Category: bookmark

A Givin’ and Gettin’ Tatting Tea Tuesday

Today’s the day! Are you ready?

And the winner of my anniversary drawing is…

** drum roll**

Kathy Niklewicz!

Congratulations Kathy! Email me at the address in my profile with your address and I’ll send you your wonderful prize package!

Thank you to everyone that stopped by and entered the drawing. I have really had fun coming up with what to put in the prize package. The biggest problem – from my end – was when to stop adding stuff! I kept thinking “this would be cool to put in” or “that really fits the theme” and a few hundred other thoughts. I finally had to tell myself “enough already!” LOL! Kathy, I hope you enjoy the package as much as I have enjoyed putting it together and givin’ it out!

I’ve also been enjoying making my next bookmark. Last week I asked for a suggestion of a good one to make. Gina suggested using ‘Pumpkins on a Vine’ by Heidi Sunday for a fall themed one, and Isdihara gave me the link to the pattern, so I gave it a try.

I think I got a little carried away – it’s like “Pumpkins on a Tangled Vine” now. This is definitely a one-of-a-kind bookmark. The outsides are per the pattern except that I added the turns to come back down. Then I had to figure out how to connect the two sides together so I started adding the pumpkins down the middle. That made it look kind of like a pumpkin ladder so I started a little free-form tatting up and down the sides. Then I had to come up with a bottom that didn’t look like it had just been whacked off at random. Just look at the pumpkin patch that grew up out of all that! I’m very happy with this. It’s a bit three-dimensional because of the way the vines climb around, very textured. I stayed up late finishing this because I just had to see how it was going to end. Thank you, Heidi, for the wonderful pattern, and Gina and Isdihara for the inspiration and help finding the pattern. This was fun!

Oh, it’s made with Lizbeth size 20 in 694 (Harvest Orange Med) and 684 (Leaf Green Med). I’m counting this as #13 of my second 25 Motif Challenge. How appropriate for October, hey?

Now on to the gettin’!
About a week ago I was on the Handy Hands website admiring all the books – okay, drooling over some of the books – and I mentioned to my husband that I really would like this book. And he replied “Why don’t you get it? Birthday, Christmas – something’s coming up pretty soon.” So I did.

This is a wonderful book, full of enough pictures of gorgeous shuttles to make any shuttle-tatter drool. Pam has done a lot of work looking into the history of shuttles and shuttle making and put it together for the rest of us. Wow! If you are interested at all in the history of shuttle making, or would like to see a lot of ways people have added “bling” to their shuttles, and you get the chance, check out this book!

But the gettin’s not done! I also picked me up a few Clover shuttles – as I was making an order anyway, right? And then of course I had to personalize them a little bit. It seems everyone is dressing up their shuttles right now – and it’s such fun! Of course, the new book has a lot of inspiration in it, too!

This blue one was pretty easy – I just added a little fingernail bling*, then sealed it. Makes for a fancy-looking shuttle in a very quick time!

And then I touched up one with material. Cutting out the shape of the shuttle was a little bit of work – my scissors seems to have developed a dull spot, just where I cut the most! But I succeeded! I think it came out very well! These are pictures of both sides of the same shuttle.


Here I thought I wasn’t much of an orange fan – but I’ll take this shuttle anytime!

Over the next few weeks I suppose I’ll be working mostly on snowflakes and other Christmas goodies. Can you believe it’s almost November already? And I realize that I’m way behind on all those things I try to do for Christmas gifts. I have quite a list of things I want to do and my time is getting short. So I’ll sit here this Tuesday morning, sip a little hot tea (mint!), wind my pretty new shuttles and get started on more of that givin’ stuff.

May all of you have a fun and safe Halloween and find a little time for tatting!

*Fingernail bling – those little decals you can get to jazz up your fingernails.*

On Bookmarks and Following Directions

Welcome to fall! Here the leaves are starting to turn though the temperatures haven’t gotten all that cold; the nights make you think “fall” without being too cold. Getting into the season I made a bookmark for the Tatting Forums’ Bookmark a Month Challenge in Lizbeth Falling Leaves and black in size 20. Now I need to start one for November. What pattern should it be??

