Tatman's Chatline

This is what we did and finished this past weekend

It is a 350 serving wedding cake for a girl who we know from the HS and have worked with on the HS musicals from several years ago. She had a classic wedding of black and white with splashes of watermelon pink. COOL! Her inspiration was black and white damask. She wanted a HUGE cake to feed all her guest. SHE GOT IT! The reception was held at a huge convention center near St. Louis. We are very honored to make a wedding cake for someone that has the clout to have a reception at such an exclusive place!

There are 6 layers each separated by a styrofoam divider covered in watermelon pink ribbon. We used plexiglass as the divider plates. We thought the plexiglass wouldn’t show as much and would match the classiness of the reception. The top and bottom layer are done in dark chocolate fudge cake with hazelnut chocolate filling. MMMMMM….. The second and fifth layer is done in french vanilla cake with raspberry filling. The third and 4th layers are done in yellow cake with buttercream filling. All the cakes are iced with a layer of buttercream and topped with rolled buttercream fondant(our special homemade recipe!) NOT store bought fondant….YUK! We found these stencils online especially made for the cake as a pattern. It turned out beautifully!! We think so You take royal icing and trowel is slowly on the stencil to the sides of the cake. Gently pull it off to reveal the design. It was like opening a gift package each time we did that. It was our first time and experience to do stencilling on a cake. And dummy us we don’t start with just a small practice cake. We go the full monty! LOL!

Delivering the cake was fairly smooth. And because we had good support bracket systems, stacking the cake was good too. But since our last tall cake disaster last year, I was still worried and not confident that this cake was going to make it until the reception. I asked the mother of the bride, who we kept in contact, to call me if there were any problems. She didn’t call back. So I guess everything went smoothly and the cake didn’t fall. I HOPE NOT!!

Below is a slide show of the cake at the reception and details of the cake so you can see the stencilling.

And to reward ourselves for a job well done and it was a beautiful weather day, we decided to drive around the countryside. We knew of this new thread shop that opened in a town near Alton called “Mom and Me Forever”. The owner had bought the business from the lady that retired from our favorite thread shop in Lebanon. So now we can still shop for our favorite threads!!! This is the lucious colors of cotton thread I got by ThreadWorx

It is in 5 yard skeins and will make nice little projects without having to fill the shuttles or bobbins too much with waste as I make bookmarks or other small motifs to sell or give away. I won’t have to deal with long lengths of thread to wind onto the shuttle or bobbins.

A friend on the Arachne Lace List was looking for a pattern that resembles the St. Bridgets Cross. I gave it a try and made a pattern from an inspirational piece of jewelry I found on google images of a St. Bridget Cross. It is made by Witchcraft-supplies.com celtic jewelry.

It is kind of Bedfordshire stye lace….I guess. Hopefully this pattern will make sense and that you will be able to use it. It was a challenge, but I like a good challenge. I don’t design much for bobbinlace. So if you see any problems and know how to better my technique or don’t know how to interpret my drawing, let me know. If you happen to work out this pattern, I would love to see a sample picture of your work. Just want to share.

Download the pattern HERE

Bobbins: 7 pairs
Suggested Thread: 120/2 for 14 cm pricking(reduce 72%)
80/2 for 19.5 cm pricking

The rectangle shape uses 6 passive pairs and 1 worker pair.

The 2 outside passive pairs(blue) will exit at the corner and make the plait for the trefoil at the end. The 2 pairs will then be reintroduced at the opposite corner.

The 2 inside passive pairs(green) will make the inside plait trails. These pairs will exit and enter the main pattern of the rectangle from the middle section and the two ends.

Enjoy and Happy Lacemaking!!!

I am so excited! My niece and nephew(two of my brother’s 5 kids) are visiting my family for two weeks. I rarely get to see my brother and his family. Maybe every 5 years. They live in Colorado…..my favorite place!!! We vacation sometimes in CO and of course have to visit them when we can. But they have lived in CO for only 3 years.
My niece and nephew immediately felt the strong, thick, midwestern humidity as they were descending from their flight. Not what they are used to being from CO. They have lived in Phoenix before with the 120F heat. “cliche”…….But its a dry heat!! LOL! I believe I gave my brother specific instructions for them to bring the cooler weather with them. Guess he didn’t get that email HAH!! Also they have never heard such noises from the cicadas. They know what they are, just haven’t experienced them. Where they live is deaf tone silence in the evenings. Except they may get the occasional growl from a bear and other wonderful wildlife noises. I MUCH prefer that!! And they live inside a big town in a valley. But wildlife still roam.
They are here for two weeks to help my folks work on their houses and gardens. I am sure there will be down times that we all can enjoy visiting instead of work. This will be quite an experience for them since they haven’t been to the midwest.

SO EXCITED! Wish my brother and the rest of the family were here. Count my blessings!

What a fashion statement! I call it my “Elephant Man” series. VERA WANG, LOOK OUT!!! I AM HEADIN’ DOWN THE RUNWAY!!!

