Easter plastic canvas and doily

Happy Friday! Here we are at another weekend and another week in the memory bank. Ok, probably not so much in the memory, more like gone to the annals of the lost and gone. The week has gone by in somewhat of a blur but from what I remember I didn't get a much tatting done.  I did however finish an Easter project in plastic canvas.  The pattern was on sale so I splurged and bought it. You can find it here.

Thinking back I guess I did finish another row on my doily. I did employ the same method of adding a tiny picot between a couple of rings in this row that looking back on the last doily has a tendency to flip and be a bit wobbly.  The little picots seems to have helped with this problem.  As you can see my kitty was lots of help while taking pictures.

 I don't expect I will get too much tatting done this weekend as I am working a show at a casino and I will be holding odd hours but hopefully it will be a good weekend none the less.

Thanks Muskaan and magic loops

I had been been working on row 5 of my doily which are the little flower motifs when I happened to read a post from Muskaan on my previous post. WOW and past WOW!! I have literally spent hours being lost in her blog. The information on her site is invaluable and it literally shouts out her love and dedication to tatting! A huge giant shout out from the roof tops at the top of my lungs goes out to her for the amazingness of her site and willingness to share her talents and learning's!
She has shared lots of info about this exact doily. I wish I would have read the info before I started row 4 because she make the flowers before and then joins them during the construction of row 4. Way too late for that but I will be making use of that tip the next time I make this pattern.  I was however able to make use of the tiny joining picots she does when making the flowers unfortunately I had already gotten through the majority of doing them. So now I am at a dilemma as to whether or not to cut off the wiltey, tweaked looking flowers and re-due them.

I needed a big shuttle to start the next row on my doily and I couldn't find one that didn't have thread on it already.  The hoarder in me took over and wouldn't let me just unwind the thread and throw it away (even though I normally use cheaper thread) so I decided to tat a little motif to use the thread.  I decided to return to where it all began...my first tatting project.  My first project was a little heart done with a needle that I had found the tutorial on youtube. The tutorial and pattern can be found here.
Can I just say I am very thankful for magic loops! I am fairly certain I wouldn't have been able to complete this motif without them. I am going to call this motif #9 because the last time I did this pattern I used a needle and this time I used a shuttle.

Heres to hoping its a good weekend! I know it is going to be an extremely busy one for us...more on that later because I need to buckle in and get it started!

Happy St. Patricks Day!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!! I am very happy to announce that I actually got all my holiday projects in the mail and they were actually all received on time. I made 12 of these little celtic-knot shamrock clovers.  The pattern is from Merilee Rockley and can be found here.

I am quite obsessed with celtic knots so I was very excited to try this pattern out. Thankfully I had purchased the book "Celtic Tatting by Rozella F Linden" that had the instructions on how to weave the knot as those instructions aren't included in Marilee's pattern.  The only draw back to this pattern is that it is done in 2 passes so that means weaving lots of ends. I didn't love the little stem so I changed it up a bit by employing the same concept I used in making my pumpkin stems.  I still had a shuttle loaded from doing the Christmas trees so I used that shuttle to do the first one and I had every intention to change the color to a different green but I got a bit obsessed with making these and completely forgot to. So by the time I goth through making these I was more than ready to move on from this Artiste #10 thread in Emerald Green. I am going to consider these #8 in the 25 motif challenge.

St Patrick's has always been a fun and crafty holiday to me.  This year I made 3 little Leprechaun seeker kits to send to my kids and parents. They are kind of cheezy but I believe it lets my family know that I think about them.

I hope you all have a fun St. Patrick's day. 

Don't Forget to wear your Green!!

Rain, Doily and Garter

It has been a super rainy dreary week so far, thankfully its been a bit warmer than it has been but that is probably due to the fact that it is so overcast. The warmer has been much nicer but the dreary has done nothing to improve the depressed, more than sad mood I have been in. I have pretty much just sat on the couch either just in a state of stupor or trying to tat.
I have made it through the next row of my doily without too many issues.  I believe I have only had to un-tat one ring and one chain so that is the good news.  The next row is proving to be a bit of a challenge.  I cant, for love or money remember how I did the little 5 petal flowers that this involves.  I still have the last doily I did, yes I know I still haven't posted a final picture of it yet but I am glad I haven't trimmed the thread ends off yet. I have tried to study the last doily to see if I could figure out how I did them but that is not working so well.  I then turned to my blog to see if I could find any tips.  I am very glad I didn't read back through old posts before I started this doily again because I must have blocked out of my memory how much this doily fought me. Now I am kind of remembering the last one fought me so badly because I wasn't paying close attention to joins so moving forward I will just take this one slow and pay more attention.  I didn't find any tips about the flowers so I am hoping it will just come to me.

Laying this out flat I just found out that the second row is bunching up quite badly. I am trying to figure out why and if I do this pattern again what I can do to avoid it the next time.  I am almost wondering if I tatted row 3 too tight and made the joining picots too short.  Row 4 seems to be ok.  I have actually pulled the chains in this doily fairly tight so  maybe I didn't pull the chains as tightly in row 3.  Its sure times like these I wish there was a tatting group in my area or tatting classes that I could attend that I could learn more tips and tricks.
I have also spent a bit of time on the internet trying to come up with a pattern that will work to do a garter for my sister.  She is getting married in a couple weeks so I was hoping to be able to make her something.  I have been trying to come up with a pattern that I can run a blue ribbon through to give her the "something blue".  I found this bookmark pattern on pinterest that I added picots to but so far I am not loving the way it is turning out.