Fall is the harbinger of the winter to come, including the Christmas season. It reminds me that I should be getting all those snowflakes done that I usually include in my Christmas cards.

Okay, so only one of these is a snowflake. They are both out of DMC’s ‘Tatting for Today’ copyright 1980. The one on the left is motif #5 and the other is motif #22, and this is the one that is alluded to in the title. This is not what the tree looks like in the book because I just couldn’t read the pattern correctly. Fortunately I have enough skill to adapt as I go so I didn’t have to scrap it and start over. The rings around the edges are not per the pattern and the ‘trunk’ is too long, but overall the impression is the same as the pattern in the book.

I bought this book probably about 1990 when I had been tatting close to ten years. There was no Internet in those days to share information on books or other tatters. What patterns I was finding were in Workbasket magazines and how-to booklets, you know the ones – “How to knit, crochet and tat” types, with a few descriptions of how-to for each craft then a couple of patterns of each. I remember being pretty excited when I found ‘Tatting for Today’. It had good pictures of each pattern and the written pattern wasn’t the long wordy type from Workbasket. Looking at the patterns now I find they have something to be desired as they have all the directions in a paragraph making it hard to follow. I usually re-write them, having one element per line instead of everything in one paragraph. I think that’s why I had trouble with the tree motif, I didn’t write it out first. Still, it came out acceptable, just not per the pattern : )

This weekend I tried my hand at adding a little something extra to a shuttle – decoupage. I thought the napkin would really look cool on this Susan Bates shuttle, but it didn’t come out quite like I had envisioned. It’s okay, for a first try I guess. And it still tats okay, which is the important part, right?


I would like to thank everyone that’s stopped by to check out out my old-fashioned doily in last week’s post. You are all so very kind. A big “Thank-you!” to TattingChic for sharing it on her blog and sending people my way. I get such a kick out of sharing something that I’m so excited about. And tatterjil, I’d share with everyone what I was giving away in the drawing – except I don’t know just exactly what’s going to be in it. Okay, some of it’s planned already, but not everything! It will just have to be a surprise – for everyone. I’m having a lot of fun coming up with what’s going to be in it. Come back next week when I announce the winner.

This Tatting Tea Tuesday I slept in and haven’t accomplished much since I got up. I had a cup of green tea and thought about tatting. I didn’t get any done until I was on the way to work (don’t think I tat and drive – I was the passenger!). Just trying to get another snowflake done, as I have a lot of them to do.

Remember to stop back by next week when I announce the winner of my anniversary drawing. Until then take a little time for tea and tatting if you can, and have a great week!

Odds and Ends

During our trip to Colorado I did tat a little bit – I made another bookmark, a variation of the one I did a couple of weeks ago. This was done mostly while driving and with a few trials of different ways to achieve the same end. I don’t know if it’s just the color combination or the different things I tried, but the chains don’t quite look right. Of course I noticed that the most while I was blocking it, otherwise I like how it turned out. It’s made in Lizbeth Caribbean and black size 20.

State Fair
I did mention that I had a few more fair pictures.

This is the butter sculpture. There were so many people looking at it that it was hard to get close enough to see it let alone take a picture; I hope you can make them out. Amazing what someone can do with butter!

My grandson really enjoyed the goats. He kept trying to give them hugs and kisses.

There was a remote controlled robot named Oscar talking to people and keeping everyone laughing. I don’t know where the person was who controlled him, but Oscar commented on the people around him and moved around interacting with the crowd. My grandson thought Oscar was great until we got him up close, then it wasn’t fun any more.

I thought this was definitely the winner of the fair!

Surprise in the sky
We were on the way to work Friday and saw what at first we thought were some odd looking clouds. And then we realized they weren’t clouds.

The Thunderbirds were going to be at the air show at McConnell Air Force base open house on Saturday and Sunday and we were seeing their practice.

We kept an eye on the sky all the way from Newton to Wichita, about 25 miles, and saw quite the show, even from that distance. We weren’t going to be able to go to the show but we got to enjoy a bit of it anyway.

