Chocolate and Gingerbread!

Before I start there is something that I intended to say yesterday about ChocoMango,

It was dyed using the same principles as ChocoRaspberry and ChocoLime, but when I saw it, it reminded me of Yarnplayers Tigers Eye......there is no way I want to copy someone else's threads.

Luckily I have some of that thread...I tatted a gecko in it.

Phew...it's similar but very different I think...the yellows are different and she has a darker more grey brown as the darkest shade...not chocolatey at all.

Hope you agree Yarnplayer?

So you are waiting to see the new colourway.

Here it is!

The 'inbetween' colour I was going to call Caramel Mousse ...

until I saw it ..washed and dried...for the first time.....

and it shouted at me....

GINGERBREAD

well actually it shouted at me 

PARKIN

but... you probably wouldn't know what that is........more on that later...

I tatted my favourite heart...

OK back to the Parkin...

I lived in Yorkshire until I was 12 and every year around this time...in fact just when I was outside in my dye studio...there was Bonfire night. We didn't celebrate Halloween in those days.

November the 5th.

Very near to us was a field where all the kids...and adults used to build a gigantic bonfire. You would see then dragging branches behind them going down the street. It was a time to clear out anything that would burn. 

Kids would be out on the streets wheeling along a 'Guy' that they had made and dressed in old clothes, shouting "penny for the guy".

I am sure that you will all know the story of how Guy Fawkes tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament in London.

You can't imagine the excitement..waiting for the bonfire to be lit. We would watch from the bedroom window to see a glow in the sky. 

Especially when it was raining and we would wait to see if it would be lit at all....if it wasn't then dad would usually go out with an umbrella and try to light our fireworks in the garden.

When we saw the glow, we would all four of us go round to the bonfire, carrying our precious few fireworks.  We each lit our own fireworks when there was a lull in the activity.

The Roman Candles, Rockets on a stick that you placed in a bottle to light and the Sparklers that we could hold, it was magic.

We made sure that we kept checking the ground to get out of the way of the jumping crackers that would be moving erratically around or the bangers that would make us jump out of our skins.

All so very dangerous, it would happen now.

Mums would take potatoes wrapped in foil to cook in the ashes and dads would poke them into the bottom of the fire.

Mums would also take trays of 'cake'.....sounds idyllic...well that's how I remember it!

The day after would would go around collecting the empty firework cases to see how many we could find.

Our cake would always be Parkin...real Yorkshire Parkin...Sue Hanson are you there? do you remember this?

It's a very very sticky kind of gingerbread made with oatmeal. It was so sticky..and before the days of non stick cake tins..there would always be a lot left on the bottom of the tins.....just right for scraping out with your fingers!

This is my mum's original recipe, just as she made it.

YORKSHIRE PARKIN

10 oz Self raising flour

5oz medium oartmeal

9 oz Golden Syrup

3 oz melted Margarine

5oz Brown Sugar

1 teaspoonful Bicarbonate of Soda

1.5 teaspoonsful of ground Ginger

1 Cup of boiling water

Just mix it all together and pour into a greased and floured tin( about 10" by 8" I think)

Bake in a moderate oven 350 deg F if at the bottom of the oven, 325 degF if at the top.

bake until risen and firm (or it will sink!)..about 40 mins.

Cut into squares.

I can smell it now.

Back to the thread, well still in Autumn mood I had been tatting Tatman's Cat on a Broom

.......and in my new threads.....

I was stunned by the result, loved he way the ChocoMango showed all the lovely colors in the broom. Each untwisted thread in the fringe is solid colour the dye really did dye all the way through.

Wondered if Gingerbread might be too 'samey' for the cat..but it complemented it beautifully. I think.

I LOVE IT.

I have dyed some of the individual solid colours...not many as I totally ran out of brown dye ...used such a lot to get saturated colours.

Here they are....

