Tatting To Stay Awake

 This last weekend I traveled with several ladies of our congregation to the 2026 Kansas District LWML Convention. (LWML used to stand for Lutheran Women Missionary League, now it's Lutheran Women in Mission.) There were 288 persons in attendance, including the women, some husbands, some pastors, and speakers. The convention is a large business meeting, along with mission activities, leadership seminars, Bible studies, worship services, as well as a lot of visiting with women from all over the state of Kansas. This year it was held in Manhattan, KS, about 90 minutes from our home church. There were nine of us from our church, five of us traveling in one van. 

Small crosses tatted at the convention

This time I did tat while traveling. I sat in the third row of the van, making conversation with the others somewhat limiting. Travel time one way was about right for tatting one cross except for hiding the ends. I also did some tatting during the business meetings. I wasn't a voting delegate so some of the items on the agenda didn't involve me, making it a great time to tat. During the times when people were presenting the descriptions of their proposed mission projects it also worked well to be tatting. 

There was that one time where I wasn't paying enough attention to my tatting while I listened. Can you tell which one I was working on?

I went to the convention with a few crosses already made, and I gave away two of them. One young woman came up to me to express how excited she was to see someone tatting. She said it had been awhile since she had her needles out. Unfortunately, I was being called away at that time and couldn't speak long. I gave her a cross and a card with my blog name before I had to run. I couldn't find her later. I hope she contacts me so we can talk more. 

The weekend was inspiring and fun; it was wonderful to meet up with old friends and make new ones. We were all tired by the time we got home, and looking forward to sleeping in our own beds.

Practice Points

I’ve been busy with many things other than tatting over the last few months as you can probably tell by my lack of blogging. I’ve thought about trying to post more often, then something else comes up. Then I lost the habit. So let’s see if I can find it again.

I had planned to go to the zone meeting of our LWML and was working on the earrings of the logo. I didn’t get to go to the meeting but I still like the earrings. Marie, from West Pine Creations, was so sweet and sent me earring wires that are easy to change out so I can wear them.

LWML logo with changeable earring wires

You might notice that the two earrings are not quite the same. I had a pair with the gold wires Marie sent me, which I wore, then put in a safe place. So safe I don’t remember where I put them. I know they didn’t go far. These two are my practice pieces, working out what stitch count I liked best. I would have made me another pair but ran into a bit of a setback.

A bit of a setback

The ball of Lizbeth #HH20641 Lilac Dk thread somehow got tangled badly. It might have something to do with being put in my purse and it getting out of the bag it was in… I wasn’t about to cut off and toss if I could untangle it, but that did put me off of working with it for a bit. So I started something else.

I still can’t get the points of the hearts to look the same every time so thought I would practice the SSSCh (suspended chain). You have to have a chain to practice it, so I made something with chains.

12-point SSSCh practice

I had a shuttle with Lizbeth Twirlz HH20403 Winter Ice that was left over from something or other so I used it. I came to the conclusion this wasn’t the best choice for this type of practice. It isn’t always easy to see the stitch count with this type of thread. But once I started I finished it. I do see an improvement.

When this was finished I liked the look so much I thought I’d do it again. It reminds me of a flower so the next one was made to look more like one.

12-pt SSSCh flower

As you might notice, I did get the Lilac Dark untangled. I didn’t spend a lot of time blocking this, just enough to have it lay flat. The petals are a bit uneven-looking that might be alleviated with better blocking though it looks good the way it is. The yellow thread is Lizbeth #HH20616 Daffodil Med.

(Has anyone else noted that Lizbeth thread numbers now indicated the size? The balls of thread I have don’t have the HHxx before the color number but I like how it is in the catalog. Makes it easy to know you have the size you want.)

Our life has maybe slowed back down a bit but I can’t say it’s back to normal. My husband has just changed shifts at work. We used to be able to drive together and see each other a lot. Now, it’s just in passing most days. This is a temporary change, at least for now. We’ll see how things go. And I’ll see if I get more or less things done with more personal time on my hands, LOL.

‘Knowledge is of no value unless you put it into practice.‘ Anton Chekhov on brainyquote.com

LWML Logo

The Zone meeting for my local LWML group is coming up at the end of April and I am wanting to wear a tatted version of the LWML logo. I am revisiting the one I made back in June of 2019, which I posted about on my wandasknottythoughts Facebook page but never here.

