A Plan For Stars

 It's Memorial Day weekend already! Kids are out of school and summer has unofficially started. We've been out working in the yard, as we have been blessed with cooler weather and had a bit of rain in the last few days (yay!) We'll be out to the cemeteries on Monday to put out flowers on the graves. Thankfully, none of our family died while on active duty in the military, but we have always decorated graves of many of our relatives on the holiday weekend, even those that never served. It is always amazing to see the cemeteries on Memorial Day, so many flags, flowers, and people. 

I have started on a bit of patriotic tatting, though it is nowhere close to being done. 

A plan for stars

I think it was last year that I picked up this runner of stars on a navy blue background. All the edges are plain, just asking for a bit of tatting. White starts attached with red thread is my plan. I have a pattern for the stars, but not the red part. I've been doing a lot of thinking about it, and kind of have a plan. While I'm thinking about the red part I've been tatting the stars. They are the center of a motif I made back in October of 2013. 

If all goes well, the runner will be done by Flag Day, June 14. If not by then, certainly by July 4th.

Remembering those who gave all

Tatting Tea Tuesday in Red, White and Blue

On this hot Tatting Tea Tuesday I had my tea iced! It's a sweltering 94 d F with a heat index of 101, making it a good day to stay inside. If I could have I would have stayed home so I didn't get out any more, but that was not to be. But I'm not working outside, thank goodness!

As I mentioned last week I'm taking a short break from my doily to work on another project. It needs to be done before we go on vacation! And as it's getting close to Independence Day I thought I'd do this project in patriotic colors. This is going to be the hatband on a floppy brimmed hat and it's about half done. As you can see the ends have not yet been trimmed. I like to leave those until I'm done and then go around and trim them all off. I've always thought that the most aggressive handling of a piece is usually in it's construction and if an end is going to have trouble, this is when it will happen. By leaving them all to the last I can check all my ends as I finish the piece when I cut the threads. I'm calling this motif #7 of the 25 Motif Challenge, even if it's not quite done.

These stars are done in size 20 thread; Hakelgarn color 2011 (red) and Manuela color 019 (blue). I am trying to get this done pretty quickly so I'm not using LHP joins. As this is going to be permanently attached to material or a ribbon the back won't be seen, so those pesky little color spots will remain hidden and unremarked. (If you wonder what I mean by LHP joins I spoke about learning to use them in this post and directions on how to do them are here.) I think this troop of stars will look great on my hat. I'm pretty excited about it : )) I hope to have it done by next week, mounted on the hat and everything. Done or not, I'll try to have a picture.

The wheat in the picture is from the field outside our house. They've already started cutting the fields close by and this field could be cut at any time. We actually came home from work yesterday and were surprised that it hadn't been cut. This is what it looks like today. Any time now it will be much shorter.

Take some time for yourself with a little tea and tatting, and may all of you have a blessed week.