Turned out to be a Spice collection....these are just what I wanted for tatting animals...one of the things that drew me to dyeing in the first place.

So from Gingerbread we have Ginger, Cinnamon and Cloves....and a stranger slipped in there!

I misread my recipe for Ginger and ended up with another shade altogether. showed my friends and they loved it. said I should keep it and call it Nutmeg!

Was hoping to show you a collage of little butterflies in all the colours. but still haven't dyed them all!

maybe tomorrow!

 

Hot Chocolate for Christmas!

Interruption to my travels because I just HAVE to show you my latest thread!

I tried to get myself back to normal (whatever that is!) but shunting myself out into my dye studio.

My mind said whaaa!

whats that all about?

You remember...dyeing thread in gorgeous colors!

Yipee! said my mind...but how do we do that....how could you have forgotten!

Ok mind lets start with something that you know......remember the Hot Chocolate series.....

ChocoRaspberry and ChocoLime

well there was another one that I tried out.....and loved...but didn't have time to complete.

I am now proud to present the results of a heck of a lot of work....taken me forever! at least a month to get it perfected.

 Inspired by yet another yummy bar of chocolate.

Do I need to describe ChocoMango to you or are you already drooling! (Hope so!)

The Chocolate sauce you already know and the Mango is a delicious ...well mangoey colour and the colours in between...well more about them later! 

So hard to show you the actual colours.

Of course I had to tat my favourite heart...

Hearts desire by Susan Fuller

 

The left one is in Coats 20 and the right one in Lizbeth 40 which i am trying out...it tatted up beautifully.

 Here it is again tatted in Chocolate Sauce and Mango

 

Next to tat was of course...a Spinning Wheel glass mat...much beloved by Lace Loving Librarian and me...and many others.

I did actually send Lace Loving Librarian and Steph (from Steph's Tat Stuff)

these are tatting image that they sent me and they kept is all quiet for all these months and months..thanks lassies.

Aren't they super?

At this point..there is one thing that worries me.....a manufacturer of tatting threads is looking for ideas for colour combinations and I would hate to think that some bright spark might suggest the hard researched color combos worked out by me and by the other thread dyers. I hope that tatters are more honorable than that. nuff said.

The next question is...will I live long enough top use all this thread!!!!

Remember the derivatives of ChocoRaspberry and ChocoLime.......Raspberry and Chocolate Mousse, Raspberry Ripple with Real Vanilla, and Antique Bronze.......well will show you tomorrow(hopefully) what Chocomango spawned...and it's gorgeous.

Wedding Stuff. Part 5c.....Today's job!

 Thanks to everyone who commented what a great idea this was....and how nice it was to have participation from other tatters.

It's like a big warm hug to have such friends out there.

Today

was the time to lay them all out and see how many I have.

At the top are the finished ones ready for the plastic sleeves, in piles of 10.

Next row are in process of glueing, hearts are on and waiting to have the Treble Clef glued on.

Then I come down to a few more recently arrived hearts to glue on as well.

Finally...horror of horrors 15 bookmarks with no hearts

oops! 

that's bad!

Next to them are a pile of Treble Clefs to spare,

that's good!

as I want to make some extras.

So it's back to tatting hearts....while waiting for the dentist for a start!

I will knock off 15 pairs and more...easy peasy....I do have 2 weeks left....almost!

and I will be able to make hearts to match the new treble clefs in the 'gone wrong' Turquoise Teal...which is gorgeous.

Byee, must get on!

Transitions No 2. OYG!

Remember my first post about my Rainbow Bright Transitions. A month and a half ago ROY turned into Flame Lantana and wowed you all. Well it wowed me!!

Finally OYG is finished!(Orange,Yellow,Green).

Just in case you don't remember and haven't looked at my ROY post....this is what it is all about.

Take 3 adjacent colours from Rainbow Bright...exactly as they are....dye a 15 yds skein, tat up a heart and some butterflies......look at it critically.....to see what does it remind me of.......look for photos to inspire me.......and then decide what I should do to make it into a WOW!!

