I guess it's not going to be a surprise that I am posting this late but it may be a surprise to learn that I actually sent my halloween dodads out for them to at least arrive on time! Considering all the crap that has been happening lately I will say both of these cancel each other out so I won't count either as a win or a loss.
As I have mentioned , several times in the past, I am having massive trouble finding tatting ideas for my holiday doodads. Therefore I am very happy to announce that this tatting motif is my own creation! I have done cats, bats, ghosts and spiders so the only thing left I could think of would be a witch. I did find one picture of a tatted witch on the internet but it didn't have a pattern with it so I used the picture as a general idea for mine.
Here is my first try but I didn't like the hat so I decided to change it a bit. I don't absolutely love the way she turned out but I am not very good at changing counts to make it better so I just rolled with what I had.
I knew I wanted a dark purple to do my witch with but the only dark thread I had was Artiste thread called plum . This particular color thread is not great to work with as it tends to get fuzzy and you can't really get the stitches tight. I am not sure why this particular ball is so bad because normally I like Artiste so I wonder if this roll was mismarked because it also looks different than my other balls. Thankfully I was able to close the rings fairly easily and it wasn't as terrible to work with as I remembered but it just doesnt look as clean as some of my other projects. I did end up having to starch these because the skirt was a bit floppy. I had run out of glitter glue and I wanted to add a bit of pizzaz to my witch because the color was so dark so I tried adding regular glitter to gel glue. It really didn't work out so well; partly because the flakes are too big with regular glitter and I used dollar store glue but I just kept using my mixture because I just can't waste things and I have a hard enough time trying to finish up projects so I just kept carrying on so I could get them done and in the mail. I ended up making 13 of these but I only ended up sending out 9 of them.
So this is also an introduction to my new obsession...die cutting! I kept seeing the original red sizzix machines in goodwill so I finally broke down and brought one home not realizing that was the beginning of my next hoarding issue! I actually just bought it because I needed to create felt numbers for a project I am working on for christmas and it was going to be cheaper to buy the machine and the dies I needed than it would have been to buy already cut ones or spending tons of time cutting them out by hand. Soon after I found the red machine I found a big shot that ended up following me home. It took me quite a while to even try out either machine, I had purchased tons of dies at goodwill before I even tried to use it. Let me tell you it was a bit of a challenge trying to get the dies to cut correctly so I ended up spending quite a bit on accessories ( I bought new) for the machines just to get them to work ok. It makes me quite sick to my stomach thinking about how much I have spent on dies but I keep seeing them at goodwill and my hoarding nature takes over so I buy them. Not only are they expensive but the old dies take up lots of space. For the amount of money I have spent I am wishing I would have just bought a new cruicut. I am also finding that I may not ever use the dies I bought because the last couple of cards I made I ended up buying new dies to make the cards anyway.
Below is my first die cut project I made. I did have to buy the die so I could get these done in a timely manner. I made these as thank yous for Mom Pat's funeral guests. You can't really see on either of the pictures of the cards but I used the decorative scissors on the outer edge of each card and colorful gel pens we got from Mom Pat to sign each one. The little tatted heart is the same pattern I used for my Valentines dodads in 2016 and you can find the pattern by onevirtuouswoman here. Pats favorite color was blue and she loved to read so I thought a blue bookmark in a heart shape (to let everyone know that she will always be in our hearts) would be appropriate.
My second die cut project was the halloween cards. I just now ordered the die I will use for my Thanksgiving cards. I was hoping to find some dies that I really liked but I wasnt able to find any that I liked more than the one I found on Amazon so I just had to spend money on something that I really didnt love. Now wish me luck that my order will get here in a timely fashion and I will be able to get my doodads out in time!
