Spiced Ham

Did you miss me? Did you even notice I was gone? It was, thankfully, for less than 24 hours. My blog was blocked because Blogger's automated detection system had flagged it as a possible purveyor of, well, Monty Python said it best...

What I had to do was request a real live actual human person to review my blog to verify that it's not spam, and then it was restored. They said that it could take up to two business days, so I was pleasantly surprised to find my blog back up and running this morning. I'm not even angry about it anymore, and won't say some of the nasty things I was planning to about Blogger and Google. They are doing the best they can, after all. The only thing I wish they would have done differently is that it would have been nice to get an auto-reply when I submitted my request for review, just to let me know that my request was not lost in cyberspace; that would have made yesterday a lot less anxiety-ridden for me.

I'm still not entirely clear on what a "spam blog" is, despite having read half a dozen articles on the topic yesterday. All these articles are full of words that look remarkably like English, yet convey little or no meaning to a person who is not already an expert on spam. I did manage to glean than it was something somebody else did, not anything I did; but then, I had already made that assumption based on the knowledge that I am not a spammer.

So, as far as I'm concerned, this is what a spam blog would look like:

I've got a story about Spam and Spam-like substances, too. When I was 16 my family took a road trip from Atlanta to the Grand Canyon. It was a lot of fun, and the only downside was that the brand-new tires on our car turned out to be defective. One of them fell apart on the way out, luckily very near my aunt and uncle's house where we were spending the night. Another fell apart on the way back, in the exact center of nowhere, on Sunday July 4. Amazingly, we actually managed to find a service station open that could sell us a tire, but there were people in line ahead of us and we had to hang out there for a couple of hours. Needless to say, there was absolutely no entertainment available except for browsing the convenience store. During that time, my sister came across three items side by side on a shelf. The most expensive was "Deviled Ham", and the middle one was "Deviled Spam". Yeah, of course we were familiar with these items even if we had never consumed them ourselves. But then, just in case the Deviled Spam was too hoity-toity for some people, the cheapest of the three was "Potted Meat Food Product". Yes, that was the actual name of it. Some real marketing genius went into that one.

This is actual Spam, not some cheap knock-off. Doesn't it look appetizing? Now that your appetite has been whetted with this image and the thought of "Potted Meat Food Product", it's time to think what you're going to have for lunch today. How about a flavorful pulled Spam with slaw sandwich, followed by a delectable apple and Spam turnover?

Or if you're in the mood for something more exotic, why not try the Hawaiian classic Spam musubi, incorporating Spam with elements of sushi? Here's one variation on it:

I did consider trying to tat some Spam, but I realized that no one has dyed any thread in just that color-- and let's pray they never do. So instead, I'll show you the tatting I did do, day 2 of the TIAS. If you're new to the online tatting community, TIAS stands for Tat It and See. Every January, Jane Eborall presents us with a new pattern but doesn't tell us what it is. She releases small bits of it every few days, and you just tat what the directions say, then take a photo and send it to Jane to post on the TIAS blog, along with any guess you might have as to what it is. Here's what we've got so far:

I still haven't ruled out a locomotive, and I see on the TIAS blog that someone else has the same idea. Part of the trouble, of course, is that you don't know which way is up; it could be oriented any way, and we won't know till later.

I hope the one or two weirdos out there who actually like Spam haven't been too offended by this post; you must be used to the mockery by now.

A Galaxy!

Well, I guess five stars don't really make a galaxy, do they? Close enough.

Sorry about the grotty background color; it was the best I could find to show all of the threads equally well. The two on top are size 50, in "Pear Glace" by LadyShuttleMaker and "Sue's Blues" by Yarnplayer. The three on the bottom are size 40, in Yarnplayer's "Elf", Krystledawne's "Fairy Faint", and "Wine Berry", also by Krystle.

The pattern is Julie Patterson's Christmas Snowflake Star. It is a really fun pattern to make, challenging enough to make it interesting, but small enough to tat in an evening.

On the three tatted in "Sue's Blues", "Elf", and "Wine Berry", I shamelessly stole Fox's idea of using JK's instead of regular rings off the SCMR's. For the other two I stuck with regular rings. To be honest, it probably doesn't make that much difference to the untrained eye.

