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Home again

We are home again after spending a week vacationing in Colorado.  I now have a better Internet connection.  Oh, happy day!
We spent the week in the same area we did last year, close to Buena Vista.  There is still a lot of things we haven’t done there, but we had a lot of fun checking a few things off our list of things to do.  
We went back through St. Elmo and this time went all the way over Tin Cup pass (we didn’t make it last time). We stopped in St. Elmo for a few minutes to see what had changed since last year and to take a few pictures. The post office in this picture is a good example of the state of most of the buildings in the town.
Me tatting in front of the St. Elmo post office, elevation 10,006 feet (3050 m)
Jay seen flitting around St. Elmo.
Can you believe I actually caught this guy sitting still long enough to get his picture?  I just got lucky.

Flying chipmunk
The chipmunks were unhappy with us that we didn’t give them any seeds.  They would come right up to you in search of them.  One even climbed part way up my leg (it’s an odd feeling!) I was snap-happy with my camera and was able to catch this guy jumping from one rock to another. 

Aspens at St. Elmo
We came up a week earlier this year than last and weren’t sure we’d see any of the Aspens in their fall colors, but they were just starting to change while we were there.  Here you can see that some have changed while others are still completely green.  You can see some of the color change on the mountain side in the distance, too. 
We spent a lot of our vacation in a jeep going up and down mountains.  The roads are not conducive to tatting while in the car!  I was able to get some tatting done but very little.  I’ll share some of what I worked on later.
Deer in someones yard in Buena Vista.
We saw more wildlife out in the mountains this time than we did last year but, like last year, most of the deer were seen in Buena Vista.  They have become quite the pests.  This lovely buck was seen in the front yard of a house, along with four other bucks and three does.  You have to be at least as careful driving through town as you do out of town so as not to hit them. 
I had a cup of Refresh tea yesterday for Tatting Tea Tuesday, but due to life’s twists and turns was not able to post.  I’m hoping that next week I’ll actually get to post on Tuesday!
We had a wonderful vacation and are sad it’s over and we have to return to our normal life, which includes working, though I am glad to have a normal Internet connection.  It is (very) likely that I will be sharing more vacation pictures next time 🙂
“I travel not to go anywhere, but to go.  I travel for travel’s sake.  The great affair is to move.”
Robert Louis Stevenson 
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/topics/topic_travel.html#lueitKbd2cywYPKG.99

Blogger Mobile hates me

I’ve been trying to post for two days now on Blogger Mobile and it stops during the upload every time!!!  I finally got to a hot spot (though it’s very, very, slow) so I can let you know that I’m still here.
Just a little something I made trying to empty a couple of shuttles.  I’ve been so busy doing other things I haven’t gotten much else done except a few doodles emptying other shuttles. 
I’ll try again later this week to get a longer post in.  I have some really cool pictures of where I’ve been the last week I’d like to share.  But that will have to wait for a better Internet connection. 
Happy Tatting everyone!

Diane’s Double Dare

 Diane dared us to! 
She double-dared us! 
Then she enabled us by sending us doodads!
Isn’t she a special lady?
She sent me two 1/2 inch doodads with eight petals.  I thought about it a little bit, then found some thread and beads that worked well together and gave it a try. 
My first try is made in Lizbeth #662, Turquoise Lt in size 20 with matching seed beads. 
You can’t see it in this picture but it didn’t want to lay flat, it was three dimensional.  Because of the length of the chains on the outside round every other leg was raised.  It looked pretty cool but made it a real bear to photograph.   
I liked the result well enough that I thought I’d try it again but shorten up the chains a bit. 
My second try is made in Lizbeth #638, Christmas Green and silver seed beads.
The reflection off the silver beads and the doodad really made this hard to capture with a picture.  And the darker thread made finding a good background hard, too.  The picture doesn’t show just how striking the green thread set off the silver beads and center.  In person this looks much, much better!
Thank you, Diane, for sending me the doodads, and for daring me to use them!  These are #5 in my current 25 Motif Challenge. 

p.s I have posted the pattern on the Pattern Page if you’re interested.