Yes, of course I had my second sleep study last night. This time with the CPAP along with all the electrodes. They started it out on the lowest level of oxygen at 4. During the night they upped it to 5. Not bad. I didn’t get much sleep again. Not because of the mask…..that was wonderful and I could breathe…..OH OXYGEN IS GOOD!!! It was because two of the electrodes on my head insisted on undoing themselves and the technician had to come in at least 15 times last night to wake me and reattach them. What a PAIN! The little buggers rejected my head. It was a mutual sentiment.

I tried to do a bit of tatting after I got hooked up and before going to bed with the mask. Sat there trying to tat with a finger heart rate monitor on is not an easy task!! LOL!

It is going to take some getting used to. Not by me, but by Kim. She will be sleeping with a monster for about a month. MUHAHAHA Poor thing. Then I go back to the doctor to see my results.

Insert tongue in cheek No sarcasm there!

This morning at 7:16am I had my second consult with the sleep study doctor. My results from the sleep study wasn’t too shocking. He told me that I got about an hour of good REM sleep and about 2 hours of deep sleep. What was shocking is that he said I got a total of 5 hours of sleep that night. COULD HAVE FOOLED ME!!!!!!! I felt like I didn’t sleep at all and my body said I pulled an all nighter! I guess the computer electrodes say different…..hmmmmmmmm……..He said I don’t have apnea, but hypopnea, meaning I don’t have fully closed episodes. I don’t completely stop breathing, it just is real shallow and is close to apnea. I had a total of 8 episodes in an hour. The minimum range for hypopnea is 5-15. I am mid range. INTERESTING!

I do have a good case of restless limb syndrome, which I knew I had. They call it restless “limb” syndrome now instead of “leg” because it can affect the arms as well. Which it does for me. Hence my tossing and thrashing about at night while I “sleep”. The doctor is putting me on Requip. But only a mild dose. The more advanced doses are for patients that have Parkinson’s disease. OH! Not that I am a canHe said I don’t have apnea, but hypopnea, meaning I don’t have fully closed episodes.didate for that. But RLS can have the potential of stroke and heart disease. He isn’t worried that it will go in that direction or in the direction of Parkinson’s disease. I just have RLS and Requip is one of the medications to treat it. We will see how I react to it. I am sensitive to a lot of medications. Only takes a little!

ALSO he ordered another sleep study for me next Wednesday night. Only this time they are going to straight away put the CPAP machine on me to see how I react to the levels of oxygen tests they will perform during the night. OH YEAH :-\ He said I don’t have apnea, but hypopnea, meaning I don’t have fully closed episodes. So I get to be hooked up AGAIN like Frankenstein’s monster PLUS have this oxygen mask to fight with with while i TRY TO SLEEP. Let’s hope all this will help. Maybe more oxygen in the brain will be a good thing!!!! I know I don’t get enough brain cells working, hope this will do the trick. Maybe after this I won’t fall asleep while tatting in the evening. LOL! NOT…….that is just a given. Come 9pm, I zone out and soon it is bed time.

So I get put on Requip meds, and try the CPAP and THEN he will see if he will let me drive full time. For now Kim has been driving mainly, unless it has been in the big city(she can’t do that). I told the doctor that and he told me he will pretend that he didn’t hear me say that. HAH. He said at least it is slower traffic and I am more alert at that time.

For now I am happy just riding my bike!

Remember this spinning wheel that I got last year at an auction and paid only $60? Last month was the first meeting of a spinning group here in town and most of them I already knew and are friends as a result of heritage demonstrations. So nice to finally have a group of fiber artists with like minds meet together in my town! Groups I have heard about have been quite a distance away and not worth the travel. So excited that there finally is a local group. Maybe after a while I can branch out, if they will allow it, and bring my lacemaking. HECK…….they spin and they also weave and do other things. Seems only fitting! For now it is just a spinning group.
Anyhoo….I brought my spinning wheel to the group to get their assessment. It seems to be in rough shape and some of the parts need reworked or replaced. Could cost me more than what it is worth! You get what you pay for. For now it is just a nice piece of furniture to look at. :-\ So one of my spinning friends was gracious enough to let me borrow her Ashford Traditional until I can get mine fixed or get one that I truly work well with. This months meeting was last night and is when she gave it to me.

This wheel needs some work too. It is workable as is, but my spinning friends suggest I replace the leathers that hold the fly wheel and bobbin and the footman. It will work much better. So when I get an ounce of any kind of time…..HAH…..I will be spinning some wool. Last nights meeting one of the members brought in their gorgeous collection of drop spindles. I have done a little drop spindle, but didn’t feel I was that good. So for the first half of the meeting I did some drop spinning. I had a blast!!! I even got my wool down to lace weight yarn and really surprised myself…..and the others. That will be one of my goals, is to spin fine enough that I can use the thread for bobbin lace. Of course it is wool and bobbin lace is usually linen or cotton. So I guess another goal is to spin cotton. Flax I don’t think I will be up to until I have a lot of experience. I have drop spindled cotton one time at a heritage event just to try it out. It worked fine for me. Will have to try it again.

Tatting-wise: still working on the wedding lace!!!!