Rest In Peace, My Dear Friends

I am deeply saddened by the loss of two of my dearest knot-tying friends.

Gary Sessions, of Dallas, TX, lost his valliant battle against cancer on March 17, 2009. I first met Gary and his lovely wife, Barbara, at the IGKT-NAB AGM, in Charleston, SC, in 2005. I was surprised and delighted to see that they were in Fareham, when I arrived at the IGKT Silver Anniversary meeting there, in 2007.


They had planned to attend the IGKT-PAB Tenth Anniversary meeting, several weeks later, in Long Beach, CA, but Gary was too ill to travel, when the time came. Then, when I got to the NAB meeting in Orlando, FL, that winter, there they were! It was so wonderful to see them again.


Gary was a very generous man and taught many knot-tyers, over the years. He founded the Texas branch of the IGKT, and was a long-time member of the NAB, as well. He will be sorely missed. My love and prayers go out to Barbara and the rest of the family.

C. E. "Bud" Brewer, of Flagler, CO, passed suddenly from a heart attack, also on March 17, 2009. I first began chatting with Bud in the online knot chats. At that time, he lived in New York, but on retiring, he soon moved to Flagler, CO. My best-friend-since-kindergarten, lives in Colorado Springs, and we visit her every few years, on our family vacations. The next time we went to Colorado, I told DH we must go visit Bud, as part of the vacation. On that visit, Bud generously and very patiently, taught me to turn a project on his lathe.


I will treasure forever the fid I made that day!


Bud was able to attend the IGKT-PAB Tenth Anniversary meeting in 2007, and generously donated many of his lovingly-crafted tools. I was fortunate to win a couple of those wonderful pieces, but I treasure the time we were able to spend together even more. It was over far too quickly.

The last time we (DH, our two sons, and I) visited Bud was this past summer. He gave generously of his time and talents while we were there. He took us to visit the farm his friend runs, and we all had a wonderful time.


He made me a very nice (TINY) hollow fid with black and red LEATHER knots on it (a square Turk's Head on the end and wider pineapple, just below that). I knew then that I must be special, because he gave of his PRECIOUS red and black stash! ; - )


I often told him how generous he was, and he always told me not to tell anyone else that, because he had a reputation to uphold. He wanted everyone to think of him as a gruff old man -- but I knew better. He was friend, mentor, father-figure, and much more, to so many of us! My prayers are with his daughter, Kim, and the rest of the family.

Sad, tearful hugs, everyone.

Tudor Rose Knot Tutorial posted

Hi, everyone.

For those of you who are patiently awaiting my tutorial for the Tudor Rose Knot, here is the link (it's a .pdf flie). Many thanx to Nils, of KHWW, for posting it!

Tudor Rose Knot Tutorial

The .pdf file does not allow the links to work, for all the knots used, so here they are:

Constrictor Knot

Star Knot

Wall Knot

Crown Knot

I do hope these links help.

This is my first tutorial, so please be gentle with me. ; - )

Enjoy!

I'm saddened to report the death of my friend, Ron Soman, whose company was hosting my website, along with many others on the tatting lists (and many other types of websites). My blog is not effected, however (obviously).

I was just notified by my webmistress that "someone has unplugged the servers" and it appears everyone's website hosted by Ron's company is offline now. The situation being worked on, but there is no telling when/IF we will be able to get these websites and all their contents back and intact.

I was also informed that Ron was only 37 years old. I'm so sorry that he is gone, not only for the websites that we enjoy so much, but even more for my personal relationship with him. We chatted often about personal situations and I will miss him.

My deepest heartfelt sympathies to Ron's family and loved ones...

Lily

Tudor Rose Knot

This knot is from the 100th issue of Knotting Matters, quarterly newsletter for the International Guild of Knot Tyers. It must also be in a book somewhere, but I haven't been able to track it down yet. If anyone knows, please e-mail me.

The first one I made is on the left. The second one I made is on the right.

Then I decided to try making one with smaller stuff. And for those of you who think 'Flowers Are Red' (I sure do miss Harry Chapin), I decided to make it in red. I made it reversible, by tying two knots, back to back. Then I thought I'd try making a snake-knot stem for it. And, of course, if there's a stem, there has to be a leaf or two, so I threw in a couple of Ruth Perry's Hanging Cluny leaves (because the rat tail is so much larger than tatting threa, I had to use the tiny fid in place of the floss threader).

The mat and fid (another masterpiece by the 'Maestro') are from Bud Brewer. Thanx again, Bud -- it works perfectly! : - )

And yes, of course, I'm working on an even smaller one, but that'll have to wait for another entry. I had to get this out there to all of you!