“Take a chance! All life is a chance. The man who goes farthest is generally the one who is willing to do and dare.”
Dale Carnegie
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Center Bead Success

I have gotten a bit of tatting done this week, though not a lot.  I was successful in putting a bead in the center of a ring using split rings to make this hair decoration to put on these little gripper clips.  I had bought a package of these on the way to the wedding last month and now I’m looking for things to do with them. I’ve given this one to my daughter to try out and see what she thinks of it.  I haven’t heard back from her but I’m working on another one, whether to put on this type of clip or something else, but I like the look.  It looks better than the picture shows it.

I started this one thinking I had all the right colored beads but when I went to get the seed beads the colors didn’t match the thread at all!  So I’m using clear ones instead but I think they’ll work fine.
We’ll see if this goes anywhere.

Something I’ve been thinking of trying for quite awhile now I finally tried.  I have a lot of little doodles – butterflies, flowers, birds, etc – from emptying shuttles.  I do use them on cards and letters but I don’t send many of those.  So what else to do these doodles?  How about wine glass charms?

These are very quick to make up.  20 gauge wire, wood craft pieces, a little glue and a doodle.
I like to drink wine (I’m not a connoisseur by any means!) but we don’t have parties and I don’t know that many people that drink it.  So I don’t know what I’ll do with these, but I thought they came out well. 
I had a good laugh after I did these a couple of days ago. I’d been thinking about doing these charms for months but never had and finally got around to doing them.  Then I opened my email and read Nancy Tracy’s Be-Stitched newsletter. And what did I find?  Her tatting pattern of the month is a tatted “Goblet Charm”!  It’s quite different and much more elaborate than mine, but still!  Dare I say “great minds think alike?”

It’s hard to believe that it’s almost September, but I look around and see that the sunflowers are in full bloom, some even past their prime. This is a small patch of garden variety sunflowers that I drive by every day (wild sunflowers are much smaller and branch out a lot).  I had wanted to get a picture of these earlier but never thought about it when I had time and my camera.  I finally had both time and camera, but you can see that some of the heads are already finished blooming.  Time is getting away  from me!

Things have not gotten done this week like I had hoped.  I was planning to have the barefoot sandal pattern done by today but it’s not.  There are several things that I haven’t figured out how to diagram yet, and it’s taking more time than I estimated it would. And I’ve had a hard time making myself sit down and do it!


Tatting Tea Tuesday
I’m drinking green tea today, iced as the weather has decided to be hot again. Not has hot as we had it earlier this summer but still in the 90’s.  My tatting was done earlier today when I got together with my sister and my mother for a visit and all of us were working on projects.  My mom and sister were knitting some pretty cool looking scarves and I was working on my hair piece.  It was a very pleasant way to spend the morning.  We’re hoping to do it more often.
“How to Have A Lovely Day”

Smile at strangers
Slow down
Say thank you
Give lots of compliments
Dress nicely
Wear perfume
Observe and listen
Be charming
Laugh
Wish people a lovely day

Trial and Error

The green mess there in the front?  My attempts at adding a bead to the center of a ring. I watched Marilee’s  video found on her blog, which is very clear and easy to follow, but mine look pretty sad.  This doesn’t show all the rings I broke when trying to close them, just my semi-successful attempts.  I finally decided that if that wasn’t working to try something else, namely trying it with split rings.  This is working much better.  Maybe when I get a little more comfortable with the technique I’ll have better luck with the single-shuttle version. I can dream. 
Speaking of Marilee, have you seen her magnificent Nouveau necklace?  If you haven’t seen it yet you really need to go check it out!
I’ve been working on the pattern for the latest version of barefoot sandals, trying to write out on paper what I did in thread.  My problem is habit -when I tat I don’t think about what shuttle to use, as, this is shuttle #1 and this is shuttle #2, or even this is the pink and this the yellow, I just see which way I want the tatting to go and without thinking too much about it use the shuttle and technique to go that way. Which means when trying to write it out I’m totally lost on when to change shuttles.
I remember seeing how Fox used high-lighters to help her follow a pattern and thought I’d give it a try, too. I  loaded two empty shuttles with thread, added what I  hoped was enough beads and started trying to follow the pattern I jotted down, coloring the lines with the appropriate color as I went.  Coincidentally, the two high-lighters I happened to find were the same colors as my shuttles – how cool it that?   Now to consciously notice which shuttle I am using and mark the paper. So far it seems to be working well. I am, of course, correcting errors as I go and trying to note bead placement and use as well.  I don’t often use beads and I think this is the first time I’ve made them an integral part of the pattern. Lots of new things to try documenting!
I was hoping to have the pattern done by today, but it didn’t happen. I still have quite a ways to go.  I’m going to try hard to have it ready to post by next week, but it all depends on how much time I have to work on it. 
Today for Tatting Tea Tuesday I’m enjoying a cup of peach tea.  I’m going to make a second cup now that I’m done with this post and try to get some tatting done. I think I’m going to work on putting beads in the center of the ring again, take a break from the computer for a while.  The pattern work can wait just a little 🙂
“I have failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed.”
Michael Jordan
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Another pair of Barefoot Sandles