 I am not sure if the garter will even stay in place with just the tie so this project may be a bit more than I can accomplish in the time allotted but I guess I wont know that till I try. I am at the point right now that I need to make a decision whether to finish this one off or move on to another pattern. Almost all of my shuttles are being used on other projects so I am not sure what to choose.  I like the Aerlit shuttle I am using right now on this one but it doesn't hold much thread so that means lots of hiding ends which is annoying because I am not so good at it. Decision, decisions, decisions!!  AGGHHH!!!

New craft project

Another weekend bites the dust! This weekend was the first in a very long time that we didn't have to work. Most of it was spent just chillin but some of it was spent trying to finish the St Patricks gifts that I have been working on.  I don't want to post a picture of the kits until after they are received but I am happy to announce that I ended up starting and actually completing two new craft projects.
I had purchased a set of metal stamp punches some time ago but I had been afraid of trying them out...until now!

I made these to put in my St Patricks kits.  I used pennies with the birth year of everyone I sent them to except my parents, those I had to just use shiny ones. They were fairly simple to do so, YES I will be trying to do more metal stamping.

I also made a couple tshirts from an idea I found on pintrest.  These were super simple to make and I think they turned out pretty cute.  I made one for each of the grand kids. I got them in the mail a bit late so I hope they make it in time!

next project

Well it appears I have made it through the weekend and now we are well on our way through the week.  Its been one of those weeks where I am doing my best to keep my mind occupied otherwise I will end up rocking in the corner sucking my thumb (figuratively not literally).  I spent almost one whole day cruising the internet looking for my next craft project.  The problem is I have several new projects I would like to try my hand at but I really have a problem with starting something new because of my fear of failing so its easier to not even begin. The problem with that is I always end up beating myself up for not being able to start something new. Its quite the viscous circle and one that I cant seem to break. When I think about trying something new and then try to research it the anxiety rises and I let it get the better of me.  I literally have a huge craft room full of supplies just waiting to become something awesome but the anxiety gets the better of me so I end up just closing the door and running away. 
Since I desperately needed something to keep my mind occupied I finally settled on just starting another doily.  I decided on the same pattern as the one I just completed which is the Renulek wiosna 2015. 

I remember the doily being quite fun in some rows so this one is probably the easiest to do again.  I believe I am just going to use black and purple on this one.  The thread is artiste size 10 in black and wild berry.  Unfortunately right out of the gate in row 2 I missed doing a join so I ended up ripping out one large motif.  Of course I ended up breaking a thread on trying to loosen a ring that didn't have any picots in it.  Not such a good start so far but I am hoping I got the mistake out of the way early so I wont have to deal with any more! Fingers crossed!!

#6 and #7 motifs

Happy Friday! I am not really sure how it got to be Friday again, here lately it seems that I keep losing days out of my week.  Fridays always seem to sneak up and I am left wondering how I keep losing days of the week.  It is becoming quite scary so I hope I can figure it out soon.
I have been pretty busy the last couple of weeks working on my next family holiday motifs.  I have already gotten most of my Saint Patricks day motifs done so I am hoping I will actually get them in the mail way before March 17th.  Don't congratulate me just yet as I seem to always wait way too long to get them in the mail but I am going to try! As always I will post a picture of the project after I get them in the mail.

I have also been working on the Easter motifs and they are actually coming along quite nicely.  In my endeavor to come up with a pattern I first was thinking I would do little baskets.  I couldn't seem to find any patterns until I had an epiphany that I could just take a round pattern and shape it around a bowl and then starch it.  I then remembered that I hadn't finish my last doily and I remembered it had a fun round motif in the middle of that pattern so I actually found the doily and finally finished that project off. It is not completely finished as I still need to clip threads so I will photograph it later and post it soon. After all, that project has taken so stinkin long to complete that waiting for a few more days to post it only seems fitting!

I did try making a basket out of the center motif of the doily which is the Wiosna 2015 Renulek doily. I found that by using the same length picots instead of joining picots in the very center of the motif it actually formed a bowl all on its own but this pattern is just not suitable to adding a handle too. I then decided that going the basket route would not be the best idea because they would be a real pain to try to ship in the mail. Not sure what I will do with this little bowl but its kind of cute.

 After finishing the motif off I still had quite a bit of thread left on my shuttles. I used a thread that I found in goodwill so I am not sure what brand the thread is but it is not so fun to work with.  I hate to waste anything so I wanted to come up with a little motif that would use the remaining thread on the shuttles. As always I turned to the 25 motif challenge to draw inspiration. Well I decided to jump on the Ice Drop train! 

This pattern is pretty easy to follow so I am not sure how I ended up getting off on the counts but apparently it is pretty easy to do because I did it! When it came time to close up the motif and insert the drop I found that the small drop was too small and the big drop was way too big. It took me a bit to figure out what I did wrong because I was using a bigger thread than what is called for so I knew I would be off but I ended up only making 5 rings instead of the called for 6 rings.  I spent a little time looking around the yard to try to find a stone that would fit but I didn't have any luck.  I am fairly certain I should be able to come up with a stone to fit so a trip to the beach may be in order, a place where I know flat round stones to be plentiful.  This is a time where my hoarding tendencies will come in handy...I have enough shuttles hoarded that I can just leave those attached until I can find a stone to fit.  I will be trying the Ice Drop again and I highly recommended that if you haven't tried one yet, well jump on board! Thank you Diane for sharing your talents, her tutorial can be found here.

We have a pretty busy weekend coming up.  We will be working shows at the casino both tonight and tomorrow night and we will probably spend some of Sunday recovering from both shows. It is supposed to rain all weekend so I guess its a good time to work.  I always try to remember to take my tatting with me to the shows because if the bands hurry and get set up early I get time to do a bit of tatting. Here's to hoping that the weekend goes well for everybody!