At some point during my hiatus from blogging, I milestoned a quarter of a million visitors. It's nice to know I'm still interesting. (Very Big Smile) I'm putting together a giveaway so stay tuned. So far, it looks like there will be 3 separate giveaways but they will take place at once.

Here's the last of my hand dyed thread. There are four that are very similar just because I wasn't clear on what was what and it was late and I was running out of steam. I plan to use some of this in my needlelace and RPL also. In fact, I already used the dark green to do the outline in my leaf. You can see it on my other lace blog.

Then, the other night, I happened to find yet MORE dye in baggies in a cup that I'd forgotten about so I decided to try dying some of my lace bobbins. I will embellish these with more paint and goodies but this is the dye-stained base.

You saw this motif before. Same thread and same pattern but without beads. Fox tatted it too, but without beads, so.....sssshhhhhh! She's become addicted to beads now and if she sees this, I know she'll do it again WITH beads!

I'm tatting the 3rd motif and deciding what fabric to use for the bag. I had something gold-ish in mind but as I walked out to refresh my drink earlier, my eyes spied this silky purple. Hmmmm....maybe? Don't forget there will be bigger beads/pearls in the center rings.

I was in Trader Buck's yesterday, a flea market sort of place, and saw a purse I really liked only because it had pintucking. I LOVE pintucking. The bag itself was too small and there were no pockets inside in the lining, plus I didn't like the round wooden handles particularly. But it did occur to me that I could use a similar design (i.e. pintucking) in addition to the original design. I still haven't converted the cm to inches to know how big the original is. I may change radically from that once I do know. LOL! I'm feeling ELABORATENESS coming on. Must be from being exposed to all the girly girly things lately! BTW, Mom, Dad & Ellie are home now and the stream of visitors continues. I'll see them again probably on Sunday. This son lives about 45 minutes away so it takes a bit of planning to "drop in". (I always call, no matter how close anyway.)

I have even more I could post about - OH - I did want to mention that I purged my friends list on facebook, limiting it to family and local friends mostly. I get to interact and keep up with the majority of my tatting friends by their blogs, listgroups and emails, so please do not feel offended that I defriended you. It just works better for me to separate it all out.

And I'm off to finish tatting that 3rd motif!

Happy Mother's Day!!!!

There is a clematis vine on a trellis just outside my garage and I've been noticing a redbird flying away from the very same spot whenever I get close. I took a peek earlier last week and saw there was, indeed, a nest with eggs. I couldn't tell how many as I didn't want to get too close and cause the mother to abandon the nest. My middle son, Jason, took me out to breakfast/lunch today and when we got back, I remembered I had my camera with me after hearing the mom fly past when I got stuff out of the car. So I stuck the camera at what I hoped was a good angle and took two photos. One was just leaves but this one shows at least ONE new birdie in the world. Happy Mum's day Red Lady!

Yesterday, two lace guild members and myself drove up to Chesterton and spent a wonderful morning dying fiber under the tutelage of Pat Winter! I say fiber because they dyed mostly silk ribbon and I dyed cotton thread. It's amazing how fast time flies when you're having fun! I was the designated klutz this day, spilling dye a grand total of THREE times! I am not usually this clumsy but I hadn't slept well the two nights previous and it all caught up with me last night. I laid down on the sofa at 9:00 p.m., thinking I'd snooze for 20 minutes or so and then rinse out my threads. HA! I woke up at 10:30 p.m., made my last email check and went to bed, not getting up until 8:30 this morning! I think I was just tired.

So before I left with my son this morning, I rinsed all my threads and hung them to dry. They're still a little damp so I've got out the rest of the skeins I'd presoaked and started finding containers for the dye I brought home with me. I need to go get some more containers. LOL! But I will play more when I return.

Before I left Chesterton yesterday, Pat gifted me with this beautiful seascape brooch and I wore it on my jacket today at the restaurant. I can't get over all the tiny tiny details in it! My son looked at it and said, "hmmm...kinda busy..." LOL! I forgot he had lasik and probably can't see those teensy details all that well.

Last night before I ended up on the sofa, I finished tatting this motif I started the night before. I think the thread is some I bought from Karey Solomon at a Tat Day somewhere. It doesn't show so much in the scan, but I really like the confetti-like appearance.

I got the motif from this book, the picture on page 18 if you have it. It's really kind of hard to see but there are three of them on a bag and it's tatted with beads plus a center pearl is added during stitching to the bag. This one was a test tat for me, to see how the thread and the pattern worked out. I believe I will tat three now, with beads, and also make a bag as instructed and sew the motif to it.

And hey, if you want to see some stunning tatted lacework, go to this website: http://www.artedeldettaglio.com/eng/index.php
This is the home page with a slide show but check out "articles" which shows and describes tatting embellished items that are stunning. I've said before that we tend to tat small items but there are some people who go beyond that and tat works of art. Maybe I should attempt to make something on a larger scale. Some day.