Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Tatted Bobbies

I don't know if you ever fully appreciate how awesome you all are for putting up with my nearly manic depressive swings. I think a fragile, but easily inflated ego must be required of all those that create. We soar with the good days and crash at the drop of a hat. Lucky for me though, I have nice stable family and well...all you people to help keep me even.

Monday was a fine day around here. There were kind words, new customers and I finally worked out the last piece of the bobby pin puzzle. You see I had purchased some silver plate bobbies with a glue pad on them. They seemed the best quality to work with though I honestly had no idea how I was going to get my little flowers onto the end without either showing said glue pad or actually using glue. I think glue is fine and dandy, but it would still eave an unfinished looking back and I would be constantly afraid that they would be pulled apart once they leave my possession. So I tried a few different methods including cutting out a little ring of cloth to sew it to. Not happy with the results there at all. It's sturdy, but I wanted these to be inexpensive and adding the sewing adds to the time it takes to make them.

So what I ended up doing was tatting a single ring and putting it behind the pad. Then when I added the back row of petals I pulled the need through the stitches in the ring before I went into the picot. This effectively sandwiched the glue pad between the ring and the flower. No glue required, these suckers aren't going anywhere and it increases my creation time only slightly. Of course I still have to sew on the crystal. I did try just adding a bead to the center, but I wasn't happy with that either. Too much glue pad showing behind it. They are sussed out now and since they work up fairly quickly I've got three pairs done. I might get a few more color combos done today or later this week, but I don't want to make too many colors and waste crystals since they are the one thing I forgot to order more of this last go round.

I also worked on making some new colors of my Victoriana pieces, the necklaces and earring. I got the grape purple and a silver color of Lizbeth when I was ordering some for a custom order and even though I find the thread slightly smaller than others of the same size and it's a little stiff for my taste, they are lovely shades and I might as well use them. I need to assemble them and get photos today. You know it is funny that all it took was a single sale to get all this creative energy back. All the comments yesterday helped as well, thank you. Well I'm off to it for the day, enjoy yours.

5 comments:

Paige Marie said...

Your flower bobbin pins are beautiful. Glad you climbed up from your rock bottom. :) I often have visited your blog and your tatted mask was one of the first pieces of tatting I ever saw. Really inspiring.

Paola Ch. said...

hello, congratulation. beautiful work I always enjoy seeing your designs, I invite to try one of my new color or tell me what color would you like for free, i would like very much for you to use them for tatting. visit my blog its in Spanish but in the right side in the corner is the translation.

http://pao123cascabel.blogspot.com
paito1234@gmail.com

BSOTF said...

Didn't you know that friends don't leave when things get rough or bad times pop up. Friends stay with you through good, bad & ugly times. They laugh when things you laugh. Feel sad when you feel sad. Listen when you hurt & never judge you. So I'm not going to go anyplace on you. I'm just glad that you are feeling better. Love your bobbins too.

Stephanie Grace said...

Honestly, bobbies usually make me cringe... My hair is so fine that they are either painful or just don't hold very well. These, though, would be well worth the pain! LOL. I actually can't help but think how beautiful these would be in one of my niece's hair! I'm going to have to pull money out of my butt so I can get some pictures of one of them (I'm thinking the youngest) with these in her long hair! It'd be beautiful! LOL.

I am flat-out envious of what you manage to create... :-P

-Stephanie Grace
http://stephaneigracetats.blogspot.com

Kim said...

That's a bit of genius, right there! Well done.