Happy Halloween 2022!

Are you ready to be visited by ghosts and goblins?

Bonnie dressed up for Halloween

The local Historical Society was going to have a “Mutts and Monsters Parade” like they had last year but had to cancel due to staffing issues. My granddaughter and I were disappointed as we had been planning dog costumes for a couple of months already. Due to being busy with other things I hadn’t put much time or effort into the costumes before hearing of the cancelation. But I still thought it would be cute to dress up our dog. I found this little ladybug costume at Dollar Tree for a couple of bucks. It is a kid’s costume, not a dog’s, but it works for pictures. She sat very nicely – okay, I was lucky enough to catch her sitting still for about a half second.

Our church youth group put on a Fall Festival last night, serving chili and cinnamon rolls. Then they had games outside, like kickball, bocce ball, and corn hole. They also had pumpkins to decorate (with paint pens) and a bonfire to make s’mores. There were also hayrack rides. The weather was perfect, crisp and cool! There was a nice turnout for it, too. It was a wonderful night! I played corn hole, decorated a pumpkin, took a ride on the hayrack, and roasted marshmallows.

The pumpkin I decorated

You can see by this poor gourd that I don’t have much imagination when it comes to pumpkin decorating. Some of the other pumpkins were so much better! But it was fun to do it.

My tatting lately has been working on an edging. Okay, it was supposed to be an edging. I wasn’t getting anywhere with the edging before it morphed into a snowflake.

October Snowflake

I did the original in all white and finished it with another round of tatting. When that was done the legs were not visible at all. I tried it again in Lizbeth #136 Autumn Spice in size 20 with Mocha Brown Dark #692 as the chains. I am happy with how this turned out.

And now I’m back to working on the edging that should have already been done. And snowflakes. And Christmas ornaments. What are you working on?

Halloween is an opportunity to be really creative. Judy Gold

Autumn Earrings

While working with all the threads in autumn shades, I thought it would be great to make some earrings. I have some really cute owl beads I wanted to use, so I tried a few different things in an attempt at earrings I like. Most didn’t work out as I envisioned but what I ended with looks okay.

Owl bead earrings

The split rings have a tendency to twist, but that’s the nature of split rings. They are fun to wear.

When you think of fall, Halloween, or Thanksgiving, pumpkins come to mind. I came up with these earrings.

Orange pumpkin earrings

I think I’ve seen patterns for pumpkins similar to these, but this is my take on them. I gave them to one of my daughters, who was thrilled to get them. She has a sweater that they look great with. Sometimes I get things right!

I’ve been working on several other tatted things, but I’m not quite ready to share them yet. So I’ll share a few pictures of our most recent vacation.

We spent the last week of September in Colorado with another couple. We rented a house together in Grand Lake, an area we’ve been to several times, but the first time in town. It was a terrific house with beautiful views.

The view south from the deck

This is the view south from the deck of the house, overlooking Shadow Mountain Lake. The colors were wonderful! I took pictures from this vantage every day so I can look back and see the changes in the trees. We loved the time we spent on the deck.

A magpie on the post

We had several magpies that came around the house daily and entertained us with their antics. Between the cost of gas and eating out, we spent a lot of time at the house instead of traveling around the area as we usually do. This was not a hardship. We took turns cooking which somehow is not so much of a burden when shared with friends. We also enjoy playing cards together, something we do every year on vacation with them. This year we just played a lot more.

I didn’t get much chance to tat while we were at the house but I took advantage of the chances I did have.

Tatting with a view

I sat by the big picture window to tat so I could enjoy the view and the light. It did rain a few times while we were there as you can see by the drops on the window.

Elk in Rocky Mountain National Park on wandasknottythoughts

One of the reasons we like the area around Grand Lake is how close it is to Rocky Mountain National Park. This gives us a chance to go into the park to see the wildlife, mostly the elk. We go in the fall so we can hear the elk bugle during the rut. It is exciting to hear!

On our way home from Grand Lake, we caught sight of a herd of bighorn sheep. Amazingly, they were on the outskirts of the Colorado town of Empire. They were obviously used to traffic, just keeping an eye on us but not running away.

Big horn sheep in Colorado

FYI, we do not approach too close to wildlife. We keep a safe distance from the animals to take pictures, usually staying in the vehicle. These sheep were very close, but we never got out of the truck.