SIMPLE isn't it!!!

Well it's much more fun....and if it isn't fun then I don't do it.....with IsDihara testing and looking up what it reminds her of.....even if I do tend to go with the idea I first thought of!!

So what did my first tatting look like!!

Well I thought that it looked promising..but what did it remind me of??

Our first thoughts were citrus...oranges and lemons....well at least something tropical.

But the green was wrong for citrus leaves. Looking at it I could see that Rainbow Bright Green had drifted and become a blue green..that happens sometimes..I will correct that.

That blue green can also be seen in Rainbow 'Lite' Sweet Shop...but I actually quite like it as the' lite' green looks like mint and is edible!!

After we dismissed Citrus the next thing to explode into my mind was Daffodils...it just shouted Spring at us.....and we needed Spring!!

Off to the internet for us to find Daffodils to see if I was right.....lots of gorgeous images....one of them appealed to me so much that the name of the thread was born.

Daffodil Dell

http://www.pastelwood.co.uk/SMALL_P_GALLERIES/Cheshire/pages/sp044-ep-daffodil%20dell.html

I couldn't get this beautiful image out of my mind, two badgers drinking at a little pond with a host of Daffodils behind them. What could be more idyllic. I also noticed that the foliage was a blue green....Daffodils really are like that.

I also chanced upon this site.....a little village with woods that were named Daffodil Dell. It was even more nostalgic for me as it was very near, less than a dozen miles from where that I lived as a teenager and is where my son will be getting married later this year.

So I set my heart on finding a Daffodil Dell to photograph and to bring it to life in thread.

But Spring was still not Sprung and there was not a Daffodil to be seen.

I had to bring my Daffodils to life from memory...and then go out and see if I was right.

My very favourite ones are those with a orange trumpet...and the Narcissi which have creamy petals and an orange trumpet....in my garden they flower after the main golden Daffodils have finished.

Finally this last week....Daffodils were out in all their glory.

The first one to catch my eye was close to where I live. Gosh..and I only had my camera phone with me.

Last week we went on a trip to Northern Ireland and my passion was to find my Daffodil Dell.....or at least lots of different Daffodils.

Oh there were Daffodils in abundance, I only had eyes for them.....do please excuse my enthusiasm and all these photos.

First there were the dwarf Daffodil/Narcissus Tete á Tete with a long trumpet and backward facing petals, and really tiny.

What could be more perfect for a Daffodil fanatic's Tatting Tea Tuesday than a Cup Of Miniature Daffodils.

 

Then there were the beautiful large creamy petals with a short filly lemon trumpet.....

  

...the large showy golden daffodils with a long trumpet....

Still searching for my imagined Daffodil Dell this was the nearest that I got ....a beautiful woodland planting in a country estate garden.

But what did I spy in there....but the most intense orange Daffodil that I have ever seen....

...golden petals...short frilly trumpet.

Back home my garden was coming to life ...and an orange Daffodil that I had forgotten about...

with a longer trumpet in much more subdued colours. This really shows what I was trying to achieve. You can see the subtle change of colour with the orange getting paler and paler until it blends with the golden yellow.

On the trip we bought miniature Narcissii for the garden....this one is called 'Jetfire'..backward facing petals and a long medium orange trumpet.

This all gives me a much clearer impression of what I want to achieve......a gradation from a rich orange.....lighter until it becomes a golden orange...turning to golden yellow...through to a more buttercup yellow....getting lighter until it blends into a light green and finally a rich dark green.

For my second trial of OYG I used a new pot of dye...a ready made orange to give a bit of zing.....tatted some butterflies and LadyShuttlemaker's Hope butterfly....

