Penny, Mike, and I went to the Pride parade last weekend (as in early June) and had lots of great mini adventures (the mini ones are the best). We found the Boiler Monkey, a very cool steampunk/cowboy bebop-esque food truck where we ate delicious eggs benedict and cheesy polenta with eggs and andouille sausage. (two of my favorite words are “hollandaise” and “andouille”).
Then we saw the parade of course, and it was awesome as usual. Lots of cheering and dancing and rainbows and happy people. :-) Next year I’ll bring the kiddos. I wanted to this year, but the little one is a bit too little still, and I can’t bring one without the other. Ugh, mom guilt.
Anyway, it wasn’t as hot as last year and we sat around our friend’s salon for awhile. It was nice and cool in there, with nice cool people and mimosas. At 12 on the dot, businesses opened and we went exploring. We visited an apothecary (like with candles and crystals, the high school me was squeeing uncontrollably) and two antique shops. Nob Hill is riddled with them, and it was super fun to finally get to go in some of them. We only had time for two: the first was Barrymore’s, it was small but jam-packed with amazing stuff. I found a shuttle there and a sweet little ring. Penny found two big jars of spools of thread, most of which were still on wooden spools! Then the second store (ugh, forgot the name…Sole Art & Antiques? Maybe I dunno) was huge. Room after room and even an upstairs. I found another shuttle there too, after embarrassing myself by asking for shutting tattles instead of tatting shuttles. lol I got it right on the third try and admitted I was too excited to speak. This was my first shot at antiquing in years. I usually look at jewelry, since I know a little about it, but this time I looked for clothes and sewing implements as well. Turns out I still have excellent radar for sterling silver and asking for things (like shuttles) gives me a chance to chat with employees. I could get into antiquing…
ANYWAY, here are the shuttles I found and what I think of them:
(you know, my fingers hovered over the keyboard just then, trying to type “tutting” again)
Barrymore’s had two shuttles. One might have been a bobbin, but it was sterling and quite old. It was gorgeous but I couldn’t bring myself to get it. I got this one instead, it’s a JustRite shuttle that says “Justrite” at the top and “pat applied for” on the bottom. It is metal, possibly aluminum-plated or nickel plated. It’s light weight. I looked a bit online and determined that it is not any younger than 1940 because JustRite stopped making them in that year. They are reproduced by a company called Lacis now, and bear the Lacis name on the newer ones. This doesn’t have that, so I’m guessing 30s. Pattern is Blue Edging (nope, I’m a rebel, Dottie, using purple/grey variegated) from New Twist on Tatting : More Than 100 Glorious Designs by Catherine Austin . This shuttle might not get much more use after this edging because it feels too delicate for my taste. I don’t want to bend it on accident! The hook is a little wide and blunt too, so it’s tough to do the joins without splitting the thread. I still love using it though, just because it’s old and I want to add my own little experience to it’s story.
I found this one at the huge store, a Boye shuttle. I clucked and cooed over the familiar name and told the shopkeeper (who confessed he didn’t know about them) that Boye is a big manufacturer of crafty things like knitting needles. It has a little hook on the end (always helpful) and is unique in that it has a bobbin, and the thread doesn’t click on the ends like my other shuttles. The piece is mainly one piece of metal bent into shape with the bobbin kind of clipped in the middle. I didn’t think I’d like it, bobbins I mean, but you can see I dove right into another book mark. This one is Clover Bookmark by Kelly Luljak.
The basket is from a sewing expo Penny and I went to the weekend before. We found sashiko (!) there too. She got a huge striped basket and I found an octopus sashiko pattern. More on that later. :-)
P.S. I don’t know why I didn’t post this sooner. It’s a month old! Here is a picture of all my shuttles to compensate. I may have a serious tatting issue now, up there with knitting and crochet….but hopefully it won’t get as overboard as cross stitch…
Soon I’ll try split rings, and I needed those two plastic Clover shuttles for that so I finished up another bookmark. Onward!! Tatt on!!