. I haven't picked up my pens in...well quite some time. I used to draw a lot. I never really thought of myself as an artist particularly because both of my brothers are unmistakably artists. Comparably speaking, mine pieces are child like doodles. Yes, I know that we work in completely different styles that really cannot be compared, but still the difference is clear. Anyway, now that I've digressed into self loathing in order to make myself feel better about my achievement, here's my present.I don't really think she is gong to stumble onto the blog today and ruin the gift, but if she does...happy birthday, I hope you like it!

I didn't get as much tatting done yesterday as I had planned.I was sidetracked by not only the gift making intermission, but also a much longer school day for my daughter. I've learned that I need to take advantage of those days when she seems not only willing to learn, but actually focused. I taught more lessons than I needed to since she was still in a good mood and we still have plenty to catch up on with our nearly two week late start to the school year. Hopefully today should be another productive day in one way or another. Still not getting a whole lot of sleep with all the coughing around here, but it's getting better and time stops for no man... or mom in this case.