...... while it does look nice in the tiny butterflies....I took an immediate dislike to the orange for my masterpiece!!  The green was not what I wanted either. The green in the Hope butterfly for the chains is a Flora mid green.....I really like that, so I decided to make that green for my Daffodil Dell.
What works best for me is to keep the number of basic colours to a minimum and mix all my colours from them...then they are sure to harmonise.
By trial 4 I had exactly what I wanted. IsDihara can tell you how much I agonise about getting it just right.
So ta da...drum roll
here is
Daffodil Dell

Compare it with my original test piece....

....and Daffodil Dell just zings with umph!
When we got home, I potted up my miniature Daffodil/Narcissi purchases into a hedgerow basket of willow...made when that was my one of my passions.
So a good test of Daffodil Dell would be to see how it looks among real Daffodils!

I LOVE IT!!
Warning...this thread is BRIGHT!

One more thing.
It occurred to me that while Daffodil Dell is a stand alone thread....that there may be times when I wanted to put it with a green thread for my chains to represent the foliage.
Therefore I wouldn't want dark green in my varig thread.

So I designed another thread with just the flower colours, it goes through the colours to a very pale lime green so is still OYG!....and is called.....
Just Daffodils.

I tatted Julie Pattersons design in it with Flora Green for the contrast.

I LOVE THIS ONE TOO!

Let's see this one among the Daffodils ....

Last but not least... I tatted Jon Yusoff's Heart 'O Daisies again in Just Daffodils and Flora.

WOW!
Spring is here in Tatskool land!

Tribute to Mary Konior, Part 3

My tatting lassies and I decided that it would be a nice thing to do to tell Mary's daughters just how much her mother meant to our bit of the tatting world. 

Wouldn't it be wonderful if someone did that for our daughter's!

So we made cards.

This is my card...

using my SweetShop and Rose rings heart.

When I found the toning papers I was over the moon. 

They come from a Papermania set called Sweet Nothings...that would be a good name for a thread!

Gold peel offs and a bit of bling and a Jane Eb butterfly and a pale green inner liner.

Marjorie's card has another Queen of Hearts this time tatted in two variegated Coats thread, it worked really well. She is a dab hand at card making and having embossed the pink card put a little flower and some pink diamante in each depression....scans just don't do it justice.

Next came Phillis who makes darling cards using little

flowers, I can spot some of my Vanilla Sky in  there...

It seemed a pity to take from the front of the card so we put her heart inside...

This one tatted in Raspberry Sorbet.

Next to come in was Carmel's bud fragment, she thought it looked insignificant but once I found the toning papers, a little bit of gold glitter and some initials, and a lilac inner liner, it became a STAR and she was amazed.

Last but not least is Jackies's card which showcases two segments of Black Magic in a soft grey that she dyed. The toning grey paper and ribbon are beautiful.

All ready to post to Mary's daughters, hope they will bring some comfort.

Tribute to Mary Konior.Part 1.

As most of the people reading this blog will know, Mary Konior died in January this year. She was a wonderful tatter and designer, author of three tatting books..of which I am lucky enough to have two.

A Pattern Book of Tatting, published in 1985 is a  traditional pattern book with good black and white photographs and full written instructions.

Tatting with Visual Patterns, published in 1992 must have been pretty revolutionary.  Packed with colour photographs to show off the tatting, each design has only a small amount of written instructions but is accompanied by a very clear diagram.

Both books are absolutely crammed with designs and know how tips. A veritable treasure trove.

What a wonderful legacy she left for us.

Many blogging tatters are tatting and showing her designs in tribute to her..and I feel that I must join them.

The first design that I tatted was her Queen of Hearts....in Flora 20 to see how easy/difficult it was.... how much thread it took....and which shuttle tatted which bit.

The answer was that shuttle 1 took about 4mm..it tatted the rings, and shuttle 2 took 5.25m and tatted all the chains...provided that I did a Shoe Lace Trick (SLT) before and after every large ring.

Next was to tat it in variagated thread to see how that looked...