Lacey’s barefoot sandals
I had made a pair of barefoot sandals for one daughter for her birthday and the other daughter really liked them and wanted a pair, too.  As her birthday was coming up I decided a pair would be a good present for her as well so I got started.  Well, not really quite that fast.  There was that wedding present I had to get done, and the new techniques to learn from Sherry’s book so it didn’t really get started that right away. 
Actually, it took several weeks to start on another pair.  The first pair took a long time to make – has something to do with not sure where I was going with it and using lots of beads, which I don’t do much of.  I had a thought that if I started with something in the middle I could tat around it and it wouldn’t take as long.  Then the trick was finding something to put in the middle.  I also wanted to make them with size 10 thread and I don’t seem to have much of that in my stash anymore.  
Not quite two weeks ago I went up to Omaha to visit this daughter and while there we did a little shopping, both at Hobby Lobby and at a place called Mengelsens, a large local crafty-type shop.  At Mengelsens I found some flower doodads that I thought would look great as a center but I didn’t find any beads there that I liked.  But at Hobby Lobby I got lucky – they had beads for 50% off!  So I bought four bags of glass beads for the price of two – whoo hoo!
These are made with DMC #310 black thread in size 10 and 6/0 glass seed beads, an Amethyst mix. 
I did have to start over a couple of times when things didn’t turn out the way I had in mind.  I’ve been told that designing on paper or the computer can save a lot of time and thread but I haven’t gotten there yet, I still do best with thread and shuttle in my hands. After a couple of false starts I came up with something I’m happy with.  I’m not sure just how long they took to make – I keep forgetting to check the time! – but much faster than the first pair.  The only reason this matters it that I’ve been asked if I would make some more…
These are #4 of this round of the 25 Motif Challenge.
Today is a great Tatting Tea Tuesday – it’s raining!!!!  And it’s only 65 degrees F, almost cool.  It feels great outside!  They say we’ll only get a little rain out of this but any rain is welcome.  It’s been so dry here that everything is brown unless you water, which we don’t except for the flowers and a couple of young trees.  Walking in my yard is like walking through straw, it both looks and feels like straw.  It’s so wonderful to have the rain!
“Raindrops

Raindrops are such funny things.
They haven’t feet or haven’t wings.
Yet they sail through the air,
With the greatest of ease,
And dance on the street,
Wherever they please.”

Anon.

Graduation Cross Bookmark

I visited my daughter and her children this last weekend.  It was a lot of fun to spend time with them, but small children make tatting just a little hard.  They like to sit on laps and “help” with whatever you are doing.   In fact, my grandson wanted to know what I was doing with my “boat” 🙂 So, though I did get a small amount of tatting done it’s not ready to share yet.

Graduation Cross Bookmark  based on an old pattern

Something that I have been working on at home is writing up some of my patterns.  This is another cross bookmark I made up a few years ago in the normal way that I come up with most patterns: I needed something for – you guessed it – a graduation gift.

I made this one with Lizbeth #115 “Springtime” size 20. It measures 3 inches long by 2 inches wide.  The center has one split ring then climbs out with a false picot and another split ring, the rest is just rings and chains.  If someone couldn’t do split rings it would be easy enough to make the center as a separate piece then do the outside.  The basics of this cross I know is one of those patterns that most of us stumble to on our own, but I haven’t seen a center done quite like this so I’ve added it to the pattern page.
(It will be up later)

I’m hoping to have something more to show next week.  So far I’ve had to un-do, re-tat, cut off, and start over several times. I’ve got the idea in my head, just having a little trouble translating it to thread.

