Happy Mother's Day!

I hope that you are all enjoying the day. Here in Kansas, it is an absolutely wonderful day! The temperature is a bit warm at 86º F, but the breeze is light and mild, the sun is shining, and the birds are singing!

Afternoon tatting

I have been sitting outside, enjoying the day, and tatting. It is way too nice to be inside!

A couple of days ago, while looking through a drawer of miscellaneous bits and pieces of tatting, I came across my “Milan” cross. I had thread on a couple of shuttles, so what else should I do but do it again? As I have never completed writing out and diagramming the pattern, and because it’s a different day, I did it differently than I had originally. I like it better, but now I have to adjust the pattern. It’s a nice day outside to figure it out.

Have you taken your tatting outside with you lately?

“The day the Lord created hope was probably the same day he created Spring.” Bernard Williams

Putting on cuffs

No, I didn’t get arrested.

I put tatted buttons on denim with a little lace and made cuffs for my daughters for Mother’s Day.

My original idea for my daughters did not work out, so I scrapped it and looked for something else.  While on Pinterest, where I spend way too much time, I came across decorated material cuffs.  They sparked an idea that had a chance to get done in the time left before Mother’s Day.

I started with a known favorite color – purple – and tatted the buttons.  These could be done in the car going back and forth to work as the passenger.  The easy part.

At home I found an old pair of jeans to cut up for the base.  At first it was going to be one piece of denim for each cuff.  It didn’t take long to decide there needed to be a backing to cover up all my stitching and keep the back pretty.  I collected odds and ends of lace, ribbons, and buttons to play with, laying them out on the denim with the buttons in different ways.

I had recently purchased some leftover pieces of lace material from a local second hand shop which made a nice base for the other decorations.  It didn’t take long to notice the buttons could be flowers.  And what are flowers without leaves?  A few leaves of green material – didn’t quite look right.  They were very plain and boring.  A few simple stitches with embroidery floss helped them look much more like leaves.

It took longer than expected to put the first one together.  Mostly because I couldn’t make up my mind how to place things or what, exactly, I wanted.  But, at last, the first one was done.

The second one didn’t take as long.  Other than changing the thread colors to blues on the buttons it was pretty much the same.  Except – the green material used for the leaves didn’t look as good with the blues.  I had to find a different shade of green material and thread for them.  I also added silver beads as I stitched everything down.

My sewing machine is not accessible at the moment so I stitched the ends down by hand.  Which would have looked much better in something other than white, especially I as I can’t sew straight.  I purposely left the sides frayed-looking but it won’t fray far.  The two layers of denim are glued together.

The cuffs are finished off with a button on each end and an elastic hair band in the same color as the flower buttons.  They are easy to put on.

I gave the cuffs to my daughters the week after Mother’s Day.  One was completed on time but not the other.  Gotta be fair, right?

I’m thinking about making one for myself.  Will I continue with flowers or try something else?

I would hate to be cuffed to only one idea.

Okay, I’m done now.

“Don’t let your habits become handcuffs.”
Elizabeth Berg

Putting on cuffs

No, I didn't get arrested.

I put tatted buttons on denim with a little lace and made cuffs for my daughters for Mother's Day.

My original idea for my daughters did not work out, so I scrapped it and looked for something else.  While on Pinterest, where I spend way too much time, I came across decorated material cuffs.  They sparked an idea that had a chance to get done in the time left before Mother's Day.

I started with a known favorite color - purple - and tatted the buttons.  These could be done in the car going back and forth to work as the passenger.  The easy part.

At home I found an old pair of jeans to cut up for the base.  At first it was going to be one piece of denim for each cuff.  It didn't take long to decide there needed to be a backing to cover up all my stitching and keep the back pretty.  I collected odds and ends of lace, ribbons, and buttons to play with, laying them out on the denim with the buttons in different ways.

I had recently purchased some leftover pieces of lace material from a local second hand shop which made a nice base for the other decorations.  It didn't take long to notice the buttons could be flowers.  And what are flowers without leaves?  A few leaves of green material - didn't quite look right.  They were very plain and boring.  A few simple stitches with embroidery floss helped them look much more like leaves. 

It took longer than expected to put the first one together.  Mostly because I couldn't make up my mind how to place things or what, exactly, I wanted.  But, at last, the first one was done.

The second one didn't take as long.  Other than changing the thread colors to blues on the buttons it was pretty much the same.  Except - the green material used for the leaves didn't look as good with the blues.  I had to find a different shade of green material and thread for them.  I also added silver beads as I stitched everything down.  

My sewing machine is not accessible at the moment so I stitched the ends down by hand.  Which would have looked much better in something other than white, especially I as I can't sew straight.  I purposely left the sides frayed-looking but it won't fray far.  The two layers of denim are glued together. 

The cuffs are finished off with a button on each end and an elastic hair band in the same color as the flower buttons.  They are easy to put on.

I gave the cuffs to my daughters the week after Mother's Day.  One was completed on time but not the other.  Gotta be fair, right? 

I'm thinking about making one for myself.  Will I continue with flowers or try something else?

I would hate to be cuffed to only one idea.

Okay, I'm done now.

"Don't let your habits become handcuffs."
Elizabeth Berg

Mother's Day Tatting

Did everyone have a nice Mother's Day?

I did. We visited with my mother, my husband's mother and a couple of special aunts. They were very nice visits.  We gave my MIL and aunts flowers but my mother got a hat pin.

This is made with a large button, Lizbeth #670 Victorian Red thread size 20, and gold beads.  It measures almost three inches across. 

