Wedding gift

I got the wedding gift done, and wrapped, before I left for the wedding.

I was so proud of myself :-)

For this gift I decorated a photo frame again, but a little differently than the one for the last wedding.  This time it's only an edging instead of hearts and flowers.  The frame itself is one of those unfinished ones from Michael's that I painted black. The opening is 5"x 7".  The edging is made with Lizbeth #646 Purple Iris Lt size 20, with silver beads.  The hard part was getting it to lay nice around the opening while it was glued.  You can see it's not quite even around the edge, but still not too bad. 

The bride's colors were lavender and silver.  Originally the edging was going to be the #646 and #605 Silver, but I thought the silver came out just looking grey.  The silver beads added a nice touch of silver even though you can't see them well in the picture.  The Purple Iris Lt was almost a perfect match for the bride's choice of lavender.  

The wedding was on the beach at The Lodge of Four Seasons, an Ozark resort in Missouri.  It had been a hot day and we were a bit worried how hot it would be during the wedding, but the sun was behind the trees and the breeze was off the lake, making it quite pleasant.

My daughter and I stayed at The Lodge, too.  This is the waterfall that was in the main building.  It started on the fourth floor and exited out on the first floor.  One thing that threw us off a bit was the how they numbered the floors.  The main entrance was on the fifth floor and you went down to access the other floors.  We were on the second floor and every time we got in the elevator we had to remember to go down to our room and up to go out. 

This is the view from our balcony.  I think this resort had four swimming pools.  The water in the distance is the Lake of the Ozarks. 

It was a nice weekend though I wish my husband could have come with me.  He doesn't have near the vacation time as I do so had to stay home and work.  He had also been sick during the week so it was kind of iffy he would have come even if he had vacation. 

I think I finally have time to try out my Perfect Quilter thread.  At least if I hurry I do. I have a least one more wedding coming up in September.  Not sure what I'm doing for that one.

"To keep your marriage brimming, With love in the loving cup,

Whenever you're wrong, admit it; Whenever you're right, shut up."

Ogden Nash

brianyquotes.com

I've been tatting - but it's not done yet!

I have been tatting - a gift for a niece's wedding.

That's this coming weekend.

And it's not done yet!

Okay, that's not really a big surprise.  I always seem to wait to start something and then the date I need it done is suddenly upon us.  You'd think I'd learn but I haven't yet.

The good news is it really is almost done.  Sunday I did almost nothing else and made a lot of progress.  The bad news is I don't foresee a lot of tatting time open this week.  I guess if I want it done I'll find time somewhere!

How many of you read Fox's post about her excitement with Perfect Quilter thread?

And how many of you jumped right over there where her link took you and bought some?

I did.

I haven't been tatting in small thread lately so I only bought four colors and I haven't had time to even try any of them out yet!  But I have these by my chair to entice and encourage me to get this gift done.

A little repair work

A little over two years ago I made Jane E's stork for my daughter's baby shower gift, putting it on a photo album. My daughter was kind of mad at her husband soon after because he took the album to work to show off the pictures of his new daughter and got the cover dirty. 

Sometime after that her son got hold of it and did some modifications. I don't think he was being malicious but scissors and string were too much for a two year-old to resist, especially when Momma was with the new sister.

She finally gave it back to me and I finally got around to doing some repairs.

As damage goes, this wasn't that bad.  The sling and baby are done separately from the stork itself so the repair wasn't too intensive. 

Pretty much as good as new!  Still has a few fingerprints on it, but that shows it was passed around a bit, right?

Didn't get much tatting done this week as we did some house cleaning and then had family over for the weekend.  That, of course(!), was much more fun.

My two superheroes! 

No, I didn't ask them to pose like that, that was all their idea. They had each got new PJ's that came with capes and had to show us their hero stance.

Yes, that's the little girl the baby shower was for two years ago and that's the big brother. Oh, how time flies!

"I mean, first of all, let me say whichever superhero first came up with the idea of wearing a cape, he wasn't really onto anything good.  The number of times I'm treading on that damn thing or I throw a punch and it ends up covering my whole head. It's really not practical."

Christian Bale

(Batman)

www.branyquote.com

Shuttlebirds' challenges

I finally got the heart right for the Shuttlebird's Weekly Challenge #12.

Nancy Tracy's 'Clover Drop Heart' pattern. 

I still had the shuttles wound with Lizbeth #117 Country Side size 20 so I went ahead and made it with this - again.  This time I got the chains right!

It's a very pretty heart. 

Challenge #13 was 'Ringtrim - a Microdragon.'

I had never tried making him before and I very much enjoyed the experience.  He's quick and easy to make and looks so darn cute!  He also doesn't take a lot of thread so I believe I'll be making quite a few more as I need to empty shuttles.  This flight of Microdragons are made in Lizbeth #679 Lime Green, #614 Lemon Light and #695 Bright Orange, all in size 20. 

Oh, yeah, I'm adding these Microdragons to my 25 Motif challenge.  I think this is #10 in this go-round.

Water, water every where...

There has been more rain here and more is expected.  We've had water standing in our yard for several days now because of it. We also have to be very careful when we leave or come home due to water over the roads.  It is hard to believe it's August. Everything is sooo green! Usually this time of year things are pretty brown and dry.  As we don't water our lawn we usually only have to mow every couple of weeks this time of year.  This year the grass (and weeds!) have kept growing, begging for us to mow much more frequently.  The problem is the water standing in the yard.

At least the lakes, ponds and aquifers are filling back up.

"Weather is a great metaphor for life - sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad, and there's nothing much you can do about it but carry an umbrella."

Terri Guilemets

Little things

Adding tatting to buttons for brooches has really caught my imagination lately.  I pull out different threads to compare which ones look the best with the different buttons and dream about what I'm going to do with each one. 

I guess there are worse things to think about. 

This is the latest button.  On which I used another button as well as some tatting in Lizbeth Mocha Brown Dark #692 and Harvest Orange Med #694, both size 20.  It does have a pin back on it as well. Now I just need the right color blouse or dress to wear it on.  Or maybe a hat, or my purse...

I saw a neat idea over at Sew Many Ways awhile back that came to mind the other day.  I had a few of these clips handy and thought I'd give it a try.

They came out kinda cute, don't you think?  I suppose they could be used for paper like they are intended as well.

A Soggy Tatting Tea Tuesday

It rained yesterday.  

One of the barn swallows that has made a house on the side of our house was out enjoying it.  It was raining pretty heavy and he was out taking a bath.  The post on our (decorative) hand pump is a favorite perch for the swallows all the time, even in the rain.

It rained yesterday.

This was later in the evening.

Did I mention it rained yesterday?

This is a picture the neighbor sent us looking out his front door to our back door.  Those lighter stripes there are his driveway.

No, we don't live in the flood plain of a creek or pond or lake.  We actually live on somewhat high ground - for the neighborhood.  

We were very nervous about the water getting into the house but it didn't. It came up to the thresh holds of the doors but didn't come in. 

The roads flooded as well.  We had to take a detour to get home after work because of water over the roads.  We thought we might have to wait awhile for the water to go down but the road we detoured to had only about an inch running over it, so we chanced it (after walking it to verify depth and speed) and made it home okay.  This morning instead of tatting or blogging we drove around to see how much the water had gone down and if the roads were passable. They were.

We are still in a flood watch until Thursday morning though.  It rained so hard farther north that the creeks and rivers close to us could still come up in the next few days. 

Did I mention that it rained yesterday?