Tatting Tea Tuesday May 18, 2010

This Tatting Tea Tuesday finds the doily not done yet but progress is being made, the third round is well on it's way to being done. The red chain of the second round did not look quite right so it was removed (before it got too far) and it is now all in the Western Sunset. No picture today but done or not done I'll try for one by next week.

A high school graduation snuck up on me without me getting anything done for it. So there was a break in working on the doily to work on a pendant for the graduate.

This is basically the same pendant I've made before with a couple of minor adjustments for the cross and using a jump ring instead of ribbon through the top ring. The beads are glass silver beads and they are very shiny! It made it hard to get a good picture. Originally there was going to be silver thread in with the blue, but that didn't happen as you can see. Maybe for another time. This is made in Manuela size 20 in color 019; the beads are 10/0 glass. The cross was something I picked up at Wal-mart because it looked like it would be good for something like this.

Another niece is getting promoted from eighth grade to high school tonight - they didn't tell me until Sunday! - which we will have to miss due to having to go to work. I haven't decided if she gets a pendant, too, or if it will be a phone fob or something like that. As it has to be mailed and is already late a little extra time getting it just right is important. One way or another it's to go out in the mail today or tomorrow at the latest.

Enjoy some tea and take time for a little tatting!

Progress and Flowers

I didn't find where I might have written down the pattern for the doily *sigh*. So I counted stitches and wrote it down. In pencil. And I've started making it in Lizbeth size 20 'Western Sunset'. It's shades of red and purples. The second round I'm using red as the chain thread to see how that looks. I'm not sure yet if I'll like it, but thought I'd try it. The 'Western Sunset' was already on a couple of shuttles so I could start right away after I had the pattern done. As there's nothing fancy in this doily, just one shuttle and ball, it should go rather quickly. No promises about how fast it will get done but it would be nice to have finished by Tuesday :-).

The flowers in the picture are kind of a funny story. I had the idea of taking flowers to church on Sunday (Mother's Day) and handing them out to all the ladies. We don't have a large congregation so it wouldn't be hard or expensive. There were a lot of choices at the store including these bright and cheery colored daisies. When I was getting in the car I realized that daisies really don't smell all that wonderful, maybe carnations would have been a better choice? But each lady would get several flowers on a stem with the daisies and they were bright and cheery so it was still okay. I left the flowers bundled up but in water overnight. Sunday morning I took the rubber band and the plastic from around them and spread them out a bit so they would be easy to pull out of the vase. And noticed that my fingers were a bright and cheery blue! I was pretty sure none of the ladies at church would want blue dye stains on their clothes or hands. I ended up not taking the flowers to church. Carnations would have been better.

The daisies do look good on my table, though, in their bright and cheery blue water.

Tatting Tea Tuesday after a stormy Monday

It was a wild night last night. There were storms all over Kansas and Oklahoma and a lot of tornadoes came out of them. There are reports of 21 tornadoes between the two states last night. We were fortunate here in Wichita as we didn't have any tornadoes, but there were a couple that weren't that far away. There was a tornado warning in Wichita - imminent threat of a tornado - so the plant was sent to the storm shelters. I know my daughter and her family went to the basement. It calmed down here after that but the storms kept moving east and causing damage. I was very glad to see the night over.

Today is a much nicer day here. There will be a lot of people out today checking out the damage and making determination on how strong the tornadoes were yesterday. I hear that the storms are moving east with lots of dangerous potential. I feel for all those people that may have to go through that kind of storms.

Now, on to a much lighter subject. I'm not getting much tatting done yet today, though I might have a chance later. But I've been going through a few things - trying to organize (hahahaha!) -and came upon a doily I made years ago. You might have seen it in this post.

I'm trying to figure out if I wrote the pattern down for this. So far, I haven't had any luck finding anything. So I thought I'd start over and count stitches and get this written out so I can make another one. I've got so many more beautiful threads today than I did then. I think this could look pretty cool in colors. Now if I can just get down on paper what I put together in thread!

Another pendant

I made another pendant, this one for me. My Mother's day gift to me. It's actually the same
pattern as the others but I made a mistake. It turned out okay, just gave it a little different look. I like this look, too, but I need to change the bead count on the inside ring. Oh, well, it's mine so if I think there's a mistake no-one else has to know, right? (You won't tell, will you?)

My latest tatting is just a doodle; I'm not sure it's going anywhere. I was waiting on my husband with my tatting bag in hand, nothing started and none of the patterns I was planning on next with me, but I started anyway. If it looks interesting at all, I'll share it with you later.

