Cruising

My husband and I tried something new last week – we went on a cruise to Alaska.
This trip was taken with several of my husband’s family, making us a group of eleven.  My sister-in-law and her husband are the only ones to have been on cruises before in the Gulf of Mexico, and none of us have ever been to Alaska.  It was a week of new experiences all around.
My husband and I flew out to Seattle a day early so we could see some of the city before we sailed.  We spent Saturday doing a lot of walking, trying to see as much as possible in the time we had.  That was fun! We spent some time in Pike’s Place at the fish market and the shops down there.  We took a picture of the original Starbucks from outside for our daughter (there were so many people we couldn’t go inside) and stopped at a couple more for coffee.  They really are everywhere up there!  They make great places to stop and rest for awhile. 
Everyone else arrived Saturday evening. We all stayed at the same hotel so we could all go together to the ship on Sunday.  It is quite a challenge to organize even that many people to be ready to go at the same time.
I’m very glad that tatting is so portable.
You notice how dressed up I am?  My husband and I figured we were going to Alaska so we would dress comfortably and fit right in 🙂
I couldn’t think of any patterns I wanted to work on during the trip so I just made sure I had a some thread and several shuttles.  I didn’t tat a whole lot for the first few days – there were so many things to do on the ship!  But I had it with me all the time.
To start with I decorated a few buttons and did an short edging to put on the card holder on my lanyard.  I wore this all the time on the ship.  It had my room key, tatting, crochet hook and scissors, the schedule of events on board for the day, receipts, a pen and cash for when we went ashore.  You see that it was the last day of the cruise before I realized I didn’t have a picture of it.
I gave this button away to one of our servers who had been very interested in what I was doing.  The server was very happy with it.  I hadn’t realized that the schedule I used as the background was from day six instead of seven until later.  
Be fore-warned: there will be a lot of pictures from our vacation in the coming weeks. It was a great week with many, many beautiful things to see.  I haven’t even gone through all the pictures yet , but I’m looking forward to enjoying our vacation all over again as I do.

“We travel not to escape life, but for life not to escape us.”
Anonymous 

Mandy in Autumn Spice

I don’t usually make the same pattern more than once at a time, preferring to go on to other things or change it up in some way. It’s true this time, too, mostly.  Yes, this is ‘Mandy’ again – without any changes except thread color! – and this post is right after one where I talk about ‘Mandy’ in orange and brown.  But I didn’t tat them one after the other, I just finished sewing them to the table runners one after the other. 
‘Mandy’ Edging © Wanda Salmans 2015
Lizbeth #136 Autumn Spice in size 10
About the only things I sew are table runners, but I love shopping for material. I have quite the stash to prove it, too.  I usually have at least a vague idea of what I would like to tat for each material when it’s purchased whether I ever get to it or not. When I do get to making the edgings I try to match the pattern to the material as well as the thread. Sometimes this takes a while and sometimes everything just falls into place.

‘Mandy’ Edging © Wanda Salmans 2015
Lizbeth #136 Autumn Spice in size 10

The edging for this runner kind of came as a surprise.  I had another thread and another pattern in mind for it, this one was actually for something else. But when I laid this edging close to the material I couldn’t believe how well the colors went together.  Plans changed right away. In a good way!
This table runner is the same size as the other one, 12 inches by just over 40 inches. I don’t know if you’re into roosters or not, but this runner looks pretty good!
“As with anything creative, change is inevitable.”
Enya
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Mandy in orange and brown

A couple of months ago I made this ‘Mandy’ edging in orange and brown.  I finally have it stitched on the runner.
‘Mandy’ Edging © Wanda Salmans 2015
 Lizbeth #694 Harvest Orange Medium and #692 Mocha Brown Dark size 10
The picture doesn’t show very well how good the thread goes with the material – lighting? angle? background? – but in person the two are a great match.