“Listen to the mustn’ts, child. Listen to the don’ts. Listen to the shouldn’ts, the impossibles, the won’ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me…Anything can happen, child. Anything can be.” 
Shel Silverstein

http://thinkexist.com

Travel Time Tatting

Travel Time Tatting Motifs
Coming back from the wedding last weekend I was kind of at a loss.  I had been so concerned about getting the wedding gift done on the way there that I didn’t even think about what I would work on during the trip back.  I had plenty of thread, though not really in my favored color schemes, so that wasn’t the problem.  But what to actually make??  These two motifs!
The first thing I did was empty the shuttles as there wasn’t much thread left on any of them.  You may notice that there are no doodles in the dark green – emptying that shuttle was the signal to end the tatting for the wedding gift.  I now have a variety of butterflies, birds, fish and flowers to add to cards or whatever.  While I did this I had time to give some thought as to what to do next. 
http://www.freewebs.com/heathersdesigns/littlebuggies.htm
http://lelia-stitchesoflife.blogspot.com/2011/06/dove.html
http://www.godtland.com/tatting/Fish.pdf

I had a couple of little metal do-dads in my tatting bag and this turned out to be a good opportunity to play with them.  I made the orange and green motif first, simple and easy, in Bright Orange #695 and Lime Green #679 (Lizbeth thread, size 20).  
Then I started the green one in Lime Green #679 and Leaf Green Dark #676 (Lizbeth thread, size 20), incorporating a few beads as well as the do-dad.  This isn’t really a complicated piece but I kept getting distracted and had some issues remembering which direction I needed to make some of those chains. With all the distractions and then the light fading as the day ended this one was not finished on the trip.  It took until Friday to finally complete it.  I notice that my tension on some of the chains have something to be desired, but on the whole I think these motifs turned out pretty well.  These two motifs together are #3 in my current 25 Motif Challenge.
I mentioned last week the wedding we went to was in Scottsbluff, Nebraska, which is pretty close to Wyoming.  If any of you have traveled in this area, you know that most of Nebraska is pretty flat, and so is eastern Wyoming. That doesn’t mean there aren’t a few interesting things to see.  This is a picture taken not too far from town at Scotts Bluff National Monument.  As you can see, it’s not all flat here.  In fact, it’s rather scenic. Three historic trails followed the North Platte River through this area – the Oregon, Mormon, and California trails. This would have been quite a sight after all the flat-lands they had come through.  (By the way, the oxen in the picture aren’t real). We didn’t have a lot of time to see the Bluffs and we’d like to come back someday.
Another point of interest is Chimney Rock National Historical Site.  We stopped here on our way back – well, in the visitor’s center.  We didn’t get much closer than this.  Chimney Rock and Scotts Bluff were mentioned frequently in the journals of pioneers in days past, and by more recent visitors, too.

                                      

The time spent at the visitor’s center was well worth the $3 (US) a piece we paid (the grandkids were free).  For one, it was nice and cool inside 😉 We took pictures of the Chimney from the patio, making sure to stay on the pavement.  There are a lot of signs out warning of rattlesnakes.  The good news for us it only one has been sighted so far this year at the center.  This was an interesting place to see. I’m glad we were able to stop.

It was a long drive out there but well worth the trip.  I enjoyed a glass of iced tea today while looking through the pictures instead of tatting on this Tatting Tea Tuesday. Ah, well, maybe tomorrow 🙂


“And after many days on the close-fed plain and bluffs of earth back we came to an interesting change.  We saw a whole day’s march ahead on the plain what looked a big castle, or small mountain.  But on nearing it, we saw that it was a big tower of sand-stone far detached like an island, from the bluffs back, which had now all become of that kind of rock, high and perpendicular and strangely worn into many fantastic shapes.  The detached mass first seen is called the Chimney Rock a striking, landmark in this prairie sea. The upper, perhaps 100 feet of naked rock and the lower 50 a spreading pedestal, well grassed over.”
From The Autobiography of John Ball
Across the Plains to Oregon, 1832

Wedding gift done!

Can you believe it?  I actually got the wedding gift done in time!  
I’ve been planning this gift, a decorated photo album, for months.  To do it I had I to order the correct color threads, get Sherry’s new book, Branching Encapsulation and learn the techniques, dream up and then actually tat the design. The wedding was almost 550 miles away – do you want to guess what I was doing on the drive??  
The wedding colors were a green, on the lime side, and a bright orange.  I found that I haven’t ordered much thread  in these shades (I find I order threads in colors I like) so that was one of the first things I had to do.  After perusing the Handy Hands Lizbeth (on-line) catalog I chose Lime Green #679 and Bright Orange #695.  Reviewing my vision in my head I needed more colors so ordered Autumn Orange Medium #696, Lemon Light #614, and Leaf Green Dark #676, all in size 20.