Tatted LWML logo

This logo was adopted by the LWML (Lutheran Women in Mission) in 2017. While coming back on the bus from the 2019 convention in Mobile, Alabama I came up with how to tat it but haven’t done it since. I wanted to do this again for the meeting but I forgot how I did the point of the heart.

When I posted the first version of this on Facebook back in June of 2019 Ninetta Caruso of Chiacchierino facilissimo suggested I check out her post on different ways to turn corners. Great post on how to do a suspended chain, or SSSCh (June 7, 2019). I went back to her post this week to remind myself how to do this.

Practice of suspended chain

When using size 10 thread I had no problem with the SSSCh technique. I made quite a few corners and most came out very well. So I went on to make the heart of the logo in size 20 thread and ran into problems. Whether it is the difference in thread size or that I was actually making something I’m not sure, but I had a lot of trouble getting it to come out looking nice. I threw all those examples away and tried again.

What size should they be?

I think I’ve finally gotten the hang of the SSSCh for the hearts, now I need to determine how big should each element be. I’m still working on that. I haven’t decided how to wear this either, on what backing should it be? I’ll figure it out, I still have a couple of weeks.

“The symbol was created with this in mind; one that represents the
members of both the LWML and the church. A heart to represent
the love and giving nature of the members; a drop to symbolize the
blood of Christ and a tear of compassion, and a cross above all
else to proudly show purpose behind the efforts of the LWML.” LWML.org

Feel like giving

While on vacation I did do just a little more tatting than mentioned before: I made a bookmark for one of the friends that we went with. She likes pink (a lot) and I happened to have some pink and teal thread with me, so made up a quick bookmark for her.

A very quick bookmark as most of it won't be seen. Yes, I made it for her Nook. Every book should have a bookmark, shouldn't it? (Her husband didn't get it at all). It fits behind the Nook in the case and stays quite nicely. She and I are happy with it no matter how silly it may seem.

I only took a few stitches while we were here - above 12,000 feet it was windy and quite chilly. This is the divide at Tincup pass. You have to take at least a four-wheel drive vehicle (motorcycles can make it, too, and ATVs) to get there. We made it up there on Friday, by way of St. Elmo. We had attempted to get to this pass on Thursday by way of the town of Tincup and Mirror Lake, but we got late a start. We didn't want to try to get there - or down - in the dark!

This is the road to Tincup pass as it goes around Mirror Lake. You can see my husband concentrating in the rear view mirror. We were told that the road to the pass from here was like this or worse all the way. We aren't that experienced with four-wheeling, so turned back while it was still daylight. (Note: we were told by an experienced person we met there that by Jeep it was 90 minutes to the pass from the lake, 30 minutes by ATV and 20 minutes by motorcycle.) Going up the other side from St. Elmo had some stretches that looked like this (or worse) but not as much of it. If we make it that way again we're going to try to rent ATVs instead of a Jeep.

This Sunday at Church was LWML Sunday (Lutheran Women's Missionary League). On this Sunday the women of the congregation do most of the jobs the men usually do, such as pass out bulletins, light the candles, do the collection. The ladies also sang the closing hymn as a choir. This is done once a year, as a way to let the rest of the congregation see what all the League has been doing. They collect sewing kits and school kits to be delivered to other countries, donate to the food bank, serve at fundraising dinners in the community, that type of thing. They also meet at least twice a month to work on quilts.

The quilts are tied quilts and not real fancy, but a lot of love goes into these (and they are very pleasing to the eye). They are displayed on the pews on LWML Sunday and then boxed up to be taken to Lutheran World Relief and Orphan Grain Train. Unfortunately, I don't make it to the quilting days very often, though I would like to. We have a small church and there are only a few women that do this regularly. As you can see, even though they are few they do a lot of work. There is something like 40 quilts they've made to donate this year.

Seeing all those wonderful quilts to be given away, and also seeing the post over at Umi & Tsuru, I've gotten into a giving mood. So I'm going to pay it forward as well. The first three people to comment on this post will each receive a handmade gift from me. [I don't promise how soon I'll get it out :) ]

As I sip my Wild Berry Zinger tea this morning for Tatting Tea Tuesday, I realize that it's October again, which means my blogaversary is coming up. I think I'll have a drawing for that in a week or so - after I think up what I'm going to do for it :)

"The measure of a life, after all, is not its duration, but its donation" Corrie Ten Boom