Wishing all of you a very happy Mother's Day this Sunday. I know we're one of the few countries that have a designated day to celebrate mothers, but where ever you are, celebrate anyway, even if you are the only one who knows what you're celebrating! Take time for yourself and treat yourself to a little chocolate and maybe some tatting. : )

Motif #6 in my second 25 Motif Challenge

Here is motif #6 of my 2nd 25 Motif Challenge. It's the pendant I made for my exchange partner in the Intatters pendant exchange. I sent both of them to her. I was late - very - but I finally got them sent! She received them a couple of days ago so they can be shared without giving anything away before her first view.
I posted a picture of the pendant I received from Deb (dbrn) last time. If anyone is interested in making one for themselves, she very kindly sent me the pattern. It's in the comments of my last post. Check it out if you'd like to give it a try.

This was supposed to be a Tatting Tea Tuesday post, but as you can see, I'm a little late. I had the picture downloaded and everything but had not typed anything. This way I could finish the post during break at work. Good idea, right? Yeah, good idea until I back space and delete the picture! And didn't think fast enough to save it. So the post became late, again.

I didn't get a chance to tat yesterday, anyway. And no tea, either. We had several errands to run before work so left the house early. It turned out to be a nice day, though windy. After our errands we had a bit of time with nothing to do before we needed to be a work. So we went for ice cream! It was a very pleasant shop we stopped at, backed up to an inner city lake. There were Canada geese, with babies! We counted nine baby geese wandering along with their parents. Very fun to watch. I wished I had my camera with me, but I had taken it out of my purse a few days ago.

Today is a lovely day, too. We don't have many days that are so pretty, with the temperature in the 70's, very little wind and lots of sun. Wonderful! So I'll enjoy the wonderful weather as long as it lasts and try getting a little tatting done, too. Maybe I'll post on Tuesday next week. Wouldn't that be a surprise?

Beautiful Sunday

We are having a beautiful day today! Hardly any wind - for the last week, until yesterday, we've had sustained winds around 25-30 and gusts between 45 and 60. Yesterday was very calm but quite cloudy. Today there is a slight breeze - very slight - and it's mostly sunny with the temperature right at 75 degrees Fahrenheit. I'm sitting outside enjoying the sights, sounds and smells of spring. There are birds of all sorts making their individual songs to the day, insects of many kinds buzzing by, and the locus tree is in bloom giving off it's lovely scent. It's very nice just to sit and relax here on the patio.

Before I got too lazy I finally downloaded my camera of it's visual treasures. I found the cable I had misplaced under some material and a tatting book so am now able to put all the pictures on my laptop. And there are a lot of pictures! When my daughter was staying with us a few weeks ago she and a friend took their children to the Sedgwick County Zoo in Wichita and took my camera. There are a lot of very cute pictures that she took that day. Now I have them and she doesn't so I'll have to send them to her :-) And then we visited with some cousins and Aunts and Uncles, so more pictures. And then we visited my daughter in Wichita and of course took pictures. Then there are the pictures I've taken of my recent tatting.


This is the pendant I received from my Intatters exchange partner Deb (dbrn) in the pendant exchange that was held recently. I like it, and it looks great when I wear it. The crystal in the center picked up the color of the vase it's on so looks a little strange in the picture. It's actually clear topaz (?) in person. The beads are gold. She didn't tell me if this is her design or what thread she made it out of, but it looks like Lizbeth size 20 to me ; ). I wore it to church today and it looked good on my neck. It's just the right size! Unfortunately I was very late in getting mine to her done and in the mail, but I finally got it in the mail this week. If she doesn't have it now she should in just a few days. I hope she likes it! I'll post pictures of my work when I know that she's received it.

A few weeks ago I treated myself to a new tatting book. I was in the vicinity of a store in Wichita that actually carries a lot of tatting supplies, including a lot of books and thread, mostly DMC in many colors in sizes 10, 20 and 30. Before Lizbeth I used to buy a lot of my thread from her.


I haven't tried any of these patterns yet but I have several I really want to do. I may have to toss a coin to decide which one will be first. I chose this book because I have grandsons instead of granddaughters. There are a lot of things you can tat for girls but some just don't seem right for boys. I guess I think of them like the poem about "snails and puppy dog tails". I think these tatted animal bookmarks could be put on wall hangings in their rooms, and maybe on the edge of a pillow case, that type of thing, possibly leaving of the bookmark tail. If we could keep a hat on their heads right now I think a few of these would look good on them, but the hats come off pretty quick yet. Maybe later.

I've been catching up on a few blogs - finally- and see that some of you out there are already thinking of what to do for the fair this year. The fairs around here aren't for several months yet but I guess if I want to enter anything I should get started. I haven't put anything in the fair for years, but maybe I'll try this year. There are a lot of things I'd like to make that might work for that, but we'll see how energetic I am.

Right now energetic I'm not. In fact, an afternoon nap is sounding pretty good. There are a lot of things I should be doing but it would be very easy to just put my head back and close my eyes. Let the birds sing me a lullaby. Zzzzz...