Liyarra's Tatting Nook

We're Baaaaaaaack..... Now did you guess??? Hmmm???? Sydney, Australia.................. December 14....................... AHHHHHHHH....someone has twigged........ Ok - We went to the taping of Oprah Winfrey's show at the Opera House in Sydney.... See...no REAL biggie...... But think about it. My friend from work, Carol, put our names in the lottery. There were 350,000 (yep) entrants in the ballot for 6000 seats and SHE WON tickets!!!!!!!!! So yeah it became a biggie. Something that will not happen again and we were there for it! Anyway - up at 4am on Monday 13th, flew to Sydney. Went and picked up our tickets (hooray they DID exist!! wouldn't that be a bummer to get there and find out the email was a hoax????) and sauntered off over to our accommodation. Now if you are ever in Sydney and want good, clean but cheap accom - this is the place! The Mercantile Hotel in George Street. Basic stuff. Beds, kettle, tv in rooms, nothing flash- but cozy, tidy and clean.......

Only 8 more sleeps to the start of the BIG adventure........ Nope can't say TOO much cos there are too many who just don't know yet and maybe it's not that big a deal except to me and one other - the instigator of this whole idea!!!!! Needless to say it is history in the making and will be a blast...... and if you are clever and have a good think about it you JUST might be able to work it out........ More later.......MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.......... (pathetic evil laugh ....I know.....sorry)

Gosh is it really August since I last posted? Ok catch up time. I went to Denmark in September. A trip that I had planned and paid for quite a while ago and considering everything that happened recently I thought there was no point putting it off. Thanks to Susanne I saw a lot of Denmark in a short period of time. Got to drive, go to a tat day with the Danish Tatting Association and spent some time with Inga Madsen and her family. It was a good trip and I enjoyed it a lot. Susanne has photos up on her blog http://dantatter.blogspot.com/ with some good history of the places we went, so I won't post any others on here. (But you know I just WILL sooner or later....when I finally sort through the thousand or so that I took.....no...REALLY.....that many!!) One of the places we stayed was a lovely little bed and breakfast in Skagen run by a lovely lady named Arla. She gifted me one of her paintings she had done so I tatted a small mat for her in the colors of Skagen. The houses there ...

Ok I am back to tatting on here. Still feeling broken and missing Jamie terribly. Tatting always reminds me of him so I have been avoiding it. But I need to get back into it for my own sanity and to honour the man that supported every single ds I did while we were together. To help me along my way I decided to try AnneB's Christmas Heart. Red for the last 23 wonderful years. Blue for how my heart is feeling. Green for the beginning of the future. So here they are. Red: thread is Altin Basak 40. Blue is Lizbeth 40 and finally: Green is BabyLo 30 - lovely to tat with but unfortunately broke for me a couple of times. As usual a wonderful pattern from the very generous and talented Anne Bruvold. Thanks Anne - it is always a pleasure to tat one of your patterns.

I have not posted here in a while. I have been tatting  -  I have things to show for sure. But I need to express myself today. This is not tatting related so skip if you want. It is me needing to put a horrible event in to perspective and gain control to move on. On the 10th July I  lost the one most important thing in my life quite unexpectedly and nothing has really seemed worthwhile. To those of you who knew Jamie in person or through his (usually wicked) forays into the chats on MSN you will know how much he loved life, a good laugh, good company and that he gave me his incredible support in my chosen vice - tatting. To those of you who did not know him. You have missed knowing one of the most charming, intelligent, caring and loving individuals that has ever walked this earth. I have to post here - my voice to the outside world. I have to have an avenue to express publicly how much this man meant to me. Get it out there in words. But the words are so har...

Ok so it is NOT the pattern I said I was going to do for Motif 16. ..ah well... A while ago I did a very nice little blue motif. Before the challenge so it did not count. But it was nice so I tatted it and moved on to the next thing on the ever-increasing list... A few months later - I was looking for motifs to tat for the challenge when I came across this curious little blue motif and thought I might like to do it again. So I went to my trusty tatting diary to find out where it came from and SHOCK ....HORROR.....I had NOT even entered it! Was it Konior? NO. Was it from a Japanese book? NO. Where the heck did it come from? This was so very very not me with my obsession of recording everything I tat. So I started trying to find the pattern. No luck. So I went to InTatters and humbly asked for help. How embarrassing LOL The Pattern Hunter that can usually find even the more obscure patterns for people, couldn't find a simple motif that she tatted less than a year ago!!!! HA HA HA....

Sometimes you look at a pattern and say...yeah...THAT one. So you trawl for the pattern, get your head around it and off you go. Job done. And other times you wish you had stopped when you thought it looked good...cos really more ain't always better!! I was looking through Cas Arthur's website this week as I reloaded all my bookmarks and had a "I GOTTA TAT THIS" moment when I saw her background. (and Cas knows I pinch ideas from her ALL the time LOL) - if you have not had a look - go see Castats website - http://home.vicnet.net.au/~castats/ PLENTY there to drool over. You will see why I want to tat like Cas!!!!! I finally found where the pattern was and set about tatting it. First try was with a rather loud variegated which really did not show the pattern. So I toned it down a bit and grabbed some more appropriate olive green Perfect Quilter "Olivia" and off I went. The pattern is from Tatting a Potpourri of Patterns from Handy Hands. Round Medallion No.150...