Here it is again showing a bit of the material that is the backing of the runner. It shows it off a bit better than the other background. 
The runner is 12 inches wide and a little over 40 inches long. I’m very pleased with how this turned out. 
I also finished adding ‘Finn’ to the runner I started last week. That took a lot longer to sew on than this did.  I like both patterns but I like this one much better when it comes to sewing it down because it went so much faster.  But if I had a choice between sewing by hand or doing any kind of housework the sewing would win hands down!
“I’d rather be stitchin’
than in the kitchen!”
Author Unknown
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Odds and ends

It has been a busy week, both at home and at work. At home there are several things coming up that I have to get ready for – including a craft show – and I’ve been putting in a lot of overtime at work.  Evidence of this can be seen at my house (it’s a mess!).  After a while a person gets tired, body and mind, and it’s hard to keep track of what needs to be done.  Or have the energy to do those things you know needs to be done!
In spite of being tired I’ve actually gotten a lot of tatting in – as the passenger in the car, sitting in waiting rooms – but none of my projects are at a place I want to take pictures and share.  But I like posts with pictures in them so I’m sharing a doily I made a long time ago.  I can’t honestly say who’s pattern this is, whether it’s from some book or other or one of mine. Anyone recognize it??  (Please let me know!)  I think the thread is size 30 but what color or brand I couldn’t tell you. The cup and shuttle were found in antique stores, the cup just recently, the shuttle several years ago.  I don’t try to tat with the shuttle as the points have something to be desired.  Let’s just say it looks very well used (but I couldn’t resist buying it anyway).

In the midst of all my busy-ness, several things happened this week that I am pretty excited about.  One of them is the prospect of giving tatting lessons in a month or so.  There is a quilting guild (club?) that meets in the fellowship hall of our church once a month.  I needed to pick up some things from the hall this week while they were there and one of them asked if I would be interested in giving lessons. (!!☺!!) Several of the ladies showed interest.  Now we just need to agree to a date and time.
The other thing I got excited about this week was tatting I saw on a shirt.  There was a lady in the waiting room at the doctor’s office wearing a shirt that was covered in tatting.  It was all the way around the collar, all the way down the front with the buttons, it was across the top of a pocket.  And then there were four (?) large butterflies in various places. I asked the wearer if she had tatted it all but, no, she had picked it up at a garage sale. (!!)  I wanted to take a picture of it but the lady was filling out paperwork and I didn’t want her to think I was trying to steal her information, so the opportunity for a picture was lost.  But it was an impressive display of tatting. 

These bookmarks are not the impressive display of tatting as I wanted them to be. I had this idea to decorate these cards with scrapbook paper roses but also with some tatting.  Nothing I tried seemed to work, nothing looked right.  So I added the thread at the top and gave them to my mom and her sisters for Mother’s day anyway.  There are only so many hours in a day and I ran out of time (and imagination).  But I do have more of the rose paper and plan on trying again another day.
Now back to being busy.
“I put my heart and my soul into my work, and have lost my mind in the process.”
Vincent Van Gogh
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Finn on the edge

Now comes the hard part – sewing an edging to the material.
At least it is for me.
The fun is in the tatting – and the end result when it’s completely on the material.  The actual sewing-on is slow.

‘Finn’ edging © Wanda Salmans
I had trouble making up my mind which side of the tatting would be ‘up’, or sewed to the material.  Originally it was supposed to be the other way ’round.  I took a picture of it on my phone both ways  so I could quickly go back and forth to make the decision.
‘Finn’ edging © Wanda Salman close up
When making the edging the rings with only one picot were going to be attached to the material.  Having decided the other side looked better put me in a bind as to how to sew it on.  Laying the rings on top of the material instead of at the edge looks great but it also means sewing each picot down as well as a stitch right at the edge of the material.
Having to flip to the back-side for every stitch to make sure the backing didn’t get caught is a real pain.  It will be worth it but makes the stitching go even slower than usual.
It will be worth it, it will be worth it, it will be worth it.
If said often enough will it make it go easier and faster?
I have a bag with lots of doodles (okay, all over the house I have doodles….) from the tail end of projects, those little bits of thread left on a shuttle that I hate to throw away but isn’t enough to do much with except make butterflies and flowers out of. I was trying to come up with different ways and places to use them when I had a thought.  I don’t know that it was a good one but I have so many of these doodles that will never get used that I’m not wasting anything except maybe my time.
The idea is to make the tatting look like it is part of the wood or metal. These are wooden pieces but I thought maybe it could work on metal as well.  I have some plain metal picture frames that I thought would look cool to have ‘metal’ tatting on them.  I’m not there yet but I’m going to try again.  
If nothing else it’s a fun experiment.
What do you think?
“I love fools’ experiments. I am always making them.”
Charles Darwin
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Happy on the edge