We’ve had a hot and dry summer here, and most of the state is in extreme or exceptional drought. This morning we awoke to rain! It was not heavy and not much of it, but the right kind. If it had been much heavier it would have just run off instead of sinking into the ground. We’re hoping for more, but we will take what we can get. Sunday we had high winds with a lot of blowing dust and temperatures in the upper 80’s. Today the highs are supposed to be about 55° F with much less wind. Maybe autumn is finally here!

“Wherever you go, no matter what the weather, always bring your own sunshine.” Anthony J. D’Angelo

Tatting in Autumn Colors

Since the craft show, I’ve continued making sunflowers, because they are fun to make. I have also wanted to tat in oranges and browns — you know, fall colors. These aren’t usually colors I tat in except for around Halloween, but I’ve been inspired by the (finally) cooler weather and the sunflowers. Not that I have anything particular to tat in these colors…

I finally just loaded a shuttle with Lizbeth #694 Harvest Orange Med and tatted around a button. I even added beads! This made a lovely earring, so I made another one for pair of earrings. This color works with one shirt that I have, so I wore the shirt and earrings to church this last Sunday. I did grab the wrong size button for the second earring so I had to make a third medallion to get the set.

A set of earrings in Harvest Orange

I usually tat while watching TV, which I did Sunday afternoon watching the football game. I have several things I need to work on but they need my full attention, so I started – something – with Lizbeth #136, Autumn Spice. I like where this is going, but with the button center, it’s not really a good doily. But it could be hung up as a decoration.

Autumn decoration in process

Autumn decoration finished

The finished piece is more true to the actual thread color. It came out nice, don’t you think?

Do you ever wonder what to do with the pieces you finish? I do sometimes. While decorating the house for the season I had this idea for a sunflower.

Sunflower decorated bottle

This is a beer bottle with a string of lights in it. The sunflower is on a string around the bottleneck so it can be removed if I want. The green bottle makes a nice back drop for the sunflower.

Sunflower on a lighted bottle

The sunflower looks good on the bottle even with the lights on. The light string is pretty cool, the battery is in the cork. I’m thinking of doing a few more bottles like this. It will give the house quite a lovely ambiance, don’t you think?

“Now Autumn’s fire burns slowly along the woods and day by day the dead leaves fall and melt.” William Allingham

Craft Show

My sister and I had a booth at the craft show in Rose Hill, Kansas the 8th of October during their Fall Festival. She does embroidery by hand, which complements my tatting. She has been working on her stuff for months and months. I’ve not been so dedicated to the show items, getting sidetracked a lot. But it was a good show for both of us.

Craft show setup

The craft show started later than we usually see, but we found out that was due to the big parade they had. There were some shoppers the first couple of hours but not a lot, we were somewhat concerned that the day would be slow. About noon one of the organizers went around announcing the parade was over, and the people familiar with the event understood things would get busier soon. Which it did. There was a steady flow of shoppers for most of the event after that. We spoke to a lot of people about our items during the course of the show.

Most of my tatting at the show

There were a lot of people that looked at the tatting, a lot even knew what it was. There were a lot of “oh, my (insert older relative) did that but I never learned.” Some showed an interest in learning – I suggested to them if they would get a few people together I would be willing to come down to teach. One woman came by that actually did know how to tat! We had a lovely conversation about tatting and patterns. Unfortunately, I didn’t get her name. But it was enjoyable to speak to her.

One item that sold the best this weekend was my Hymnal Angel. I made them a bit smaller this year, cutting the paper three inches instead of five inches. And I used wooden beads for the heads.

Hymnal Angel for craft show

Something else that drew a lot of attention was my button sunflowers.

Sunflowers for the show

These sunflowers are fun and easy to make. I mostly used 9/16-inch buttons with a few 13/16-inch. I love how the buttons look in the center. I found a package of brown buttons in different diameters made out of coconut shells that look great, much better than plastic.

I put together a quick pattern for the sunflowers. They are very easy. If you are interested in it you can find it on the My Patterns page.

Here are a few of the things that got me sidetracked prior to the craft show.

Lid pet kitty with a ball of yarn

Lid pet kitty with butterfly

My granddaughter loves these. I put a magnet on the back as well as the hanger. I let her have the ones she wanted.

I was on vacation a week before the craft show, which is how I got so many of the angel wings and sunflowers made. I’ll be sharing a few of the pictures I took next post.

“Yellow is my favorite summer color – it makes me feel like a sunflower.” Bria Vinaite