Odds and Ends

During our trip to Colorado I did tat a little bit - I made another bookmark, a variation of the one I did a couple of weeks ago. This was done mostly while driving and with a few trials of different ways to achieve the same end. I don't know if it's just the color combination or the different things I tried, but the chains don't quite look right. Of course I noticed that the most while I was blocking it, otherwise I like how it turned out. It's made in Lizbeth Caribbean and black size 20.

State Fair
I did mention that I had a few more fair pictures.

This is the butter sculpture. There were so many people looking at it that it was hard to get close enough to see it let alone take a picture; I hope you can make them out. Amazing what someone can do with butter!

My grandson really enjoyed the goats. He kept trying to give them hugs and kisses.

There was a remote controlled robot named Oscar talking to people and keeping everyone laughing. I don't know where the person was who controlled him, but Oscar commented on the people around him and moved around interacting with the crowd. My grandson thought Oscar was great until we got him up close, then it wasn't fun any more.

I thought this was definitely the winner of the fair!

Surprise in the sky
We were on the way to work Friday and saw what at first we thought were some odd looking clouds. And then we realized they weren't clouds.

The Thunderbirds were going to be at the air show at McConnell Air Force base open house on Saturday and Sunday and we were seeing their practice.

We kept an eye on the sky all the way from Newton to Wichita, about 25 miles, and saw quite the show, even from that distance. We weren't going to be able to go to the show but we got to enjoy a bit of it anyway.

Tatting Tea Tuesday
I'm enjoying Tazo Refresh tea today. It is refreshing on this cool, fall morning. My tatting today is what it's been for the last week, a project inspired by the bed and breakfast we stayed in while we were in Leadville. I've been so excited about it that I've spent almost all my time working on it. The house definitely looks like it, too - I really need to get up and take care of it. But I'd really rather be tatting!

May all of you have a wonderful week with a little tea and tatting in it!

A Try at a Butterfly and other things

I see a lot of beautiful tatting done with beads as I surf through blogs. Now I don't do much with beads for several reasons, the foremost being that it's not very portable, at least for me. But a friend asked me to make a butterfly and an idea came to mind that would look pretty with beads. This is the result, what I had mentioned I was working on last week. This is made in Lizbeth size 20, black for the body and Caribbean for the wings, with 10/0 seed beads. I'm counting this as #11 of my second 25 Motif Challenge - it certainly was a challenge for me!

A mini vacation
My husband and I took a long weekend and went to Colorado this last week. Our timing was great as the aspens are in the midst of changing their colors for fall. It was gorgeous in the mountains! We stayed in a Bed and Breakfast called The Ice Palace. We had a wonderful stay there. I highly recommend it if you ever want to spent the night in Leadville.
Leadville's elevation is recorded as being 10,152 feet, which took us a little while to get used to. We also went up to Independence Pass, which is a little bit higher : )

We enjoyed a guided horseback ride from Mega Mountain Magic that had some pretty magical views. We don't ride much so at the end of our two and a half hour ride I was glad to be done, but sad at the same time. You know the views are wonderful when your guide stops to take pictures, too!
We drove up to Weston pass and stopped once in awhile to enjoy the colorful roadsides.

The road did get kind of rough. But it was worth every mile!

It was a wonderful, long weekend with just the two of us this time. Quite a difference from the trip we made to Washington, DC earlier in the year. Each trip was great in it's own way and I'm fortunate to be able to have done both this year.

Rooibos was the tea for today. I sipped several cups this morning as I finished off a bookmark and went through vacation pictures. A wonderful start to the day even though I have to go back to work this afternoon.

May all of you have a wonderful week and enjoy a little tea and tatting if you can.

A bookmark and the Kansas State Fair 1

I'll start off with what I made when I got home from the state fair Saturday, a bookmark for the "Bookmark a Month Challenge" on The Tatting Forums. This is made with Manuela size 20 in color 021 (thanks AnneB for the translation!) I actually made one first in Lizbeth Jellybean but I made many of the picots too long. In fact, I dislike it so much that I almost didn't finish it. But I forced myself to and then made this one. I didn't use any pattern for this, though I think I've seen something similar somewhere.

The Kansas state fair was fun and it was a beautiful day for it. But there was very little tatting this year. I was very disappointed and angry at myself for not trying harder to get something entered. My sister and I have agreed that we both will enter at least one thing next year, and maybe more. With us encouraging each other I think it just might be a reality next September.

These pictures are of the only tatting I found there this year. They may be an item or two I missed because of the way they displayed them, but not more.

