Lil bits

Wow I cant believe it has been so long since I have posted anything. This last week has been a complete blur. Time has just been slipping away and not in a good way. I have been busy working on Easter ornaments to send to my family and I have also been practicing shuttle. Wow the learning curve on a shuttle is so much more intense than needle tatting is. I am finally getting the hang of the flip a bit better. I came to the conclusion that I may never understand the how or the why it works I guess I may just have to trust that it does and be content with that. I am still super slow at it but I am guessing that speed will come with time. So far I have just been working on rings and chains. I have been looking for a good pattern to do as my first motif but I haven't really found anything.

Friday I had the greatest pleasure of meeting with one of the local tatters in my area. I ran across her web site while surfing around and reached out to her via email when I noticed she lived pretty close to me. We emailed back and forth a few times and then she invited me to meet with her and a group of ladies that get together once a week to knit. It was very nice to meet her and hear her stories of the tatting community. She has been tatting for a very long time and knows several of the "brand names" in the tatting community. Hopefully I will get to go to their next meeting so I can learn more.The good news is she said I am doing ok with my tatting so I guess I better just keep slowly plugging along!

Happy St. Pattys day

Well Happy Saint Patricks day all!! This is one of my favorite holidays because my all time favorite color is green.

Here is #9 in the 25 Motif Challenge. I actually made 6 of these to send them to my family (sshhh dont tell though cause I didn't get a chance to get them in the mail yet)  I did end up taking the pattern from Frivole and changing the counts and adding picots to come up with this pattern. It is very encouraging because I just found out that I should be able to create my own patterns so i am pretty excited. My first attempt actually ending out to be kind of cool even though it started out with a mistake.

I didn't find out that I attached one of the chains to a wrong picot until I was several elements away from the mistake. Instead of picking it all out I decided just to try to see what happens when you weave a chain under or over another one and  attach it at random places. I don't love it but it was kind of fun.

In other news...I finally made a turn in figuring out the shuttle!! I worked on it until it started to frustrate me then I went and drummed for a while to work out some aggression's and low and behold when I came back it started to make a bit more sense. I am not able to do the little flick with one finger yet but I am hoping it will come with time. I am super super slow because I basically have to let the thread fall completely off my left hand to be able to get the stitch to transfer. I hope this isnt starting a bad habit but I feel like as soon as I understand how the knot transfers I should be able to hold the thread with more control. I have made up my mind that I am going to keep trying!!

Shuttle is beating me up!!

Its been a few days since I have posted anything. Saturday night we had to work mixing a band at Quil Ceda. It was a 3 piece country band and they were pretty good so it wasnt so bad.  Somewhere along the way I have picked up a nasty cold so the last couple of days have been a pretty big struggle. I did end up going to church on Sunday because the hubby got to lead worship and for the first time in my memory his son Mark came along and played guitar and did some amazing harmonies. They sound so amazing together so I sure am glad I went.
My shuttle/thread/book order did end up showing up on Monday but I have been scared to try them out. I am not so good at trying new things, mainly because I really hate to fail at things so I am sure this has kept me from doing lots of things. Unfortunately this time my fears have been realized! This freakin shuttle gizmo is beating me up big time!! I started with trying to make a chain and that seemed to go ok. I used 2 different thread colors and that seemed to work out but then I moved onto making a ring and this little beasty is fixing to be the end of my shuttle tatting career. I am having nasty issues with only being able to see one color and getting the thread to transfer correctly. I cant seem to wrap my brain around how this works so I think it is starting to psych me out and I am probably making it harder than it really is. I have watched several youtube videos to get several different prospectives on it but that is just making things worse. I have tried using different threads but that isn't helping either. Needle tatting went so awesomely so I guess maybe I just got too cocky in thinking I could pick up shuttle as easily. I would guess at this point it is more a mental thing than anything else so I probably should give it a rest for a bit and try again later after I am not so frustrated. Wish me luck!!

No goodies yet ,25 motif challenge

So I am still waiting for my shuttles and Lizbeth thread to come. Its a good thing I haven't been holding my breath waiting because its sure taking its own sweet time. In the mean time my needles have been kept busy trying to find the perfect shamrock in honor of St Patricks day.

