Part 4 Finger Lakes Tatting Seminar

Well, It's 12:50 at night, and my dear husband is rocking our 19 month old grandson...who doesn't seem to want to go to sleep...So, I'll take the time to tell you about the last day of the seminar.

My morning class was with Nina Libin who had a delightful looking flower pin. The pin was done in three stages, two for the flower and the last for the leaves...all three done on the same thread and connected together. Try as I might, there at the seminar and later at home, I couldn't get my three stages close enough together to look anything like a flower. I eventually did them as three different stages and "sewed" them together with the thread ends. I loved the way this looked. I am presently trying to make enough of them to give to the mothers at church on Mother's Day.

My last class was taught by Jennifer Ostrander. She taught a split ring edging, split rings were a technique I already knew, but I could always use practice. I certainly got practice! The green was done in all split rings, and the flowers had two split rings out of every five rings. Jennifer had hand dyed thread for us to work with--this was new to me. I enjoyed working with it, and loved the different color changes that the thread made doing the edging. Jennifer had hand-sewn handkerchiefs and some smaller "coaster" size cotton pieces that we could chose from. Once I got home, I thought that I really wanted an absorbent coaster, so I sewed up these out of "micro-fiber" cloth. I have the large one on my craft table, and have put the smaller one in my big tatting bag for use when I'm not at home.

I really enjoyed this year's seminar. The food was excellent, not only for meals but also in the snacks that were provided. How they worked around all the food allergies that people had, I have no idea...but they really put effort into making sure that everyone has something (plenty) to eat every meal. The Saturday evening speaker was excellent. She spoke about gardening, but she really encouraged everyone to step out and make a difference in the world with the talents that you have been given. The time and effort put into this weekend really showed, and I deeply appreciated it. I'm hoping to visit New York again in 2012.