Off to the Races!

We were invited to go with my husband’s family to a local Catholic school auction fundraiser this last Saturday. It’s a pretty big deal and they go all out for it. The theme was ‘Off to the Races’, as in, the horse races.

Off to the races on wandasknottythoughts
Off to the races, ready for the crowd

You don’t have to dress up with the theme, but where’s the fun if you don’t?

Jack and I all dressed for the races on wandasknottythoughts
Jack and I all dressed for the races

When I think of horse racing I think of the Kentucky Derby, where I’ve seen (in pictures and on TV) the ladies dress up in fancy hats and outfits, and the guys wear bowties. For us ladies, my sister-in-law and I went to my mother’s house where she graciously allowed us to choose from her many hats. We chose a couple of hats and one for her friend that was also going to be there. We had a lot of fun, almost like playing dress-up just choosing them.

That was the easy part. Now for the bowties. My mother had one bow tie, a clip-on, that my husband wore, but I needed four more (I volunteered). I had hoped that it being prom season there would be someplace local that would have inexpensive (cheap) bowties, but I couldn’t find any place at all that carried any bow ties. My next choice was to make some. I checked out Pinterest and found a few places that had patterns and ideas, so it was off to the store for some material and the findings I’d need.

I chose to get materials in black and white with a mix of small patterns. I know I can use leftovers for other things, at some point. I had a list of items I thought I needed, so that was quick. It wasn’t until I got home that I realized I was getting too complicated. I’d be lucky if the guys would put them on in the first place, let alone wear them the entire evening. I ended up just folding the material, ironing it to shape, and hand stitching a few stitches to hold them together.

Bow ties in black and white on wandasknottythoughts
Bow ties in black and white

I didn’t find any of the clips to hold them to the collars so I used black strips of material with velcro on the ends. I ironed interfacing to the material and folded the edges in. By the time Saturday came around and I needed to finish them, I realized the band around the neck would be hidden so they didn’t have to be that finished. I think they came out very well.

Two guys in bow ties on wandasknottythoughts
Two guys in bow ties

My husband’s brother came to the dinner in a Hawaiin shirt, shorts, and sandals but he let me help him put on one of the ties. He wore it all night! My husband was the only one of the five guys at our table who even tried to dress up for the theme, but all of them wore the bow ties all night. I was very surprised – and pleased. They didn’t even put up much of a fight, LOL.

Family in hats and bow ties on wandasknottythoughts
Family in hat and bow tie

There were some people, men and women, that really got into dressing up. There were others, like us, that kind of dressed up, and a few that didn’t. It was a lot of fun watching the crowd.

The school has done fundraising auctions every year for years, with a different theme each year. This is the first time my husband and I have gone. The school had both a silent auction, which was online before dinner and a live auction after dinner. I won several items in the silent auction I didn’t expect to. We didn’t even try to win anything in the live auction, the items were bid up pretty high pretty fast. It was fun to watch, though.

Besides making the bow ties for the dinner this last week was very busy, with no time to tat. The grandkids have had several track meets each and I’ve helped at my mom’s house. I’m hoping this week is a bit quieter.

We’ve also had some severe weather close by in the last few days. Friday was the first time I’d ever gotten a dust storm warning. When the cold front came through there was a dramatic drop in temperature and with it came the dust. Down the road visibility dropped to zero due to dust.

Dust storm on wandasknottythoughts
Dust storm

The camera cleaned up this picture a bit, it was much worse than it shows. If you were outside it immediately became harder to breathe. The front carried this dust a long way. We didn’t have a tornado, but you may have heard that the town of Anderdover was hit by one the same day we had the dust storm. That is south of us, and just east of my daughter’s house. The threat of severe weather was close enough that we stayed ready to head for the storm shelter all evening but the wind and the dust were the worst we experienced that night.

We have threats of severe weather again tonight. For the next several hours we’ll be watching the weather, ready for whatever comes – or doesn’t. But what should I expect, I live in Kansas and it’s spring.

Thank you to everyone that expressed their condolences about my family. It is greatly appreciated.

“To its devotees the bowtie suggests iconoclasm of an Old World sort, a fusty adherence to a contrarian point of view. The bowtie hints at intellectualism, real or feigned, and sometimes suggests technical acumen, perhaps because it is so hard to tie. BowTies are worn by magicians, country doctors, lawyers and professors and by people hoping to look like the above. But perhaps most of all, wearing a bow tie is a way of broadcasting an aggressive lack of concern for what other people think.” Warren St. John

Butterfly Edging

There are a lot of tatting projects that I need to get done now that I’m back from Palmettos Tat Days.  I knew about them before I went to Georgia but didn’t have time to do them, so it was rush, rush, rush when I got back. I did get two of my projects done, two more to go before the end of October.

Tatted Butterfly Edged Doily for auction on wandasknottythoughts
Tatted Butterfly Edged Doily

One project I finished was an edged doily. Our church participates in an auction to raise money for a local retirement home, which is supposed to be a ‘basket’ of items that we donate. This year, it’s not a basket at all, but several items of a theme that we’ll bundle together. I try to include something tatted every year, and this year I planned a doily with a tatted edging.

Tatted Butterfly Edging looks like Mary Konior's pattern on wandasknottythoughts
Tatted Butterfly Edging looks like Mary Konior’s pattern

Our theme this year is butterflies, so I envisioned a doily with a tatted edging of butterflies. I had an idea of what I wanted and got started without a pattern. While on Craftree I found an edging that was exactly what I wanted: Mary Konior’s Butterflies from her book “A Pattern Book of Tatting.” I don’t have the book and I don’t know the stitch count of her pattern as I made it before I saw a picture of it. As it is so close to her pattern if you want to make it, check out her book.

I loved the butterflies but thought the edging needed to be a bit wider, so I added another row. The result is more suitable to what I planned for the doily.

Tatted Butterfly Edging with a second row on wandasknottythoughts
Tatted Butterfly Edging with a second row

At this point, I didn’t have a center for the doily, I made the edging first 🙂  I had time to tat but not the time to cut and sew the doily center. With the edging done I had to figure out a way to get the center the size needed and found a paper plate worked out nicely. I miscalculated a bit by not making the seam a tad bit wider (making the doily diameter smaller), but it still came out okay. Finished size with edging is about nine and a half inches across.

Tatted Butterfly Edging sewn on found on wandasknottythoughts
Tatted Butterfly Edging sewn on

These are the items we put together for our auction ‘basket.’ We had members of our congregation add the butterflies to the grapevine cross.

Auction items on wandasknottythoughts
Auction items

This is one project down out of four that I want to have done before the end of October. I have one other completed that I’ll post about later. Now on to the next!

“The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.” Rabindranath Tagore     https://brainyquote.com