I do believe this makes 5, 6 , 7 and 8 of the 25 Motif Challenge. The 2 beaded ones at the top I learned from a youtube video, the link is here. One of them has picots around the outside and the other one doesn't. The video is in a foreign language but I was able to follow along. The little lone red one in the middle is a pattern by Georgia Seitz that you can find here. Its done in red because it was sitting by my work table and I was just too lazy to get up and find some green. The little lone light green one (say that fast 5 times) by the stem of the red one just didn't turn out like the picture on the pattern. For one, it was supposed to be a four leaf clover and there was no way I could squeeze another round of stitches in there. I would guess that is because of the difference of thread size,  All the rest are made from a free pattern I found at Le Blog Frivole.  These are my favorites but I was hoping to find one a bit bigger so I may try to change the counts to see if I can make them bigger.
Now I guess I just keep my fingers crossed hoping that my goodies arrive soon!

2, 3 and 4 of 25 Motif Challenge

Well it has been a few days since I have posted anything. I have been battling camera issues so I am really late at posting these picture but I guess "better late than never".  These are 2, 3, and 4 of the 25 Motif Challenge.

 These are hearts made from a free project sheet I got at a craft store. The project sheet is advertising Lizbeth thread. This is the first project I made by just reading a pattern and not by following a video. The left one is made with Bernat handicrafter thread and the green one is made from J&P Coats vintage thread. Purple and green are my favorite colors so I will probably be using the Bernat thread a lot. I really like working with the J&P thread, it doesn't pull through as easily as the shiny threads but I seem to be able to keep tension better.

 This bracelet is made from a free pattern I got off of the blog by totusmel ,  it has a link to an awesome instructables page that has lots of pictures to help along the way. She has lots of fun patterns, I am looking forward to trying them all.  I am not positive that the instructions for the end pieces are correct because I couldn't figure them out with the instructions and pictures so I had to use common cents to figure them out. Unfortunately I finished the end pieces after I had already started the main part of the bracelet so I used a different ball of thread so the 2 blacks don't match but I still like the way it turned out. The little rose on the bottom was a mess-up that I didn't know was a mess up till I got to almost the end of the pattern so it went a bit wonky. The red thread is Red Heart size 5 but the pictures really don't do justice to the nice maroon color, I am not sure what the black thread is as I got both rolls from a thrift store.

I found the pattern for these little hearts at

http://web.archive.org/web/20051026022707/http://www.frontiernet.net/~TammyRodgers/rainbow_heart_bookmark.html

They made up much bigger than I thought they would be. The red ones are the same thread as the roses above and there is more of my favorite colors. I didn't realize the heart at the bottom was laid out so wonky until I went to post it. These are not stiffened yet so I will be able to straighten it out when I get that done.

Valentines Day #1 25 Motif Challange

 I know I am super late in posting these pictures but here we go!! This is #1 of the 25 Motif Challange and it also happens to be my very first try at tatting! I live out of state from the rest of my family so I try to send them a lil something on holidays. For this valentines day I wanted to come up with something that I could attach to my first craft obsession... beading. I found a great video on youtube from onevirtuouswoman   that taught how to tat a heart and it had a link to the pattern on her facebook page. I used some vintage J&P Coats knit-cro-sheen that I inherited from my grandma so it sure made it extra special knowing that I was using my grandmas thread and learning something that my mom always wished I had learned. These ended up being so much fun to make that I made 10 of them!!

Shuttles ordered, artiste thread on sale!

Well I finally decided to just go ahead and order a couple shuttles. I even broke down and ordered a few balls of Lizbeth thread to try it. I am such an excessively frugal person so I am not sure how much I will use the more expensive threads. Even when I am sewing I end up threading my needle a million times because I try to not waste thread even though sewing thread is not awfully expensive. Sometimes the frugal-ness gets in the way of completing projects or sometimes even starting projects because something in me just doesn't want to waste my stash of goodies which kind of follows into my next issues of hoarding. I am not like the hoarders on tv (yes I am guilty of watching every episode much to the chagrin of the hubby) but I do have quite the stash of craft supplies which I can blame on my addiction to thrift store shopping which I love because I am such a frugal person (wow are you too seeing the viscous circle going on here?) . Anyway, this brings me into my next confession...I visited Hobby Lobby yesterday in hopes of finding some more supplies and lo and behold all of the artiste thread was on sale!! So the hoarder in me kind of took over and I bought almost one of every color of crochet thread in size #10 they had. So far I have just been using a Bernat #5 thread because that is what I found in my local Walmart store. I have also used some vintage J&P Coats knit-cro-sheen that I inherited from my grandma. I think if I stick with using the less expensive threads for a while until I learn a bit more I may be more likely to start more projects.
I have made up my mind, I am going to join the 25 motif challenge so I guess I better get busy and start posting pictures of my projects huh? Maybe tomorrow!