Yes, after taking a break and working on other things I’m happily back to working on edgings.  One day very soon I’m going to have to start attaching them to the material part of the runners, but I’m so much happier tatting them than sewing them down!
‘Finn’ © Wanda Salmans 2015
‘Finn’ was made with DMC #437 Tan LT in size 10 (it always looks more gold to me than tan).
The pattern is actually one I came up with a few years ago to edge a Christmas stocking I made for an Advent gift exchange. I changed it up only by adding another row to make it a deeper edging.
I posted about this here for a December 2010 Advent swap

The stocking edging was made in white size 20.  I liked it but never jotted it down anywhere because I was in a hurry getting things made for Christmas.  I thought of this pattern a week or so ago and decided to try it again.  Yes, I plan on writing out the pattern but, no, I haven’t yet.

I’m actually pretty happy with myself lately.  I’ve actually been using patterns I already have instead of starting from scratch on new designs every time.  Not that I haven’t made changes to about every one of them in some manner or another, but I’ve based them on patterns that already existed.  I say happy in that designing from scratch usually takes more time than using one that’s already been done, and I really need to put the time into the tatting instead of the designing.  Now if a pattern just comes to mind that’s great and I go with it, but right now I just need to get some edgings done.

But I really need to start sewing them down soon. Happiness is a finished table runner!

“Happiness is not something you postpone for the future; it is something you design for the present.”
Jim Rohn
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Experimenting with lapel pins

Funny how things happen when you get in a hurry. 
Today I was in such a hurry to get the pictures uploaded that I posted instead of saving. 
So, here are a couple of my experiments with lapel pins. 
The pins seemed very long so the first one I tried I bent a bit and added beads. 
Not too bad for a hat/lapel pin. 

The next one I left straight and made it a bit more simple. It is pretty long.

I think it looks nice but I think I need to do a little more experimenting. 
“The only source of knowledge is experience.”
Albert Einstein 
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Simple gifts

I took a page out of Diane’s book 🙂 and added buttons to several headbands.  Diane talks about some of hers in this post on her blog Lace-lovin’ Librarian.  She’s been crocheting around buttons but I put tatting around mine instead.
I have tatted around buttons before but never thought to put them on this kind of hair accessory.  It adds a little something to these bright but plain headbands that’s quick and simple.  And fun.  They were gifted to my daughters and granddaughters for Easter.
Last year I tatted around buttons when I made Easter eggs.  This year I put a few of them on paper clips as simple gifts for my mother and her sisters.  They make really great toppers for them.
On a sad note a friend of mine lost an aunt the week before Easter.  I gave him one of my go-to sympathy gifts of a cross bookmark which was put inside the card.  

As usual I just had to try for something a little different.  This cross is made in Lizbeth #115 Springtime in size 20. I’m not that happy with this pattern, probably because I had trouble making it even though it is a simple pattern.  I was a little distracted and I kept making mistakes.  And I’m not sure I like the center.  It did turn out better than I thought once it was blocked, which straightened it out.  I should have joined each arm to the center in more than the one place to make it a bit more stable.   Maybe next time.

Do you have any favorite things you give for simple gifts?

