Long Time - No Post

This is a wonderful gift I received from my friend Kim. She gave it to me last night at the guild meeting. I absolutely love it and wish you all could see it in person!

Here are two bookmarks that I tatted recently. The one on the left is Delphinium from Karey Solomon's book "Tatting By The Book". I love this book and will eventually tat all of the patterns! The one on the right is Gina Butler's pattern before the diagram was corrected. I still think it is a very pretty bookmark and this one went into the mail today to a dear friend.

Here are my class projects from Shuttlebird's Tat Days workshop. Across the bottom is the class "Getting to here from there" taught by Jessica Spaulding. We learned four different methods of chaining - spiral or Josephine chain, Lock stitch chain, S-chain, and the Z-chain. Then we chose a finding and started out own project. I made the bookmark you see with the bead on one end.

On the left is the "Pop/Water Bottle Skirt", taught by Cheryl Birch. This was a bit of a challenge for me. I made my first split chain and split ring with mock picot, and adding beads to a long picot in this project. I must say, I am quite pleased with myself =)

On the right is "Gwen's Angel", taught by Sherry Pence. I learned how to use folded rings and folded split rings on this project. It was not as difficult as I thought it would be and I will definitely tat more of these closer to Christmas. The pattern is available on her blog if you would like to give it a try.

I also took classes from Bina Madden (project not finished yet) and Mary McCarthy (Reading Tatting Patterns). It was a wonderful experience and I started looking forward to next years workshop as soon as this one ended!

I have more to post about but will do so later this evening. I must go cook some dinner for my dear husband, who has absolutely no idea how much I actually spent at the workshop, thank goodness ;) His eyes would pop right out of his head, lol!

Have a great day!

Wacky Wednesday

I just had to title this post "Wacky Wednesday" because it is very rare that I post two times in one day. I decided it would be easier for me than doing one long post.

The photo above shows my most recent tatting. I tatted this name tag and am quite pleased with how it turned out. Of course, Jane E.'s technique page made all the difference in the world. What great instructions for "Adding a bead to the center of a split ring"! I know I will use this again and again. Thanks Jane =)

You can also see that I started my lanyard with the same thread - Lizbeth Island Breeze in size 20. This was what I started on International Tatting Day. At least now I have enough done that you can see how all the colors look. I really like this thread!

Here is the cross I tatted for my dear mil, Sue. It's the same pattern I used for the green and yellow ones I tatted recently. I just love this pattern! For this cross I used Flora HH in this lovely purple color. I think that brings me up to ten on my 25 motif challenge now. Woohoo!

Now I really need to get back to working on the table favors for Shuttlebirds NEXT WEEKEND!!! I am only a little bit excited, can you tell?

Have a great day!

Happy International Tatting Day!

And the winner is.........

***Jon*** of "Jon's Thread Escapades"

Congratulations!

Thanks to everyone who entered and to all who read my blog. I will be posting more give-aways this month for my blogiversary. Probably next week. There will be at least on knitting, and one Cross stitch, maybe some beading and crochet too. We'll see what all I can come up with =)

I had intended to take a photo of what I worked on today but it's so dark and to be honest I ate more chocolate than spending time on my tatting. I started the day with chocolate Cheerios for breakfast, and then had two hot chocolates through the day, as well as ate half a dark chocolate bar. I did get a small start on my lanyard but the picture will have to wait until I have more done so it's not so embarrassing, lol!

Have a great day!

Tatting and Cross Stitch

Today I received the charts I won from Riona. I think that eventually I will stitch all three of them. First I will do the Think Spring chart because that one is my favorite! Thank you so much for sending them to me =)

Here are two more crosses that I have tatted. I find that I am learning something new each time that I tat it so I plan to tat at least one more. I put the first yellow one into my samples book and am keeping it. These two will be flying off into the mail tomorrow along the the one I tat today. These will count as motifs 7 & 8 for my 25 motif challenge. I think that most of my motifs will be bookmarks.

Have a great day!

No Foolin'

Thursday, April First is International Tatting Day. To honor this day, I would like to offer tatting supplies. The drawing will be held on April 1st and anyone who tats is welcome to enter! The threads are Lizbeth size 20 in Springtime and Spring Green. This will come with some hand cream that is safe to use for needle-workers, a set of clover shuttles in Spring colors, and of course, some delicious dark chocolate. Dark chocolate has anti-oxidants which is good for you. Not to mention that dark chocolate is delicious =) I will have my husband pick a winner when he gets home from class on Thursday evening and I will post the name along with whatever I tat that day. When you leave your comment to enter, please tell me what you plan to tat that day. Do you have a special project planned yet? This is my first time to celebrate this holiday so I am curious to know how you plan to celebrate it. Good luck to all who enter, and feel free to share the info for the give-away with other tatters if you like =)

Have a great day!

This & Tat

**Edited to add that these will count as my first six motifs of the 25 motif challenge**

Here is a photo of what I have been up to lately. I finally picked up my shuttles again. I really needed to get some practice in and learn a few more techniques before Shuttlebirds Tatting Days Workshop next month. I am as excited as a five-year-old waiting for Christmas since it will be my very first tatting workshop!

