Issues with Etsy's payment processing, and more triangles

In the month of July, I received several emails from Etsy letting me know of problems they were having with their Direct Checkout system. Well, it looks like similar issues are now effecting PayPal's integration with Etsy (though PayPal itself is just fine and will work on other websites). Despite many concerned sellers on the forums, I have yet to see a resolution to this problem.

One workaround suggested by a few sellers is to set up "Other" as a payment option. I have just enabled that in my shop, which allows me to email PayPal invoices to those who wish to make a purchase. For PayPal users, this means that you would complete the checkout process as usual, but click on "Other" when it asks how you want to pay. Apparently, this method of checkout is unaffected by whatever issues are currently plaguing Etsy.

I know that this is much more tedious than it should be, and I'm hoping that there will be a fix soon. If problems continue, I may look into opening a Craftsy store to offer a more stress free option of purchasing patterns.

On the tatting front, I have been continuing my experimentations with triangles. Kathy left a comment on one of my previous posts directing me to experiments that she and Sue had done with triangles before. ::Click here for Sue's post::   ::Click here for Kathy's post::

I've been working on making a small mat using DMC size 80 thread. At this point, it could be used as a bookmark (or continued further in length for a choker or headband):

The pattern is done in one pass, using split rings to travel from one triangle to the next. I've exited at the top so that I can continue creating more rows for a mat.

Like Sue, I also made a hexagon. I think it would look better with a few more rounds, and perhaps in a solid color.

The small "braid" in the upper right corner was a test piece to make sure that the triangles fit together. Mary Konior made a lot of these braids throughout her books (Corn and Chaff is a good example). I've often wondered how Mary came up with all of her braid patterns. I'm starting to think that maybe she just experimented with a lot of different ring sizes and ways to connect them. Perhaps with more practice, I can come up with patterns like hers :)

As I was taking photos for this blog post, one of our local stray cats made an appearance on the porch. I call her "Mama Cat" because she has four little kittens that usually accompany her. (Apologies for the filthy sliding glass door...I've got to go clean that!)

Mama Cat has been wandering around for at least a year, and I always thought that she was someone's pet. However, when we saw the kittens, I realized that she was a stray. There's also another mama cat that is the same color as her, but with two kittens. We've had both cat families come over (never at the same time) to eat and drink. They are sneaky little things and sometimes the only sign that they've been here are the empty cat bowls in the morning.