Here I Am!

My computer has spent the last several weeks at a friend's house while her husband, an IT professional, did drastic repairs on it. Apparently, there was some conflict between my anti-virus software and the computer's built-in data protection program which resulted in major badness. My user profile became damaged beyond repair, and since my computer didn't recognize me as me, it wouldn't let me access any of my files. He ended up having to build me a whole new profile and move all the data he could find to the new profile. He got most of it, and luckily everything important was backed up on Dropbox anyway. Since I was asking him to do for free what he normally does for a living, I was perfectly content to let him take his own good time about it. I did, of course, have internet access via my phone and tablet; however, Blogger being what it is, posting from a mobile device is usually more trouble than it's worth. And I've had that anti-virus software on this computer for years, so why did it suddenly go bad now?

Besides, you know I go through these phases where I just don't feel like tatting. One of those no-tatting phases happened to coincide with my no-computer phase, so I didn't really have anything to post anyway. I am now getting back into tatting. In fact, I have a project that has to be done in the next few days, and I sincerely hope I'll have time to finish it.

Our office supervisor at work is leaving for another job. She is a person who, frankly, drives everybody nuts with her neuroses and stickler-ishness, but I have to admit that those same qualities have really fixed a lot of problems on our unit. When she's not working, she is usually on a horse, so what can I do but tat her a horse?

I am using the body of Martha Ess's Rearing Pegasus or Rearing Unicorn pattern from her book Flights of Fantasy. I plan to make a couple of very slight modifications to be able to make the mane and tail in a different color, and obviously no wings or horn. The body is in Lizbeth color 611 Gold. I'm hoping to have time to also make the fence from Martha's Tapestry Unicorn pattern.

Why am I so pressed for time? Well, her last day is Wednesday, so that's the deadline. Tomorrow I will spend all day at the local Celtic Games, where I am acting as Steward for the Scottish harp competition. (As Steward, I don't get to compete, but a couple of my students will be.) Then I have to work Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. So that basically gives me today, tomorrow evening, and maybe a little time Sunday morning before I have to go to bed to get it done. There is no tatting (certainly no quality tatting) after I have gotten off work in the morning. But I am optimistic that I can do it, especially if I stop typing and start tatting.

Oh, and I did do one other little bit of tatting. My Mother's Day gift was a pair of non-tatted earrings, too small to be able to wrap nicely:

So I did this:

The edging is a classic one, R 5-5 RW, Ch 10, J to picot, SLT RW and repeat for desired length. Once it was long enough to fit around the package, I joined the end to the beginning and finished it off with a butterfly from the book Butterflies Migrating, published by the Palmetto Tatters Guild. The thread is Yarnplayer's "Night Wind" HDT, one of my favorite colorways.