Tuesday, July 19, 2016

Another decision

Looks like it is going to be another day where I cant seem to get going. Its been 5 whole days since I have touched a craft project.  I enjoyed working on the last 2 doilies because they take so long to finish therefore I don't have to decide what the next project is.  Right now we are also between holiday seasons so I cant base my next craft project, be it tatting, beading, plastic canvas or cross stitch, on what holiday is next.  I have been trying to find the perfect baby announcement cross stitch pattern to do for some really good friends that are expecting their first baby in September. So far I have not been able to find one.  They don't have a nursery plan yet so I cant base the choice on the decor of the room but I cant wait much longer to start or the birth announcement may become a graduation gift. 
I was pretty excited to see my new shuttles and Lizbeth thread in the mail late yesterday but now I cant seem to find a project to do. I have been trying to find something I can do on the plane because we are leaving tomorrow to go back home for a visit. Really the only pattern I have memorized is the little stars I did and I am pretty sure I don't want to do any more of those for a while. I am pretty sure I wont have time to look for a new doily to do so I am hoping something will hit me soon. I am looking forward to trying out my new shuttle so...come on inspiration!!

Monday, July 18, 2016

Doily finished!!

Well there is another weekend in the books.  It was a pretty fun weekend but very exhausting.  We worked production at The Bite of Seattle.This is a food festival that involves over 60 different food and craft vendors and 5 different stages that have live bands that play 40 minutes and they start every hour on the hour.   Our part involved setting up the stage  and then being responsible for getting different bands set up and then playing a 40 minute set which means we had 20 minutes to get one band completely off the stage and the next band set up and sound checked. Set up day was all day Thursday and then the bands played Friday, Saturday and Sunday from noon to 9pm and Sunday night was tear down and loading out of all the sound equipment and backline gear we provided.  We have worked this show for the last 6 years and its always been a highlight of the year.
I cant seem to get going on anything today. I could probably chalk that up to being tired after such a long weekend but I think its more of a matter of being lazy and not wanting to make a decision on what project to start next.  I finished my Renulek 2014 doily just before leaving for the festival. I ended up finding several mistakes in the second to the last row so i got my first taste of cutting out 5 inches of elements and then un-tatting several inches so I could tie on in the middle of a row. That was sure not my idea of a fun time tatting as it was hiding lots of ends but it seems to have gone ok.  I decided to end this doily at row 11 because I would have done the next rows in the maroon color and that thread seems to be just enough bigger that it caused major bunching in row 8. I used 3 different brands of thread on this one and I am going to call this a lesson learned not to make that mistake again! I still need to clip all the ends off and starch it but this completes my second attempt at a doily.


Wednesday, July 13, 2016

Motif 18 and 19...Foreigner

Time has absolutely just been flying by. I am almost afraid to blink because it is going by so quickly.  The hubby was off work for a week for a company vacation/shutdown and we had a big long list of honey-do's to get done around the house.  The biggest project we tackled and completed was stripping and staining our 2000 square foot deck including deck and railings. We did several other small projects one of which was finally mailing off my 4th of July projects I had been working on for a while now.  I actually had them mostly completed over a month earlier but once again I sent them out in the mail late so they didn't quite make it by the 4th.


These are #18 in the 25 motif challenge. I made 6 of these which means I made 18 of the little stars.  The pattern is called Twinkle Twinkle by Joelle Paulson and it is a very fun pattern to complete. I first tried it with a needle and then I tried the shuttle and I found I liked the way the shuttle one turned out so I ended up doing them all with a shuttle. I am going to call the little star done with the needle motif  #19.

We have also done some pretty fun shows in the last couple weeks.  During the long 4th of July weekend we worked a couple shows at Quil Ceda casino.  These bands were all local bands and most of them were pretty good and not too bad to work. This last weekend we worked an amazing show that was a ton of work but well worth it!


We worked complete production on the Foreigner show!!  We set up absolutely everything needed to put on the show.  The only thing we didn't set up was the stage as it was already set up.  This show involved loading and unloading two 56 foot trucks that were loaded from floor to ceiling with gear and then setting up all the gear.  It also involved working with Foreigners road crew loading and unloading and setting up the bands full sized semi-truck that was loaded  floor to ceiling with all their gear. The show was awesome and the whole crew was a lot of fun to work with so it was a pretty good weekend.
I had also been working on my doily. I had thought I was making pretty good time on the last couple rows but I found out that I had made several mistakes in row 10. I had started on row 11 when I realized about 13 elements in that I had joined that row wrong so I had to cut it all off. I found right away that I had also forgot to add 4 floating rings in row 10. Thankfully I had recently read a comment from muskaan (thanks tons muskaan) about adding a  left off floating ring so I as able to add these without too much grief it just took lots of time. I am hoping that the next couple rows go better.