Tatting Tea Tuesday
I’m enjoying Tazo Refresh tea today. It is refreshing on this cool, fall morning. My tatting today is what it’s been for the last week, a project inspired by the bed and breakfast we stayed in while we were in Leadville. I’ve been so excited about it that I’ve spent almost all my time working on it. The house definitely looks like it, too – I really need to get up and take care of it. But I’d really rather be tatting!

May all of you have a wonderful week with a little tea and tatting in it!

A Try at a Butterfly and other things

I see a lot of beautiful tatting done with beads as I surf through blogs. Now I don’t do much with beads for several reasons, the foremost being that it’s not very portable, at least for me. But a friend asked me to make a butterfly and an idea came to mind that would look pretty with beads. This is the result, what I had mentioned I was working on last week. This is made in Lizbeth size 20, black for the body and Caribbean for the wings, with 10/0 seed beads. I’m counting this as #11 of my second 25 Motif Challenge – it certainly was a challenge for me!

A mini vacation
My husband and I took a long weekend and went to Colorado this last week. Our timing was great as the aspens are in the midst of changing their colors for fall. It was gorgeous in the mountains! We stayed in a Bed and Breakfast called The Ice Palace. We had a wonderful stay there. I highly recommend it if you ever want to spent the night in Leadville.
Leadville’s elevation is recorded as being 10,152 feet, which took us a little while to get used to. We also went up to Independence Pass, which is a little bit higher : )

We enjoyed a guided horseback ride from Mega Mountain Magic that had some pretty magical views. We don’t ride much so at the end of our two and a half hour ride I was glad to be done, but sad at the same time. You know the views are wonderful when your guide stops to take pictures, too!
We drove up to Weston pass and stopped once in awhile to enjoy the colorful roadsides.

The road did get kind of rough. But it was worth every mile!

It was a wonderful, long weekend with just the two of us this time. Quite a difference from the trip we made to Washington, DC earlier in the year. Each trip was great in it’s own way and I’m fortunate to be able to have done both this year.

Rooibos was the tea for today. I sipped several cups this morning as I finished off a bookmark and went through vacation pictures. A wonderful start to the day even though I have to go back to work this afternoon.

May all of you have a wonderful week and enjoy a little tea and tatting if you can.

A bookmark and the Kansas State Fair

I’ll start off with what I made when I got home from the state fair Saturday, a bookmark for the “Bookmark a Month Challenge” on The Tatting Forums. This is made with Manuela size 20 in color 021 (thanks AnneB for the translation!) I actually made one first in Lizbeth Jellybean but I made many of the picots too long. In fact, I dislike it so much that I almost didn’t finish it. But I forced myself to and then made this one. I didn’t use any pattern for this, though I think I’ve seen something similar somewhere.

The Kansas state fair was fun and it was a beautiful day for it. But there was very little tatting this year. I was very disappointed and angry at myself for not trying harder to get something entered. My sister and I have agreed that we both will enter at least one thing next year, and maybe more. With us encouraging each other I think it just might be a reality next September.

These pictures are of the only tatting I found there this year. They may be an item or two I missed because of the way they displayed them, but not more.

Nice display, isn’t it? A great idea for all those snowflakes I like to make.
Check out the multiple ribbons through the center – another nice idea.
Kind of disappointing that they left the ribbon in front of the doily. The earrings and snowflake didn’t show up well with the tag behind them, either. I didn’t do such a great job on taking these pictures, did I?
That white bar along the bottom is a reflection of the light fixture. This was not hanging in a place that I could get any closer to it.

In the Domestic Arts building where the tatting is displayed they have the textile arts such as quilts, embroidery, crochet, knitting and such as well as the foods. They give demonstrations of these types through-out each day which can be fun to watch. My sister and I watched a felting demonstration, which was very interesting, especially as neither one of us knew what it was before it started. It was given by a woman from ‘Yarn’, a yarn store in Hutchinson, which is home to the state fair.

She even let us try adding a few colorful touches to the piece that we watched her make after it was rinsed and ready to be decorated. This is me giving it a try. It was very interesting to watch but I have way too many things I want to do to really want to do this myself. There aren’t enough hours in a day for me to take up another hobby!