The celtic snails were taught at the January guild meeting. The tatting was the easy part. Weaving the celtic pattern took longer than the tatting but is worth the effort! My first one was tatted in Lizbeth size 20 in Springtime. The second one is Lizbeth size 20 Light Lemon.

The Sweetheart bookmark is tatted in Yarnplayers size 30 Purple Pansy. I lve her threads and have ordered lots and lots of them. Finally I decided to break down and use some!

The purple Octamotif is a Shuttle Brothers pattern and is how I learned SCMR's. I used size 10 cebelia in lavender color 210. I even remembered that I could use the slt to switch shuttles so I could finish it without having to add new thread.

The Ecru Double O Cross is one I started last summer and put away because I "didn't get it". I picked it back up and finished it! The pattern came from the book Tatted Bookmarks - Needle and Shuttle, which I had checked out from the guild library. I just ordered a copy of the book for myself and can't wait for it to arrive! I used Flora HH size 20 color 242.

The medallion is a pattern challenge from the Dec guild newsletter. I used Cebelia size 20 in color 842 mocha. I think that is one of my favorite colors so I must find it in other brands of thread. Yes, I need to weave the ends in, I know.

Last but not least, we have Julie Patterson's Hearts and Flowers Cross Bookmark. I LOVED tatting this pattern and plan to do it again and again. I used Flora HH size 20, color 205 Buttercup - Med. At tatting class last night Patti taught me how to do the spiral chain I added to the bookmark. I really like how it looks!

On a side note, the winner of this month's give-away decided not to accept so I chose another winner. The goodies are on their way to Blu and should arrive very soon.

I have been busy gathering some really cool stuff to give away next month for my blogiversary so keep checking back. I hope to post the first one soon ;)

Have a great day!

It's About Time! - Long post

Yes, I do think it is about time that I pull out of my funk and let everyone know what has been going on the past couple of months.

In May, we flew to Oklahoma to see my baby boy marry his high school sweetheart. Soooo exciting and sooo happy to see them take this step. To make a long story short, I ended up in the hospital the night before the wedding for a stay of eight days. Back in February, I had been diagnosed with an ulcer. I finished the medication about a week before leaving for the wedding., and I still wasn't feeling "normal" (whatever that is, lol) but figured it was nerves about the impending nuptuals and if I still wasn't up to par after the wedding, then I would go to the doctor when we got home. Yeah right. Turns out it perforated and I had to have surgery. The yucky kind that leaves a six inch scar down the center of your belly =( Not that I would be wearing a bikini any time soon but I had hoped that someday.....LOL. Anyway, the wedding went on and the kids came to see me at the hospital afterwards. I tried like crazy to get myself together to go. The Doc even said that if I could, they would load me up with pain meds and let me out on a pass for two hours. I couldn't even dress myself which is funny now, but not then. I passed out during the attempt and had to be put back into the bed. See, the doc thought it was something else wrong that would "fix itself" so at that point I hadn't had the surgery. It wasn't until the day after the wedding that he decided to go in and have a look. Once I was cleared from the hospital we flew home and a few days later noticed something wasn't quite right. We went out to my favorite Vietnamese restraunt for soup and my husband asked if "that" was me or had I spilled soup on myself? By "that" he was refering to the stain on my shirt, right over my incision. I immediately went into denial and said it was soup of course. But it wasn't. We went to the hospital and had the build up of fluid around the incision, and the twenty one staples removed and I felt much better. I'm sorry, did I say I was trying to make this short? I lied. Even after that incident, I had another one before I was able to get on with the healing. And it was by far the grossest thing I have ever been through so I won't share any details. However, now I am doing much better. In two weeks I will have an EGD and then the docs will be able to see that everything is healing fine on the inside and I will feel better knowing that everything is okay too.

So, without further ado, I present a few things I have been doing. I will will share more photos later this week but decided to start with just a few for this post. I am learning to tat and this is my first doily:

Here are four more Blackbird stockings back from the finisher. I have a couple more stitched but really need to get my act together. I am supposed to lead a SAL for these with my local needlework guild and it won't be very inspiring if I can't keep up with it myself. I had already planned to stitch them all so this should really encourage me to keep up. Except that I have only wanted to tat lately.
A few weeks ago my inlaws came to visit and Sue brought me this bounty of goodies. This collection of tatting supplies came from her Aunt who passed away last year. No one else in the family tats so she asked if I could have the box of items that were now in storage. I feel so lucky to have them and will make lots of things. She saved some really neat patterns and I have already made one of them with some of the thread but it is a secret for now ;-)

The photo above shows the tatted flowers and doodles she had made and saved for note cards. The photo below shows the vast amount of tatting thread from the box and the patterns she had clipped from old Workbasket magazines. The thread was all in stationary boxes but I put it all into these plastic school boxes in hopes to keep it in really good condition so I can use it.
This photo shows all of the tatting shuttles and various tools she used. What an awesome collection!!!

Now, here is a link to the video my son made from the wedding pics.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jrhgq1PNYQ
I think you will agree that they are just the cutest couple ever =)

Have a great day!