Exchange bag received!

I got home late tonight to find a package from my exchange partner, Mary Donohue. She's quick! It's a lovely little canvas bag with butterflies and flowers. I love the flower bead centers and that polka dot ribbon is so precious! Inside Mary had tucked a plastic container with thread and a couple of flower beads, plus there was a tube of blue beads, some beading needles and a pen -the perfect size to carry around in a bag that size!



Gail Colbourne hosts exchanges year-round. Go to the bottom of the page to find the link.

I also had a new Anna magazine. Not a bit of tatting in it - in fact, I didn't see anything that particularly enticed me. Not that I need any more projects but it's fun to look at them and at least consider them.

Details for our Lace Day May 7

Well, we're making progress. Here are the details for Lafayette Lacers Lace Day:
Lafayette Lacers Lace Day Invite
Lunch can be pre-ordered or there are several new establishments in the area too.
Lunch order form
And here are some directions to get there!
Directions to Lace Day

So if you're in Indiana or surrounding states, feel free to come and have fun with us!

I'll be working on the Lace Jeopardy Board this weekend. I'm really looking forward to this part! Need to take my shuttle shelf in to get a glass cover for it this week too. Maybe tomorrow if I take it down tonight.

I spent some time outside raking the leftover leaves and twigs the last two evenings. Not much tonight as my legs are a bit sore, but I wanted to be outside enjoying the weather instead of having to walk someplace like I do all day.

I won some more metal knitting needles for lace on ebay a while back. I bid on them because I wanted the wooden tube they came in. Can't help it.....I love wooden containers. Out of the deal, I also got some plastic knitting needles that I don't really want, and one large wooden knitting needle.




Okay, shuttle box is down and ready to go.....I'm finishing up another project....and then I can tatty-tat-tat.

Shellpiece

This isn't exactly what we learned Saturday morning, but basically it is. We used a glass glob but I couldn't find it right away when I decided to try this again, so I used a shell that Witt gave me when I went to South Carolina last year. I was able to encase the edge very nicely but when I tried to use the spokes that Kaye had designed for the snowflake edging on the round glass, there were too many picots and they started to ruffle and look icky. So I cut them off and improvised a scalloped edging instead, which worked out very well, considering. In fact, it's giving me ideas for a bigger shell work of art! I have 2 other shells Witt gave me, one larger and one smaller. Kaye took a class from Karey Solomon for this technique.

This is another busy week at work. I'm beginning to wonder if it will ever end. The weather was gorgeous for a change. We've had a cold wet spring so todays sunshine, breeze, and warmer temps was greatly welcomed. I hoped to be home in time to do some yard work, but it was almost dusk before I got here. And here it is, almost 9:00 p.m.! I really need to work on a few projects.

Changes

I don't know what happened to my titles but they are not showing up. (they weren't when I originally wrote that!)

And I clicked on all my links there to the side and found a few were dead. But worse than that, several have not been updated since mid 2004. I'll be culling those out pretty soon and adding some live ones. They won't be about tatting, unfortunately. Only 3-4 of those in the list are about tatting and working, so they will stay, but the rest will be composed of other crafts.

We've been having an ongoing seasonal tat-embellished quilt block exchange on Tatting Goddess Updates. I wasn't going to participate because I have a quilt in the works that is long, long overdue to be worked on. Do that first, I tell myself. Um-huh. Well, I caved....and had way too much fun. LOL! The just ended exchange was for the winter season. My exchange partner was Gail Owens and her block is on the left; mine to her is on the right.



I managed to come up with a "luggage tag" for the Lacemaker's Census. Click on census at the top of that page.



I was going to tat something special for it, but time crunched and I dug out something I already had. The motif is Hearts & Flowers from Lyn Morton's Tatting Patterns.

Went to tatting guild in Greenfield, Indiana this morning. Kaye showed us how to tat around a found object, a technique she learned from a class with Karey Solomon. I made a mistake on mine....was going to start another but was almost out of time, and....truth be told, I wasn't feeling all that great either. Decided to try it again later. So...maybe I'll have a sample to show before the weekend is over.