There were some wonderful quilts, too, lots and lots of them. This is only a very small fraction of what they had on display. I’m glad I’m not a judge – I don’t see how they can decide on which ones are the best.
This one looks to be a queen or king size quilt done entirely in crazy quilting. It was amazing! BTW, I didn’t pull back the plastic to look at it but I took advantage of it to take a picture. My picture does not do this quilt justice of how amazing it is and the colors aren’t quite right either. It is spectacular! The judges thought so, too, it got a Best of Show ribbon (but not grand champion or runner up).
There wasn’t a lot of knitting or crochet either, though a lot more than the tatting. I just thought this crocheted wedding dress was so beautiful. I didn’t see a ribbon on it, but it could have been tucked in behind somewhere.

These are the State Fair dolls. They are supposed to represent a favorite part of the fair. Didn’t they have some cute ideas for these?

There are so many things I wanted to take pictures of that I didn’t! Such as the Duct tape clothing (completely out of different colored Duct tape) and the most original hand bags (made from the same pattern but using unusual mediums) but my batteries in the camera were running low. And did I bring any more? NO. Could I find any place to buy any? NO. And my grandson was coming so I had to be stingy on picture taking until I could get a few (okay, a lot) of him enjoying his first fair. Those are pictures I’ll be sharing in another post.

My tea for today’s Tatting Tea Tuesday was a nod in the direction of the cabinet I keep it in. We had several errands to run and a multitude of things that had to get done around the house today and I just didn’t take the time to fix myself any. I did get some tatting done that I’m pretty excited about, but that, too, will have to wait for another post.

May all of you have a wonderful week. Try to get in a little tatting if you can!

Trying New Bookmarks

I’ve been getting quite a bit of tatting done this week but there’s not a lot I want to share today. Most of what’s been made is unfinished due to lack of time. I did make a couple of bookmarks. I’m not exactly happy with them but they have potential.

The one on the left I started at break at work for a challenge on The Tatting Forums, which is to make one bookmark a month. I didn’t have a pattern and didn’t think what I was doing completely through – it didn’t come out quite the way it was supposed to: ( It looks a little unfinished, don’t you think?

The one on the right was another thought, one that pretty much did come out the way I thought it would. It’s a pain to make, though! I did make a few decisions in mid-stream, which is obvious by the couple of ugly rings: p If I make this again I’ll do a few things a little different, and maybe add a tail or something. Both bookmarks are made in Lizbeth #682, size 20.

I also started on a butterfly this week for a friend of mine. The prototype has been made and decisions mad e of changes I would like to see when I make it again. The prototype looks very plain as it was made in ecru size 30 because I had two shuttles already wound with it. Size 30 is definitely too small for what I have in mind for this piece. The next time I plan to make it in Lizbeth Caribbean in size 20 and use beads. I’m not very proficient with beads, but practice makes perfect, right?

I don’t know how much tatting I’ll be getting done this week. I have to work some very different hours during the week. And my daughter and her son from Washington D.C. are here for a week! Yippee! We’re going to try to get together with our other daughter and her family as much as possible this week, too. Both grandsons together – it’s going to be fun!

Hope everyone has a wonderful week this week!

Miscellaneous Stuff on Tatting Tea Tuesday

I actually got quite a bit of tatting done this week. I had to restart my doily again – it seems to have had the wrong number of repeats : ( – and then got the second round done as well. It’s not blocked as there is a lot of work yet to be done on it, but it’s looking pretty good. Some of this was done while waiting to pick my entries up from the fair.
I forgot to take a picture of my fair entries with their ribbons. My doily and the bookmark (same pattern as this one but in different colors.) each received blue ribbons and the earrings received a red (it was in the same class as the bookmark). I was pretty happy even though there was no other competition. If nothing else this should help keep the tatting classes for another year at least. I kept the fair book to keep in mind other places that I might be able to enter next year (maybe jewelry, note cards and stationary).