While waiting on the threads to arrive I practiced the patterns in Sherry’s book, learning the different techniques of branching encapsulation.  As I learned them and looked forward to what was to come, I dreamed of what I wanted to do for the wedding gift. It’s amazing that my original vision for the gift resembled branching encapsulation even before I saw Sherry’s book, even if I didn’t know how I was going to accomplish it!  The closest pattern in the book to what I was dreaming of were the trees at the end of the book, so I worked hard to reach the end.

I never actually made any “trees”, I practiced on “flowers” instead.

It was quite interesting working with five different shuttles. I took the advice in the book and used a ziplock baggie to keep them all from tangling.  It was still quite a challenge, especially while traveling.  The color order of the flowers was not quite random, but pretty close.  If I had more practice time I would have made a few more leaves along the flowers and done some inter-weaving of the branches.  Whatever my “woulda, shoulda, coulda” I’m happy with how it turned out.  I think I’ll call this #2 in my current 25 Motif Challenge.

I added one of Jon’s dragonflies to the top of the album, using the Lime Green and some green seed beads.  I made a second dragonfly in the same colors to add to the gift bag. I glued it to one of those little gripper clips you put in your hair. I could kick myself – I didn’t even think to take a picture of it!  It really set off the bag, which was white and off-white with white tissue paper.  The clip was added to the handle – a little bit of color peaking out.

The wedding was in Scotts Bluff, Nebraska, and as previously mentioned, about 550 miles from where we live.  We rented a van so one of our daughters and her children, ages three and one, could go with us.  Our daughter, who travels quite a bit with her children, has one of those travel DVD players with two screens so both of the children can watch comfortably.  This is a real lifesaver if you are traveling a long distance.  But I do recommend to take more than one movie with you, for the sanity of the adults on the trip.  Children seem to be quite happy watching the same one over, and over, and over, and over…  My daughter thought I was bringing the movies with me and I thought she was bringing the movies, so we ended up with just the one in the player – Puss In Boots.  (We bought another movie in Scotts Bluff for on the way home – The Princess and the Frog.)

My grandson is a big fan of Puss in Boots.

And for those who would like to know the original story, check it out here.

“Cats know how to obtain food without labor, shelter without confinement, and love without penalties.”
W.L. George

Read more athttp://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/cats_2.html#lvYUfwVmgTEyCzil.99

Faux Tatting

A short while ago we were in a furniture store looking around, not really in the market for anything just passing time, waiting for a friend to meet us outside.  Of course, we found several things we added to our wish list….  While walking around I noticed a doily under an old-looking picture and had to take a closer look.  Both doily and picture were only there as “window dressing“, to give the place a homey look. 
This is a bit fuzzy as I took it in low light with my cell phone, but you can see why it caught my eye. 
A little bit of plastic ‘tatting’.
I wish I would have moved the frame off of it and taken a picture of the whole thing.  Plastic or not, it is a pretty pattern.  It would be interesting to try creating a “real” doily with nothing to go on but this, wouldn’t it?

My Not-So-Purple Grapes

I’m still working through Sherry’s new book, Branching Encapsulation.The next pattern to try      
was the grapes.   Again I just used the thread that was already on my shuttles so they aren’t grape-colored grapes, but they look like grapes 🙂

“Grapevine Edging” Sherry Pence © 2012

The pink and green are unknown colors in Lizbeth size 20 and Cebelia ecru in size 30.  They make for slightly odd-looking grapes, but the idea was to learn how to do them.   I only made this much of the edging but I’m pretty comfortable with the technique, even if there is room for improvement.

I’m not sure I’ll be getting the tatting done I planned on for the wedding gift.  It’s fast approaching and I still haven’t even started it yet!  They may get it as a belated gift.  They’ll have lots to open right away, maybe they’d appreciate another one a little late? You think?

“I dreamed of a wedding of elaborate elegance, a church filled with family and friends.  I asked him what kind of wedding he wished for, he said one that would make me his wife.”

from thinkexist.com