Still designing a tatted feather and a "tribal" necklace in progress

It's not so much that a creative mind is disorganized, it's that the planet spins around too quickly. That's the reason I can't get more projects finished. The odd-looking mess of beads, paper clips, and hand dyed thread in the above photo is a new original design in progress, that will have a primitive, rustic, or tribal look when completed. Making tatting look "primitive" rather than the usual "Victorian" is hard! I'm using some tricky techniques such as Catherine Wheel Joins and Loop Tatted Rings to get my design to work, and I'll show you the completed necklace when I get it done.

I've done a little more on the feather idea as well, and I think I may have a workable picot-ed version. I do plan to write up the feather pattern at some point in the future, but I'm hoping that a third feather inspiration comes along first.

For those who mark their calendars well in advance, I'll be teaching a day-long workshop on beginning tatting at Shake Rag Alley on May 31, 2014. It's a pretty location with major tourist attractions nearby, and Shake Rag Alley sets their class fees to be quite reasonable, when compared to other workshop events. Other attractions in the area include House on the Rock, Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin, and Wisconsin Dells.

Besides hand dyeing a batch of Knitty Gritty, I also tried dyeing a small experimental batch of "Sumac". At first I planned to call it "Angry Martian" because I was "very angry, very angry indeed" at the time, but when it turned out so pretty, my mood improved and I changed the name to Sumac, which is a common shrub around here that has cheerful, bright colors in autumn.