While I was at my mother’s house the other day she gave this piece of tatting. It was on a doll/baby dress that her mother gave her. Mom doesn’t know who tatted it, but she knew I would like it. I haven’t decided how I’m going to display or use this piece but I would like it to be seen instead of tucked away in a drawer somewhere. It is made with small thread, looks like size 70.
On InTatters there is a thread about Innocent Design Challenge which I thought sounded like fun. I started several times: had one that looked waaayy too big. It might have been okay, but I cut off some and tried again. I don’t have a bottle to try it on, just the dimensions Kersti gave. Obviously I need to have a sample to work with as this was the next result.

This is the top of a soft drink bottle, which I am very sure is much smaller than the top of the Innocent bottle, as the dimensions given are about 2 to 2.5 inches (5 – 7 cm) diameter at the bottom of the hat and about that tall. This is about 1 inch x 1 inch (2.5 x 2.5 cm). I guess I could make that third round a little longer so the shape doesn’t cup so much and put it on the top of an egg for Easter. Or maybe I can figure out a cute look for a Christmas decoration? ; )

I was planning on having a cup of Rooibos tea today to go with my tatting. As far as I know the cup of water is still sitting in the microwave…

Tatting Tea Tuesday with Tea and Tatting!

Greetings and Salutations! This has been a good week! A girl’s day out on Thursday with my sister was a load of fun. We got our nails done, went to a wonderful scrapbook store in Derby called ‘Scrappin’ Time’ (you may recall I just got back from vacation), had a relaxed lunch, visited with my daughter and her family, then went to JoAnne’s and spent lots of money! What could be more fun than that?

Then Saturday I had the evening to myself so I spent it going shopping again! Okay, didn’t spend nearly as much, and it wasn’t quite as much fun because I was by myself, but still! Went into a quilt store to drool over the material and found out they are going to be having a beginners quilt class at times I can even attend – amazing! A friend of mine had mentioned she was going to be going to this, but I hadn’t realized what the times. So we’re both signed up for it now.

Then it was on to the Salvation Army store to see if there were any good bargains to be had. And look what I found!

I’m almost positive I’ve already got a copy of this, but at $0.49 I couldn’t leave it there. It had a doily pattern and a motif pattern in it. I went home and made one of the motifs. Then I made another one. A simple pattern but nice look. These haven’t been blocked yet, but except for the clovers at the ends of the arms it lays pretty nice. I say that though the centers bowed up a little, then found out if you make the picots of the little rings longer that problem goes away.

I know this because I tried it on the third motif. When I was almost done with this one I thought “just extend one leg a little bit and it will be a cross” and it was.

The two-toned blue cross is made out of Manuela size 20 in color 019 (dark blue) and a DMC blue that I don’t have labeled. The variegated, unfinished cross is made from an unknown brand, size 30 thread that my mother gave me. I just added four more of the small rings to each side of the forth leg of the motif, and wa -la! a beautiful cross.

The second cross is for my mother as well as being made from thread she gave me. That was another thing that made it a good week: she picked up a bag of crochet thread from the senior center to give to me. I didn’t take it all because most if it was white and ecru! There were several new balls of thread, but I can’t see me ever using that much of regular crochet thread. I’ve gotten spoiled with Lizbeth and and few other types of thread that are much smoother and easier to tat with. But it was so nice of her I thought I’d make her a little something in the thread she liked the most.

I had more trouble with that thread than I’ve had in a long time! It was fuzzier than what I’m used to as well as being somewhat old – it kept breaking on me. Well, at least three times, and that’s only because I started being v-e-r-y careful when I closed rings. And then at the end I got in a hurry and cut off the threads a chain and ring early 🙁 Adding thread again for the last ring was a pain, but I was able to squeeze in the last chain with the little tail of the chain thread. Then I ran out of time. If I wanted a picture of it for this post I didn’t have time to sew in the ends. You can see what I chose to do about it.

I’m calling the original motif as #8 in my second 25 Motif Challenge, and the cross as #9.

The title says there will be tea and there was. My daughter gave me a box of Tazo vanilla tea, which I can’t remember the actual name of it. It has vanilla, of course, and a little peach and is very good. I had it on ice today. Though I was inside I saw that the outside temp was already 102 degrees (F). It made me hot just thinking about it.

