New toy

I recently lost my trusty hook in a chain that I had with me over 10 years. It was a #12 hook on a wire with 5 lapis azulis beads joined to a keyring. If you have seen me tatting in person you may remember it. You can't imagine how I even cried when I couldn;t find it. It got lost when I went to the Puerto Rican Institute for my demo. :-(

So I was looking to replace it an found this one at Handy Hands. It came today. Boy! The are pretty!!! Will never be the same as my old trusty hook but at least I got new hooks to help me join my tatting and even to bead. It comes with a #6, #10 and #12 hooks and a 0.04mm hook. I have another 0.04mm hook that I was thinking to cut and put in a ring. But now I don't have to do it. :-)

Now I'll place these on a keyring and give it to Chaty Teddy to hold them for me with my scissors and plastic picot gauge. Will take photos of Chaty Teddy later so you can see who is she.

ArtFire Free Shipping

I'm having a free shipping coupon on my shop. Every sale over $10 from now until January 11th, will have free shipping. I have to get "rid" of my inventory because I need the money to make some "super" specialized blood labs and the co payment is $300, something that I don't have. These labs are going to help me in knowing, at last, why my blood coagulates too much, even while I'm in a high dose of blood thinners. From here then my Hematologist will put me in a treatment that will permit me to have the bariatric surgery. *sigh* So many things before the surgery can be perform!

So if you would like to have a nice tatted item here is your opportunity!

Visit Needles-N-Shuttles's Studio

Receive free shipping on Order Total (orders above $10.00)

Use Coupon Code:

LABS

during checkout.

Handmade Wedding

I have been feature!

There's an e-zine by HandMadeNews.Org about crafts and on this month there's an article about tatting. One of my projects has been used as an example of tatting. I'm so excited!!! This could give me a little boost on the shop. :-) I really recommend this site if you love crafts in general. There's always a very interested article.

The tatting artcicle is here: http://www.handmadenews.org/article/index.php?id=3554

By the way. The e-zine is free as the shipping on my shop! Free shipping in orders over $15. http://bit.ly/qhx9D Code:ARTFIRE KIOSK Ends 9/5

Flower Tassels

Last night, to empty a shuttle, I made these 3 flowers and then this morning I decided to make them tassels. I love tassels. These ones can be hang on a Xmas tree. The flower is 2 inches across and the tassel is 4 inches long. I used Altin Basak #10 with silver filament and without the filament for the center. An acrylic heart holds the tassel itself.

What uses can you give to these tassels?

The set is available at my ArtFire Studio if you are interested on it.

Doing some "cleaning"

Prepare yourself! Here is one of the many boxes and bags I have filled with tatting.

This is just one I have filled with the things I made last year. Because I tat almost everyday I keep placing the projects in a box or bag. Then mom sits and choose whatever she wants to embellish her t-shirts or xmas tree. But still I'm left with tons of motifs. Some are my designs, others are from patterns (online and books).

I really don't know what to do with all this! There are some pieces that I will sell on ArtFire (suncatchers, bookmarks, doilies, appliques...). But still I'm left with tons of bits and pieces.

This is a photo of the doilies. There are a few crocheted ones too. But most of them are small tatted doilies.

I think I'll make a few surprise bags and make a giveaway or sell them as surprise bags or something like that. I'll keep rumming all the boxes and bags to see what else I got. All because I'm looking for a collar that I made and I know that mom didn't keep it so I want to sell it. In result, I found all this tatting but not collar. :-( But this is just one box. lol

Sequined Ornament

After recuperating from the bad evil picot I started another. BTW... The previous motif is recuperating fine after surgery to remove the evil picot. lol

This time I decided to place silver sequins to the points and then decorate in the same way the bangle. I really like how it looks and mom too. Now she wants a dozen of them for her Xmas tree. *rolling eyes* I already place this one for sale and will be making more of them because it works pretty fast, even if I have to take more rests often.

You can find it at ArtFire.

Do you know that you can sell completely free, without having to pay posting at ArtFire? Check it out here.

Hairpin lace and Tatting Hairband

I love to work with Hairpin Lace and it's been awhile since I did anything on HL. This month on my Spanish Tatting group the challenge is to work with HL and combine it with tatting, or make the imitation of HL in tatting (pearl tatting, SR with long picots, etc). So I took out my HL loom, a Clover HL loom, which I adore!; and made a little headband.