Nice display, isn't it? A great idea for all those snowflakes I like to make.
Check out the multiple ribbons through the center - another nice idea.
Kind of disappointing that they left the ribbon in front of the doily. The earrings and snowflake didn't show up well with the tag behind them, either. I didn't do such a great job on taking these pictures, did I?
That white bar along the bottom is a reflection of the light fixture. This was not hanging in a place that I could get any closer to it.

In the Domestic Arts building where the tatting is displayed they have the textile arts such as quilts, embroidery, crochet, knitting and such as well as the foods. They give demonstrations of these types through-out each day which can be fun to watch. My sister and I watched a felting demonstration, which was very interesting, especially as neither one of us knew what it was before it started. It was given by a woman from 'Yarn', a yarn store in Hutchinson, which is home to the state fair.

She even let us try adding a few colorful touches to the piece that we watched her make after it was rinsed and ready to be decorated. This is me giving it a try. It was very interesting to watch but I have way too many things I want to do to really want to do this myself. There aren't enough hours in a day for me to take up another hobby!

There were some wonderful quilts, too, lots and lots of them. This is only a very small fraction of what they had on display. I'm glad I'm not a judge - I don't see how they can decide on which ones are the best.
This one looks to be a queen or king size quilt done entirely in crazy quilting. It was amazing! BTW, I didn't pull back the plastic to look at it but I took advantage of it to take a picture. My picture does not do this quilt justice of how amazing it is and the colors aren't quite right either. It is spectacular! The judges thought so, too, it got a Best of Show ribbon (but not grand champion or runner up).
There wasn't a lot of knitting or crochet either, though a lot more than the tatting. I just thought this crocheted wedding dress was so beautiful. I didn't see a ribbon on it, but it could have been tucked in behind somewhere.

These are the State Fair dolls. They are supposed to represent a favorite part of the fair. Didn't they have some cute ideas for these?

There are so many things I wanted to take pictures of that I didn't! Such as the Duct tape clothing (completely out of different colored Duct tape) and the most original hand bags (made from the same pattern but using unusual mediums) but my batteries in the camera were running low. And did I bring any more? NO. Could I find any place to buy any? NO. And my grandson was coming so I had to be stingy on picture taking until I could get a few (okay, a lot) of him enjoying his first fair. Those are pictures I'll be sharing in another post.

My tea for today's Tatting Tea Tuesday was a nod in the direction of the cabinet I keep it in. We had several errands to run and a multitude of things that had to get done around the house today and I just didn't take the time to fix myself any. I did get some tatting done that I'm pretty excited about, but that, too, will have to wait for another post.

May all of you have a wonderful week. Try to get in a little tatting if you can!

New Techniques Learned

Have you ever not tried something new because you just KNEW that they were going to be difficult? That's me. There are a lot of techniques I haven't tried because I didn't have the time to spend on learning them - or didn't think I did. But this weekend the time came to give a couple of them a try. Can someone just kick me now for procrastinating on these???

Thanks to Toptattyhead, aka Linda S. Davies, and soluranne, aka AnneB, for their wonderful tutorials on YouTube. I have now successfully learned split chains (Linda) and single shuttle split rings (Anne) **happy dance** I have not even tried these before because I thought they would be difficult! Man, when I tried the SSSR I really could have kicked myself on how easy it is!!

The first ring above is a normal ring and the second one is my first try at the SSSR - it looked good until I pulled it closed. The third ring is my next try and I figured out what I hadn't done on the previous ring - and wa-la! The whole time I'm making these I'm going "Is this all it is? Really?" If you haven't tried this yet I encourage you to check out AnneB's tutorial and give it a try.

Linda's tutorial on the split chain is good. She takes it slow so you can understand what she's doing. And of course, being a video, you can go back and see it again and again until you get it. The picture shows my first attempt. The piece is just for this practice, it's not part of anything else. I'm not saying I don't need to practice this a bit, but I'm not afraid to use it now.

Thanks, ladies!

Update on my doily: I've completed the fourth round and still have two rounds to go. This has not been blocked as there is more work to be done.

It's late summer here in Kansas, obvious everywhere by blooming wild sunflowers. These are in our yard, but can be found in ditches and fence rows everywhere this time of year. I look forward to seeing them as they are hints of the end of hot weather and the start of fall.

Another indication of the end of summer is the Kansas State Fair which starts this Friday. My sister and I plan on going. I plan to take my camera with me, so next week be prepared for a picture heavy post. I didn't enter anything this year but I'm going to check out what others have. I also want to see the quilts, the photography, the butter sculpture and the pig races and... There is so much to see and do at the fair I know one day won't be enough time, but I'll get in as much as I can : )

Today I had a cup of George's Cherry Tree Tea with my tatting before getting ready for work. As yesterday was Labor Day, a national holiday here in the states, today is the start of the work week. I love short work weeks! May all of you have a great week and fit in a little tatting if you can : )