Until next week, may you all have a little time for yourselves with a little tea and tatting.

Chamomile any one?

Anyone out there like chamomile tea? I haven’t actually tried it myself, though my neighbor really likes it and recommends it. I’m kind of a wimp when it comes to trying some new things and this is one of them. I’m not saying I won’t, just that I haven’t taken that step yet. So this Tatting Tea Tuesday I drink just decaffeinated tea of an unknown brand instead of something exotic or exciting.

The subject of chamomile came up the other day when our neighbor, a really great guy, was mowing our lawn for us. Probably because it was getting pretty tall. And because he’s really a great guy. But when he got to our driveway up by the house he left a large patch un-mowed. He stopped and explained he thought it was chamomile. We both agreed it smelled very good where it was mowed. These plants are where we don’t want plants, though. My DH is planning to get rid of them soon.

I’m not much on plants, herbs or edibles from the field, so I did a little (key word, little) checking on the Internet about chamomile. I understand that it has been used for medicinal purposes for centuries in Europe and then here in the States as well. It sounds like it could be very good for you as well as quite tasty (so they say). Wikipedia also says that it can become quite a pest because it spreads out everywhere, including in fields where it’s not wanted. I must agree, what’s growing and spreading in our driveway is going everywhere! So whether it’s chamomile or not, smells nice or not, some of it is going bye bye very soon.
I don’t know for sure if the little plant in the picture is chamomile or not but it looks kind of nice there with my tatting. The colors are not quite true-to-life though. The cross actually has purple as the outside, not blue.

The little doily is the center of the one I’ve been working on for several weeks. I’m not very happy with the way it lays now that this much has been blocked. The ds count has to be corrected for it to look better, so this is as far as this one is going. The next one will be in another color with a few more stitches in the pattern!

The cross bookmark is one of my patterns. It will have a ‘tail’ on it soon. I made one just like this for an insert in a wedding card last week but didn’t take a picture of it before it was given away, so I obviously had to make another to share, right? It is made with Lizbeth size 20 thread in Springtime, I think. (The label came out of the middle *ahhhh*) It’s pretty anyway. The outside is also Lizbeth size 20 in purple but which shade I’m also not sure of except it’s pretty close to K States’ purple.

Pretty sad, isn’t it? Until I started this blog remembering what the colors were was only a very minor thing. But sharing what I’m doing with others means keeping track of these things. I’ll have to find a better way of keeping the labels with the threads, won’t I? While I’m making changes I might just have to give chamomile tea a try.

Secret Santa Exchange

At InTatters we had a Secret Santa exchange. The person you were sending to didn’t know who you were and they weren’t the one you were getting a package from. As this is through the mail it’s a little hard to be anonymous when you sent it, but they wouldn’t know who you were until they got your package. I’d never done an exchange like this before and it was fun!

Among other things, I sent my partner this Christmas-colored doily. I can post now as I know that she received it. I think it looks pretty good in these colors as well as the fall colors I did it in last time. This went to Tarie in Arizona. I hope she likes it 🙂

These wonderful items are what I received from My Secret Santa.
IcePrincess from Germany sent me all these wonderful things. There is a handmade shuttle with blue leaves, a Celtic style cross bookmark, a wooden “W” on a keyring, and some beautiful red/blue/purple beads. The card has a hand made paper seal with an angel on it. Thank you so much IcePrincess, I love what you sent to me! A very lovely way to start the Christmas season.

There was some debate on InTatters if we should wait ’til Christmas to open our packages. It was obvious that most of us didn’t wait, or want to wait! It would be rude not to let the ‘Santa” know that you received and liked what you got, wouldn’t it??? Well, I think so! Besides, I think most of us still have that little kid inside that doesn’t want to wait!

This exchange has really gotten me into the Christmas spirit and gotten me motivated to put out the Christmas tree and decorate the house. And start playing the Christmas music! I love to sing along to the carols and songs that I know.

Wishing all of you a wonderful and blessed Christmas season!