It's a pattern that I worked years and years ago but I made at that time into a bracelet. Now I used thread #10 and made it into a headband. It's almost 3 inches wide. The ties are "rice" stitches in crochet to tie it on the back on a bow. This one will be a gift but I'll put others on my shop.

Public Apologize

I want to publicly apologize for a mistake I made a few days ago. I posted on my Etsy the barefoot sandals for sale without asking permission from the designer for it. I always ask permission to a designer when I'll sell something that is not my design but last week having migraines and asthma constantly it slipped from my mind to ask permission.

I, myself, am a designer and I know how it feels when someone post some of your own work without permission or without giving credit. I don't pretend to imitate anyone either. I think I have my own style and those of you that have my books can notice my tatting style.

Anyway, I already sent a short apologize to the designer and it won't happen again.

On another note... The Etsy shop is not doing well anyway so I will close it at the end of May. All the inventory on the shop, the sales will go completely to the LFA. I'll keep the free webshop.

Look what I got!!!

After my colorful breakfast yesterday I went out with hubby. I separated around 200 LE for my "tatting fix" this month. I deserved it after a month and a half of pain and crabbiness. So after convincing hubby to go to the Al Husseiny area (on Feb 22 there was an explosion in that area) we took the buses. I was feeling in a very good mood and even took my camera to snap some views from Cairo. Love to take photos of the old buildings and surrounding area. Hubby was thinking that may be the area was still closed but no, it was full of people! You see, this is the oldest market area in Egypt. A lot of building have over 100 years, even a few over 300 years!!! But the area I like to visit is the textile area. There are streets packed to the maximun with fabrics: silks, cottons, oraganza... You name it, they got it! Also threads and beads. There's a shop that we always visit to get the threads and most of the beads.

On the top photo you can see all the loot! lol I got a lot of seed beads, some heart beads, leaves beads, 2 hanks of rayon/cotton thread and little baggies. That was in a shop. Here is a bigger photo showing the hearts and leaf beads. Aren't they gorgeous?! I wanted to get hearts in a shade of green, but the money was almost gone and I wanted to look for "coins".


After we left with the huge bag of all the pretty beads I told hubby that one day I saw a smaller shop down the road with more threads and beads and I wanted to see. Just to see. Yeah, right! ;-) I found the coins I wanted plus more! OMG! It was beads heaven! lol

You can see in the photo that it's covered from floor to top with beads bags. Each bag is like 1/2 kilo and the price is very good. I only got the little coins and some large sequins to play and make earrings.

After that we return home. Not before falling in the street 2 times. I guess my legs were weak from resting in bed for too long. But I didn't care about the fall. I was happy with my loot. :-) And hubby was more happy because he saw me smile. Isn't he the sweetest guy?

Well, time for me to play! See ya around...

Before go, just a lovely photo of Al Ahzar mosque in the sunset...

New items on my shop

I added new items to my shop. This doily is one of them. It's 18" long and it's made in white cotton perle thread. Come and check it out!

Needles-N-Shuttles Shop

Floral Bookmark

Yesterday I got an order on my shop for this bookmark. It's my design and the pattern can be found here in English. The bookmark is made using 2 sizes of thread. The white is DMC Petra #8 and the multicolor is Coats & Clark Machine Quilting #50. This one tats like a #80. I love this thread and have all the colors available. All of them are ombre or variegated. The bookmark took me like 3 hours. Not so bad... I think I'll make another one to keep with me and my book I'm reading now.

If you are interesting in ordering it you can do it at: Floral Bookmark

El Beida Thread for sale

Since I have been traveling and living in Egypt, this is the thread that I can easily find here and work wells with my tatting. It's a cotton perle and comes in size #8 and #12. They are localyy produced and used mostly for an Egyptian embroidery style. For people that likes to work with perles like Valdani, DMC and Rubi, this thread is like them. They don't come in lot numbers. Several people were asking me about the thread and I got a small amount of it. They're on my shop under the Threads section. I got 10 colors of #8 and 10 more of #12. Later if I see the demand is big I can get more colors or if you are interested in a color that you don't see in the shop (like yellows, other tones of red or blue, etc) drop me a line or two and I can get them. They come only in solid colors. But I heard of other company that sells some varigated colors. As soon as I get their info I'll get the threads.

I'm shipping them via EgyptPost Expedite Mail to everywhere. The orders could take around 10-14 days to arrive. If you need more info e-mail me.