I'll post more as soon as I can, but things have been REALLY weird around here, lately. I guess I say that a lot, but it's been stranger than ever the past couple of weeks!

More Coverings of Macrame

This was inspired by work that Andre showed on his site. The ones he shows are mostly (all?) needle hitched, but we were in the chatroom one afternoon and I mentioned that I might like to try these cork key rings with macrame. He said he'd not seen it done, so of course, I had to try it! I decided to whip the cork (just common whipping) before tying the macrame, so that the winery's name on the cork wouldn't show. I showed it to Bud, when we were at his house, and he said it would probably be easier to just sand the name off the cork. Why didn't I think of that? ROFL!

Anyway, I had fun working on this and hope to make a few more, including some needle-hitched ones. They've become yet another addiction, and I'll probably be teaching them in my class at IOLI Convention in 2009. : - )

Thanx for looking...more macrame to come, as well as other knots ... still catching up after the long vacation. I'll get there eventually...

My First Fully Covered Macrame Bottle!

Well, I'm back from a LOOOONG vacation, so now I can get back to blogging. I've missed it and have quite a bit of catching up to do. Here's a UFO (UnFinished Object) that I finally finished. I began this over a year ago, while in England for the IGKT Silver Anniversary AGM. It's a small bottle -- just a plain old 125-ml 'mixer' bottle from the pub near where the meeting was held. I didn't want to start with a HUGE project, for fear it would take too long to finish. It wasn't all that difficult, really, with pointers from Ken Elliott, and quite a few online Q&A sessions with Gordon Perry -- Thanx, Ken and Gordon!

The problem I had was at the end -- the decreasing part. I wasn't positive about how to go about it, so I sort of had to wing it, and that gave me a terrible case of the '3 P's' (Perfectionism, Procrastination and Paralysis). But I finally decided that I would try it, and just figure it out, without cutting any of the cords until I was certain it was correct. And it worked. I'm very pleased with it and have even begun covering my second bottle -- it's well underway, as a matter of fact. I also have plans for two more projects! Okay, just a little obsessed ... but it's all Ken's fault for getting me started ... that's my story and I'm sticking to it! LOL

Here are the pictures I took -- the first one is the only 'in progress' picture that I can find, but the rest are all of the completed bottle. Those of you who were at Fareham 2007 will probably recognize the cord I used. That's right -- it's from that tangled mass of cord that was so lovingly untangled by devoted members who needed the 'therapy' as Europa referred to it. LOL! Thanx again, everyone, who worked at untangling all that cord. The bottle is even more special to me, because I can still hear the ROAR of cheering that went up when Europa and Mikio met at the middle of that last length (there was so much of it that we had to keep cutting off sections and winding it onto spools)! I may even still have a bit of this cord leftover -- I gave a LOT of the spools of it away at the meeting, so there's not much left, after this project. : - )

NINETY-STRAND Star Knot

At first Marlinspike Skills, I saw a wonderful creation. It was a 14-strand star knot, with a 7-strand star knot in the center. He didn't finish the ends because he didn't know how he wanted to do that, and he thought it looked good 'as is' -- like a jellyfish. I agree! He said, 'I challenge anyone to make a bigger one!'

Well, I couldn't let that go unanswered, so I just HAD to tie this one! It has 6, 12, 18, and 24 strands -- total of 60 strands. I thought about leaving the strands on it, for the 'jellyfish' look, but decided I didn't want to copy him too much. And this looks like a flower or a mushroom. It was fun to do, but I swore I'd never do it again.

The then-Scoutmaster of my sons' Troop said, 'It looks like something you should roll up and SMOKE!' That surprised me, coming from him, but I suppose he has a point...

When I shared the above with the knot-tying lists, someone who ties a lot of star knots sent me a gift of a star-knot stick pin. It is beautiful, and the technique he used for it is unique to any I've seen. I asked him how he did it and he very generously shared the technique with me. But he swore me to secrecy, so I will not share it with anyone until he shares it -- and even then, I'll only point everyone to his website.

Anyway, here I am wearing the pin, along with my tatted USA Flag pin, at the IGKT AGM and Silver Jubilee in Fareham, 2007.

But this technique made the following possible. The technique eliminates HALF of the ends! So I was able to make this necklace. The strand count is 6, 12, 18, 24 and 30, for a total of 90 stands! Now it's MY turn to say, I challenge anyone to make a bigger one. : - )

No, I don't have any plans for more of these, but 'never say never...'