If I have time and the inclination, I need to work on our Lace Jeopardy board for Lace Day. I think I'll line up the questions tonight. Now what kind of questions will stump lacers???? evil evil grin

Spring has Sprung!

Spring has Sprung!

but it's not too noticeable around here. The sun is shining and I saw a few crocuses poking up from the leaves, but they've been doing that for 2 weeks now - as if stopped in time. I think it will warm up soon though.

I did start an entry here last week and then got sidetracked. Now where was I?

Oh, after I posted 2 partial blocks of my son's quilt in progress, the Twisted Log Cabin, I received 2 pics from Estefania, showing her own quilts. This first one is her rendition of the Twisted Log Cabin. Mine will have the logs swirling into one another in graduated colors with a black background. There are a few different ways I can place them and I now forget exactly what I had in mind - but I'll just lay them out and try it again. Then her second quilt is a more traditional log cabin pattern with a dogwood flower in the middle. Estefania does beautiful work!



These next scans are part of my lessons that I'm presenting at Palmettos in June.


I'm glad I got to use the peach colored thread. Since then, I've knocked over my glass of iced tea twice and got that ball of thread both times. The first time I quickly dunked it in running water to rinse it out and then set it, ball intact, over a register to dry. It looked okay....but the second time, I didn't get to the water. I haven't decided what to do with it yet. It just looks a little drab compared to how it looked brand new.

I sent off my quilt block to Gail at noon today. I'll have to wait to show it, but I can tease your imagination a bit in the meantime. I used a block from Bonnet Girls by Helen R. Scott. I originally bought this book after I joined several online quilting groups in an effort to find a pattern for a quilt I saw in St. Vincent DePaul's once. The appliqued blocks featured women in costumes from the 1800's. I remembered the ruffled pantaloons and some umbrellas. I never found the exact pattern series, but my search led me to this book which had a similar theme. I see she has another book now, Ladies Day Out with the same Bonnet Girls. I had so much fun with this block - I may have to get the new book too. They are MUCH cheaper than when I bought my copy.

So now I'm busy tatting a motif for one project and I'm getting ready to tat something for my partner in a different exchange, one hosted by Gail Colbourne.

psst......(I also have to clean up the mess I have on the living room floor while making Gail's block. My son asked me if I was making "a blanket or something.")

Busy!

Amongst other things.....

My flu bug didn't hang around long but a cold came to take its place. I'm still a little congested today but definitely better. The two days prior found me with burning eyes and plugged up nose and just generally puny-feeling.

My daughter's birthday was this week and my granddaughter last week - but I've not felt good enough to be around them - so tomorrow I'll tote their gifts over along with an ice cream surprise!

My lace group met this morning and we planned a bit more for Lace Day on May 7. I'll need to have the Lace Jeopardy board done by the next meeting so we can play it ourselves. We certainly won't have time at the event.

I'm also planning to attend the Finger Lakes Tatting Group Mini-Convention in April. I'm riding with friends but first, I had to get my registration sent in!

Then I learned last weekend that I'll be teaching at Palmettos in June and I've been working all week on the first project so I'll have scans to send. The second one is already scanned from a prior project. Anyway, just getting that information organized and out has been time-consuming with being sick and having to get caught up at work too.

PLUS.....my tatted quilt block is due to go out Friday and I'm only part way done with that tatting. (sorry Gail!) It did motivate me to go down to the basement a bit ago and bring up the blocks and material for my son's quilt in process.

The pattern is Twisted Log Cabin. These are 8" blocks and you can kind of see how they fit together. The overall pattern will be striking. It's paper-pieced, my first attempt at paper piecing. Keep in mind I was doing this when I taught myself to tat in 1998. I just left it - dead in the water! It's time to finish it - so after all the tatting committments are done, the quilt is next and THIS YEAR!!!!

