Gift from umintsuru

Tatted by umintsuru

Aren't these earrings gorgeous?  The picture doesn't do them justice at all!  Wendy has a much better picture over on her blog. 

These are my gift from Wendy for her Pay It Forward giveaway.  They are made with Lizbeth "Spring Fling" in size 80.   When I opened the envelope there were a lot of "oohs" and "awes" as we looked these over.  Thank you very much, Wendy, I love them!

Looking back over my blog posts I realized I hadn't posted what I gave for my PIF, inspired by Wendy's post last fall.  Medictabs,Robert and Suztats were the first three people to leave a message on my blogpost and were the winners.  When I decided to do it I didn't have even a small clue of what I was going to send them, so it took a little while to get them done.  But they finally were sent off.

I've always wanted to do some Crazy Quilting - but I don't quilt and rarely embroider, so it hasn't happened yet :)  Instead I did a little "CQing" on Altoid tins for their gifts.

I added a few things on the inside.  Each was different inside and outside, but similar.

 The pink heart is a needle threader. The "match book" is a needleholder.  Each one also got a decorated shuttle that coordinated with their thin, and a ball of J &  P Coats size 80 tatting thread - it all fit inside the tin.

This was a lot of fun to do.  And really nice to win Wendy's PIF.  Thanks again, Wendy :-)

"Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does."  William James

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Technical Difficulties

My Tatting Tea Tuesday post has been postponed (again!) due to technical difficulties.  

[It's rather scary how much I miss my computer:(  ]

"A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing."

Emo Phillips

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Reflections on things I've learned

I was at my mother's house the other day and noticed a gift I had given her years ago.  It's been sitting out for all these years but I just happened to 'see' it again. It's a picture of my children and my sister's children when they were much younger in a decorated frame with a little tatting.  

The frame is an inexpensive one without glass and the wooden hearts were painted to coordinate with the material I used to cover the backing.  Where the ribbon is tied around the flowers the tatting is gathered up, giving the impression they are wrapped in the lace.

For whatever reason, this day I also noticed all the imperfections of this gift.  The backing I'm sure is cardboard, not a bad thing but probably, no, certainly, not acid free.  I noticed the hole I cut for the picture is not quite square and whatever I used to glue the tatting down stained the material.  For all that the material, ribbon and flowers are about the same color, one or another should probably have been a contrasting color to show off the others better.

Back when I did this I didn't know anything about using acid free paper/cardboard.  With the surge of interest in scrap-booking now almost anyone can know about acid free paper just by reading the packaging of scrap booking paper at the store.  There are now a lot of templates easily available for different shapes to make a finished project look, well, finished. There were probably other glues I could have used that would have worked better than whatever it is I used, but I was pretty ignorant of such things back then. 

I remember this piece of tatting - made entirely of plain rings and chains it was supposed to be a round motif that I put too many stitches/too many repeats in, making it ruffle a lot. By gathering it up around the flowers it allowed the rest of it to lay flat.  It was a good way to use what might have been a mistake.  This wasn't my first attempt at designing my own patterns but everything I knew about tatting had been gleaned just by the experience of doing it.  The only person I knew that even knew what tatting was, was my grandmother and she didn't do much at all.  There was no Internet to see other people's tatting, so my exposure to patterns were in whatever books and magazines I could lay my hands on.  The library didn't have many books on it and magazines with tatting were few and far between.  Yes, Workbasket was out there with a pattern or two a month, but that's almost nothing compared to what we have available now.  I had taken to coming up with my own patterns a lot of the time, simple though they were. I was following unknowingly in the footsteps of designers everywhere - trial and error: keep what you like, throw away what you don't, but most importantly, keep trying!

As I look at the gift now I see all of it's flaws, but also what went into it: the effort, the imagination, the skill, the courage to do something out of my comfort zone.  And mostly the desire to give my mother something special that she would like and, hopefully, treasure. I must have succeeded as it still sits out in her living room, visible to all who enter her house.



"Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try!"
Dr. Seuss

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Garage sale find

I don't go to many garage sales, but my mother does. She goes garage saling almost every weekend.  You never know what you're going to find at them - sometimes nothing worth bringing home, other times treasure!

(This picture was supposed to be landscape, but Blogger decided otherwise!)

My mother found the white shuttle in a box that was given away at the end of a sale because they didn't want to have to take it back in the house.  They may not have even known what it was.  

I put it beside a clover shuttle to show the size.  I should have put it next to a Boye shuttle (found one in my stash after I took the picture) as it's similar in shape and only about 1/4 inch shorter than a Boye. It's smooth and light. As you can see it is extremely over loaded with thread, which looks to be size 80 in a variegated white/pink. The tips are together at both ends, so the over-loading has not damaged it yet. I tatted a quick ring with it and found it to tat quite nicely.  There are no markings on it to indicate a brand.  I also don't think it is an antique.  But it is a really nice find! 

Thanks, Mom!

"A house is just a place to keep your stuff while you go out and get more stuff."  George Carlin

Harvest Time Tatting

Memorial Day, a day to remember those in the military who gave their lives for their country.  It's celebrated  every year on the last Monday in May. As it's a federal holiday all government offices, banks and some private businesses are closed, making it a three day weekend for a lot of people. 

Unfortunately, not for me or my husband. Not because we weren't supposed to have a three day weekend -  our company has Memorial Day as a paid holiday. But this year they have a lot of orders that need to be filled an not much time to do it, so everybody had to work Saturday.  And I, and a few (un)lucky others, had to work Sunday as well.  That left Memorial Day alone as my only day off.

The day was beautiful! The sky was blue, the breeze was mild, the temperature on the way to hot without being oppressive.  And I didn't even have to go anywhere for entertainment, of a sort.

 Memorial Day, 2012, a beautiful day in Kansas and 

the start of harvest around my neighborhood.  This is the view from my front yard.  

This was my front row seat to the harvesting of the wheat in the field next to our house. An iced drink, a nice chair, a great view and a bit of tatting.  Who could ask for more?

My tatting for the day was reviewing the pattern for this cross, checking it for mistakes before sharing it, by tatting it following said pattern.  (I did find a couple of mistakes which I had to correct)

Split Ring Cross © Wanda Salmans 

I made this cross with Lizbeth #601 Snow White in size 20.  I designed this cross several years ago and wrote down the pattern but just finished diagramming it. I have shared it on the Pages tab. 

We did make it to a few of the local cemeteries yesterday towards evening.  Even though Memorial Day is specifically to honor fallen military personnel it has traditionally expanded to remember all family and friends who have passed on as well.  We visited all the graves, those of our friends and family, whether military or not.  The cemeteries always look beautiful with all the flowers and flags on this day. Most military graves are decorated with an American flag, put out by volunteers and other veterans.  It's also interesting to see the dates on all the headstones, they can tell quite a story.  Even though it is a solemn occasion in many ways, it's  also a day of remembering the the sacrifices made as well as good times with those no longer with us.

"In many respects across this nation Memorial Day has become a time when families have a little quality time together. And I don't think those who died to defend this nation would begrudge families that quality time.  But Memorial Day is for the purpose of honoring those who died in service to the nation, so a moment of silence give us all an opportunity to remember them and what they stood (for) and what they died for."

Togo West