“Every gift from a friend is a wish for your happiness.”
Richard Bach
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Disclaimer: There were no books hurt in the production of this blog post

Paper and lace Easter egg

I was visiting Carolyn’s blog ‘Shopping My Stash’ and saw how she has been tatting on paper, recently dong Easter eggs.  I thought it looked like fun and decided to try it myself
Paper and lace Easter egg
The cross in the center is a sticker, the thread is Lizbeth Ecru #603 in size 20.
It’s a simple project that took me forever to get going.  First I decided to buy a 1/8″ punch for the holes.  The day after I bought one I found I already had one, in an unopened package no less.  Then I decided on the cross for the center and had to find paper and thread that worked with it.  This had me going through my scrap-booking paper to find that the ones that I liked the best were not on card stock.  I did eventually find paper I liked that would work.  When I finally made my choices and cut the paper I ruined one of them by not paying close enough attention to where I punched the holes.  As you can see on this one I could have paid closer attention to punching these holes, as well, but they are much better than the previous one.
I obviously wasn’t thinking things through when I started tatting on this.  On the first ring I made the first picot pretty short (which will be the final join) but the third picot long enough to reach the ring that will be in the next hole.  Why I didn’t fix that first picot I don’t know, but it became an issue in the end, of course.  I faked it at the end, and though it’s visible, I don’t think it came out too bad.  I added a loop of narrow ecru ribbon at the top so it can be hung up.  Originally I had thought to make an extra ring at the top to hang it from, but I didn’t like the look when I tried it. 
I am pleased with how it came out.  I also have a better idea of what I’m going to do if I make any more of these.  Or anything similar.  Thank you, Carolyn, for the inspiration and the tips on this paper and lace project.
I’m thinking about doing a few of these with old Christmas cards and giving them to family and close friends as my yearly ornament. If I start now I might have a few done in time.  It depends on how hard it is to pick out the thread…
I ended up giving this to a friend of mine whose aunt had died the week before Easter.  I also gave him a tatted cross bookmark, my usual sympathy gift.  It just seemed appropriate.
“A portion of your soul has been entwined with mine. A gentle kind of togetherness, while separate we stand. As two trees deeply rooted in separate plots of ground, while their topmost branches come together, forming a miracle of lace against the heavens.”
Janet Miles
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Tatting in the dark

Remember when I added tatting to several lamps shades?
I posted about them several times, here, here and here.
 I had gone to a bit of work to come up with a way to show it off , finally decorating cans.  I like how they turned out, but they didn’t give out a lot of light, more of a glow. 
I ended up using one of the lamp shades this weekend but displayed it a little differently.
This is a Dollar Store goblet with the puck light inside.  It’s a smaller puck light than the ones I had tried last time, but it turns on the same, by pressing the center.  The goblet puts an interesting pattern on the shade, doesn’t it?  It also allows it to be quite a bit brighter.  What a way to show tatting in the dark.
Why didn’t I think of this sooner?
Okay, I saw the idea on Pinterest, but it was saying to use tea lights.  I’m sure this is a bit brighter than using a tea light. 
And I wanted brighter.
Because we didn’t have any power.
A thunderstorm went through the area early, early Friday morning (April 3) and did a lot of damage to some of the area.  We were fortunate that we only had a bit of rain and not all the strong winds that hit not very far from here.  But we did loose power for 22 hours.  Which isn’t bad, as the electric company was projecting over three days before power would be restored. 
This put a kink in our weekend, to say the least.  My husband got out the generator and we rotated what got plugged in – well house, refrigerator, freezer, etc. We grilled our lunch and went out for supper Friday.  We were prepared for no electric for several days but were very happy it came on sooner. 
But everything I was going to do Friday pretty much didn’t happen.  And then Saturday we celebrated Easter over at one of our daughter’s house, which was for most of the day.  There was no time Sunday to do everything we had planned for the long weekend, so lots of things didn’t get done.
But that’s okay. We are okay, didn’t have any damage, had a wonderful time visiting family and had a blessed Easter.
That’s a lot of light to go with the dark.
“I will love the light for it shows me the way, yet I will endure the darkness for it shows me the stars.”
Og Mandino
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