And I got the name of an exchange partner today for a tatting bag exchange I signed up for a few months ago. I'm really excited about that one too. I bought a few Butterick patterns for bags awhile back when JoAnn's Fabrics had them 99 cents. I don't know which I'll make but I'm leaning towards the white one near the center with the medallion in the middle or the two tone brown/beige one to the right of it.




There's some mending for my grandson waiting on me......

I got those jaded knitting needles cleaned off and they look pretty darn good! Makes me want to knit something....and I saw Rosemary knitting lace today at the meeting and that inspired me too - but no, I do not have time right now.

Really.

Signs of Spring

So I'm sitting in my chair, knitting, noticing the cat is sitting in the window ledge behind me, quietly, attentively. Suddenly I hear birds, hundreds of them, swooping through the woods behind me, chirping loudly as they rustle in and out of the trees. This is a brief stopping point. They land, fly en masse to another section, land, and take off again after a few minutes. In the meantime, I notice some other movement in the mottled leaf strewn floor of the hill as it slides down away from where I sit. A deer, right outside the window....a young one, nibbling on the green undergrowth...and there's another....and another. And then I see more down the hill, 5 of them....I count 8 altogether. My son arrives home from work about 15 minutes later and as they hear the noise, they start to gather and move towards the woods. Jesse gets in just in time to see the flurry of white tails off into the distance....a whole herd, it seems.

I love it here


taken from the window with zoom

March - not very lambsy....

I had dinner tonight with my godmother at Red Lobster. It was our Christmas exchange/get together.....we tend to wait for better weather. I had her gift at Christmas but wanted to give her a little something else since what I got her was something mostly appropriate for Christmas and here it is - March.



I think this is such a pretty motif. It's from Mary Konior's A Pattern Book of Tatting. I had been looking for some snowflake motifs for something else and saw this one and tried to find a reason to tat it. LOL! That wasn't too hard, was it? Also gave me the opportunity to try another King Tut color that I had, #983.

(for Nell.....the thread only broke on me when I tried to undo a josephine knot which is tiny, tiny, tiny!)

I've noticed in this book that Konoir makes liberal use of Josephine knots, which I'm not that crazy about, and she likes to throw rings off of chains a lot too. Just before this one, I had done a motif called "josephine wreath"....well, gee...let me scan it!



I need LOTS of practice with this tiny size 70/80-ish thread.

Anywho...I liked that motif in that frame so well...and remembered I bought it in a Dollar store - so before I went the grocery tonight, I stopped at a different Dollar store and they had the same frames! It was months ago that I bought it the last time. It's a perfect frame for these tiny motifs though. While I was there, I also picked up a round white frame....

which means I need to find the perfect simple elegant round motif for it! And shall it be white with a colored background or a colored thread on a white background or gold thread on....?????

Belated Anniversary for Tatting Goddess

It ran through my mind once, but was promptly forgotten. Somewhere in the middle of last month, TG marked 2 blog years. I gotta find a way to back up the archives! Blogger doesn't make it all that easy. I go the archive file changed so it shows on the side now.

A few weeks ago I started tatting the ripple pattern in Mary Maynard's Tatting a 4 Square Ring.



It's turning out pretty big....I finished the second row during lunch and it's 8 1/2" long and 1" wide so far, tatting in size 20 thread. I plan to try it in solid contrasting colors too....or maybe a rainbow sprectrum of colors.

I've also been playing with the stacked or ruffled picots, but I don't have them scanned right now. I really like the effect. I'm trying to figure out how to get a 2 color effect. I would have to use 2 shuttles, perhaps in a similar manner to this technique of tatting square rings. It's not like celtic picots or Mark's Daisy Picot.

I ordered an online pattern from Beads and Handworks yesterday and somehow ordered the wrong one or received the wrong one. The numbers on the confirmation do not match what I ordered or what I got, but the company very graciously replaced it with the right one this morning. I have no idea when I will get to it but I would love for it to be SOON! LOL!