I like that....now to try it in two colours...the first one to hand was SweetShop solid Rose.. for the rings.

So what would it look like if the chains were in Rose....

Lets look at those 3 together.....an interesting little experiment.

Of course as this was my first time tatting with my new SweetShop and solids after my original trials.....tatted before the 'Hope' Butterfly....I was itching to try it out using each of the solids.....but...not enough time!!

Armed with spanking new copies of tatting with visual patterns my tatting buddies tatted this too.

Here are a couple of examples.

I think that will be enough for today...more soon.

Transitions No 1 'ROY'

Way back when I first dyed Rainbow Bright.....I got a bright idea!

What if....

I took just 3 colours from the Rainbow and dyed them on their own.

I would be able to make the transition between the 3 colours much slower bringing in intermediate shades.

I was dyeing/dying to see what they would look like,

would I like them!

But time and other projects always got in the way..

Until now!

I finally got round to trying out Rainbow Bright Transitions, and here is the first one of the series....

code named ROY!

Now when I try out a new colour way....I dye a 15 yd skein.

From it I know that I can tat a Heart's Desire and a couple of Butterflies and that will give me a good idea if it will work. These are the best designs that I know to showcase a thread. The heart is big enough that the colours are spread out and don't fall into large 'pools' and distract from the design. The butterfly takes a yard of thread and so takes in all the shades.

So here is my ROY....trial.

 

Woweee!

That was pretty vibrant, I wondered if I liked it

but it grew on me.

So I got to thinking what does it remind me of ...

I can't keep calling it ROY, not a very dynamic name for a dynamic thread.

Now the funny thing about this series of threads is that they are not engineered....in that I haven't tried to represent anything in particular...just to play with three colours that are next to each other in the rainbow. So I now have the task of of fitting a name to the thread instead of the other way round.

The first things that I thought of were hot and fiery. I looked up furnace and they were the very colours in molten glass...but I didn't think that Blast Furnace was a very evocative name for a thread.

Next I looked up volcano...and yes it reminded me of molten lava, maybe Lava Flow would be a good name.

IsDihara of Ambitatterous is in cahoots with me over these threads. I sent her a sample pack to see what she would make with 15yds of thread.....and to ask...which ones she liked....what did they remind her of...and to think of names....not a very tall order!!

Wow did you see the gorgeous motif she is tatting with ChocoRaspberry...see it here. She even has me going thro' my tea stock, today it's black tea from Mauritius with vanilla flavour...gosh I expected real vanilla!!

Back to the job in hand.....she came up with great ideas...I loved what ROY reminded her of.....go look on her blog and also see what she tatted.

Then I showed the House Elf the Heart and asked him what it reminded him of. Now he remembers every flower and animal that he has ever heard of.....and this is what he said...

It's exactly like......ammm...ammm.... I can't remember!

But then he did remember

Lantana.

Now in my neck of the woods Lantana is a beautiful and desirable house plant coming in shades of red and orange and yellow, often all three at once. But in Australia (correct me if I am wrong) we found that it is a pernicious weed!

Well a little while later there was a cry of this is it and indeed it was.

Isn't that just something.

Spurred on by that beautiful photo I decided my thread needed to be tweaked just a little to make it even more vibrant to be worthy of its name

FLAME LANTANA.

When I had dyed several skeins of Flame Lantana and they were laid out to dry....I was besotted....they are gorgeous. the heap of thread blew me away.

 

I have to admit to being so excited and wanted something to tat that would do it justice....little flowers would do the job.

I found this design by Jon called Heart O' Daisies and couldn't wait to tat it....I have given myself a week off before I tackle my next TAT project.

Here 'tis.....together with another butterfly and some flowers,

So what do you think?? If you pop over to Fox's Blog you can see how excited she is with the sample I sent her. Dying to see what she makes....sooooon!

  

'Fraid you will have to wait a while for Transition No 2, these things can't be hurried, perfection takes a long time!!