Playing in Clover

 The Ides of March have passed and St. Patrick's day is upon us. Have you been tatting up the green? Have you been enjoying the green out the window?  I have heard that some people are staring out the window to several feet of snow this morning, no green to be found outside. All the more reason to enjoy a bit on the inside of the window!

I wasn't going to tat clovers this year, as I have other projects I'm working on. That changed when my mom went to the hospital. She is still there after more than a week. They were going to send her to rehab last Friday, then determined that she wasn't ready yet. This happens when there are a lot of doctors involved and they don't necessarily talk to each other. So I spent time in her room with green thread and shuttles, making clovers. 

Playing in clover

My original plan was only to make what clovers came about when I cleaned green thread off of shuttles. While I was doing this at the local senior center a few weeks ago I noticed the director was entranced by the clover that came out of it so I gave it to her. She put it on her desk where she could see it. And then it was gone.

Framed clover

As I ended up making a lot more clovers, I decided to give her a few that would be harder to lose. I found a small picture frame and repurposed it to frame a few clovers. I'm thinking I could change out the clovers with other tatted items as I make them. If she wants, of course. 

I also made something for me that I have thought about but never done. 

Clovers on a pin

I've pinned clover to shirts and jackets before, but it's always been in an afterthought kind of way. This time I purposely added them to a safety pin, with beads even! Even though St. Patrick's day is tomorrow, this pin will be worn much longer. It gives out a 'spring' feeling, don't you think?

We're praying that my mom goes to rehab soon, which will be much closer to home. We'll be able to spend time doing other things instead of traveling back and forth. And she'll be working on getting strong enough to go home. 

I'm looking forward to getting back to my regularly scheduled projects!

What are your tatting plans for spring?

"In the Spring, I have counted 136 different kinds of weather inside of 24 hours."

Mark Twain

Framed for Flying

I finally got the dragon framed.  I tried it in four different frames before I settled on this one - it was not too dark or too bright for the tatting.  And it doesn't leave the dragon lost in a too-big frame, either.  I finally came up with a background I like, too.  It looks pretty yellow here though it's not, it's more of a green/blue with a bit of a pattern in it.  Even in this smaller frame it kind of looked bare there all by itself. To fill it up a bit I printed 'How To Fly', a short excerpt from Hitchhiker's Guide To the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, on the background paper.  The print is a light blue so it's just barely there.  Black print overwhelmed the tatting.

It came out pretty well, didn't it?

It's all boxed up and ready to be sent - a birthday gift ready to fly to its new home. 

It's only a couple of weeks late.

"The time to worry about flying is when you're on the ground.  When you're up in the air, it's too late.  No point in worrying about it then."

Denzel Washington

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