My regular readers will know that with larger pieces, I prefer to block properly using pins and water. With small pieces like this, I don't find blocking necessary; instead, I do like Fox does and just press them under a weight until they lie flat. Specifically, the weight I use is Squijum. For some reason, he likes to sit on the scanner lid; so after scanning the tatted items, I just leave them on the scanner with the lid closed (I do take out the colored background paper, just in case the color rubs off) and wait for the 11.7 pound tiger to do his job. After a couple of days of this, the tatting is perfectly flat.

TIAS Day 1

Here is the e-mail I just sent to Jane:

Here's my day 1 tatting. I'm excited to finally be participating. In years past, I've always followed along and had some private guesses, but never actually did the tatting because I always had some large project going that I didn't want to be distracted from. This year, I deliberately avoided having anything big going in January.

It's really too soon to make a reasonable guess, but I'm going to have a go anyway. I can't think of any critter that would have that angle, so I won't guess an animal at this point. Following on last year's airplane, I wonder if this might be a locomotive? Although in that case, I'm not sure how the beads will be used.

Pretty simple so far, but we'll see. The thread I'm using is Lizbeth color 120 Denim Whisper.

New Blog Alert!

Just in case you haven't seen it, Martha Ess has started a new blog called Tatting Origins, exploring tatting history and old techniques. This is fascinating stuff, and everyone should check it out!

Wreaths

The thing is, I can't get into tatting Christmas things until it is properly winter, and around here that doesn't happen till mid-December-- a fact for which I am mostly grateful, because as previously mentioned, winter is not my favorite season. It does mean, though, that I then continue to want to tat Christmas things well into January. But hey, Christmas happens every year, so that's all right too.

This pattern is LaRae Mikulecky's Berry Wreath. The lock stitch chain hanger is my own addition; I couldn't decide whether I liked it better with the chain looped back to the starting point, or carried over to the next repeat, so I tried a couple each way.

The green variegated thread on the bottom is Yarnplayer's "Forest" colorway. All the other threads are Lizbeth: 685 Dark Evergreen, 638 Christmas Green, 601 White, and 671 Christmas Red. I made the white one because I needed a fourth one so that there could be two of each style of hanger-- otherwise when they're all on display together the one hanger that was different would have looked like a mistake-- and I wanted them all in different colors but didn't have another appropriate shade of green. That logic makes perfect sense, right? Right? Anyway, I think the white with red josephine knots makes an attractive ornament, even though by definition it no longer represents a wreath of greenery.

This could also be made as a spring wreath by using a lighter shade of green, and a variegated thread for the JK's to represent flower buds.

I have a couple of comments on this pattern, in case anyone feels like making it. It's not spelled out in the directions, but what you need to do is make the first round with green ball and shuttle CTM. After joining the last chain to the base of the first ring and before starting the second round, cut off the green shuttle thread and replace it with a red shuttle thread; keep the same green ball thread. Also, in round 2 the directions say to make the berry at the end of each chain before you join to round 1; however, I found that it lays better if you do the join first and then make the berry.

In size 40 thread, each wreath measures just over 1 1/2 inches, or about 4 cm, in diameter, so I'm adding them to the collection of mini-ornaments.

Christmas Angels

Hey, there are 12 days of Christmas, right? Anyway, I'm going to save these for next fall's sale, so I'm actually well ahead of the game for once.

This is Anne Bruvold's SSSR Angel, although once again, I made them with regular split rings rather than wait till later to add the second thread. The top one is done in LadyShuttleMaker's "Holly Jolly Christmas" HDT, size 50. The other two threads are both by Yarnplayer: "Elf" and "Forest", both size 40.

I'm going to keep making these miniature ornaments because they're fun, so I hope there are a lot of people with small trees who want to buy them!

On a completely unrelated note, Squijum just discovered that he likes marinara sauce. Other foods he likes that he theoretically shouldn't include spanokopita, banana chips, and pumpkin bread. What weird foods do your feline masters enjoy?

The Scent of a Dragon

I made Anne Bruvold's dragon again.

I used Tatskool's "Violet" for the body, tail, and head, and Yarnplayer's "Night Wind" for the wings. In size 80, it fits nicely on a little organza bag.

The edging is from Tatting with Anne Orr. It's the very last pattern in the book, used by Ms. Orr as a placemat edging.

Then I filled the bag with yummy-smelling things-- dried lemon peel, pieces of vanilla bean, and pieces of nutmeg-- and put it in my sweater drawer.

In case you're wondering, I joined the edging directly to the bag as I tatted by sticking a small crochet hook between the weave of the fabric. I stitched the dragon on with invisible thread.