For all this is just simple chains I had quite the time with it, making mistakes in counts, cutting a picot, getting the shuttle threads tangled.  You can see at the bottom where things just didn't go quite right.  But overall it didn't turn out too bad.  In person, stepping back a bit, the boo boo isn't all that noticeable.  I also had such trouble with it I didn't want to chance trying to fix it :-p.  I thought about trying to put a ribbon or flower or something over it to hide it but decided it was just going to have to be good enough. 

Mom liked it, so all is good.

After all the visits we went home and I spent most the afternoon and evening tatting *smile*. 

I had recently come across the bookmark I had made when I was in Branson, Missouri a few years ago and was inspired to tat it again. 

This is made with Lizbeth Twirlz #404 Mermaid Lagoon size 20.

This is the first time I've tried the Twirlz thread.  It tatted up very nicely and held up well when I was retro tatting.  I hadn't been sure I was going to like it, and I might not like it for every pattern, but I do like it for this. 

I've added this pattern to My Patterns tab as Branson Bookmark.

The weatherman predicted there would be severe weather Sunday night and there was, but it missed us by a few miles.  We spent a lot of the evening keeping an eye on the weather and worrying about family and people we know in areas that were getting it worse than we did. We did get over an inch of rain out the storms, so it wasn't all bad.

It was a good day, imperfections and all.

"Yes, Mother.  I can see you are flawed.  You have not hidden it.  That is your greatest gift to me."

Alice Walker

http://www.brainyquote.com

Joy

This was my Mother's Day gift to my mother-in-law.

This idea popped into my head complete once I found the wooden cut-out.  It was unpainted and I'm sure I got it around Christmas time one year but it was perfect for this occasion as my MIL's name is Joy.

I have a lot of these little flowers around as I usually empty my shuttle with them.  Of course, I didn't have (couldn't find) ones in colors that went together so I had to make a few more. The butterfly I made special with the beads just for this occasion.  The little birdy was already done (if anyone can tell me where I found this cute little doodle I'd appreciate it! I know it's out there somewhere but I can't remember where! I'd like to give credit to the designer)  Then it was just putting them together in a way that I liked.  

Okay, I had to paint it first.  And the paints were in a nice safe place, it just took me awhile to find them. And decide what color it should be, once I found out what paints I had.  It ended up being green mixed with white to tone it down from the Christmas-y color of the green. 

Then to finish it off it's completely coated with glitter glue.  It really looks much better in person. Sparkly.

It's now attached to her wall with some of those 3M Velcro strips.  They were brought along as part of the gift :-)

For once I didn't over think an idea, kept it simple.  

I'll have to keep my eye out for more of this type of cutout.  They could be made into quick, simple gifts for almost any occasion, depending on what they spelled out.

I'd have more pictures to share but I left my camera at my daughter's house this last weekend.  I really miss it.  And of course all the pictures I took at her house I can't download, either.  Bummer!  But the plan is to see them again this weekend! :-)) Joy!

"Joy is the feeling of grinning inside."

Melba Colgrove

thinkexist.com

Button, button

Did everyone have a happy Mother's Day?   

Did you get a nice gift for your mother?

Or did you make a nice gift for your mother?

That's me, making the gift.  At least it was once I finally decided what I was going to make.

I had an idea but the reality was very illusive. I tried several things before the light came on and then, just like that, it came together.    

So much simpler than what I started with, too.  The butterfly is out of Oren Bayan size 8 thread, the flowers out of miscellaneous Lizbeth thread that I made while cleaning off shuttles. (Anyone else have a container full of flowers and other doodles?) I added a pinback to it so she can wear it.  She wore it pinned on her hat to church on Sunday. 

I liked the way it came out so well I made a couple more.

                                                                                                       

And then tried the idea with a few different buttons.

These were a lot of fun to make.

And aren't these great buttons?  The local fiber shop, Odd Balls Yarn Shop, has a lot of cool buttons to choose from.

 June 15 and 22 I'm scheduled to give beginning tatting classes at Odd Balls and plan on having each student decorate buttons with tatting.  Simple tatting with a fun result don't you think?

If anyone local out there is interested in taking one of those classes check out Odd Balls website at http://www.oddballsyarnshop.com/ or stop in the shop. It's in the Chisholm Trail Shopping Mall just south of Newton, Kansas.   I'd love to see you there. 

"Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever."

Mahatma Gandhi

thinkexist.com

Marking time

I've been tatting all week and have very little to show for it.  Okay, I've been tatting but only for short stretches at a time.  That I accomplished anything is wonderful!

I've made two simple bookmarks.   One is made with Lizbeth # 166 Pink Cocoa in size 40. I've had it on my shuttles for doing the zipper pulls and was trying to work it off.  It didn't look like there was that much on them!  But it's size 40 and I've been working a lot with size 20 so I was fooled into thinking it was almost gone.

The other one is made with Oren Bayan Perele cotton size 8 in the brown-to-tan variegated and a deep green also in size 8 Perele cotton by Oren Bayan.  I think it would make a lovely gift to a man as it's in woodsy colors, kind of manly.

 It seems we know a lot of people graduating from either college or high school.  I'm glad bookmarks work up quickly and fit well into cards :-)  I've been working a bit on Mother's Day gifts as well as graduation gifts and several birthday gifts.  Now if I can just make progress on them!

I haven't even touched my vest this week.  Still thinking about it though.

"Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending."

Maria Robinson

thinkexist.com

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.

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. : )