Happy Halloween!!

 

Well look at that, its actually Halloween and I am actually posting about my holiday dodads. Its been a while since I have been able to say that so I will count this as a win.

 I know I have already done a cat for a Halloween motif but I am running out of ideas, so I ended up doing another one. This is a pattern called Small Stretching Cat Down and it’s another one by Jane Eborall that you can find here. It is a pretty fun pattern to do because it has lots of split rings.

I first tried these in grey but when I went to look for a beaded doodad idea to attach with it I decided to do a witch hat so I went with purple Artiste #10 thread called wild berry (why did they call it berry I wonder?) to give it a bit more color. I also tried one without the eye but I didn’t much like that one so here is what I ended up deciding on…

 I ended up making 17 of these (not including the 2 samples) but I only sent 9 of them out. I kept hoping that we would be able to either have friends over for a Halloween dinner or that we would do our “normal” tradition of going to friend house to carve pumpkins and dinner but thanks to Covid that didn’t happen. So, I will just put all the extras together with the ones from previous years and maybe come up with another idea to give them out.

I have actually had these done for a while now but of course we waited till the last minute to send some of them out. I had spent the last couple months thinking “I am going to get these in the mail early” but thinking and doing are pretty much on the polar opposites for me right now. I think most of the ones I put in the mail at least made it on time. But the better news on this one is that my parents were actually here around the middle part of October so they were able to take most of them back home with them and deliver them for me. I also was able to send back some Halloween goodies for my kiddos and grand-kiddos since they probably won’t be able to go out trick or treating this year which is kind of a big bummer since it falls on a Saturday. But maybe good news because its also a full moon tonight which always seems to bring out more craziness!

The card idea was mine. I actually started out with it saying “ whats the scariest thing about 2020..Covid, being out of toilet paper or the thought of Trump winning the election” but only part of our family would think that was funny so I changed it to something a bit friendlier. I usually stay out of politics but this election is going to be extremely critical so I hope you will all remember to vote!

 I also hope everyone has a Happy Halloween and that everyone will do it safely!!

Cruise dolphins

 

I don’t think I even want to bother counting the days I have been social distancing/self quarantining in fact I would be hard pressed to even guess what month we are in. I haven’t had much luck in finding a job. Most days I have my hands full just trying to convince myself things are going to be ok. I have been trying to keep my mind occupied with doing craft projects, but I have still been having massive problems trying to start new ones. I have been doing quite a bit of cross stitch, a bit of tatting but not a whole lot of beading and way way too much time on pintrest looking for patterns. I had done a cross stitch for one of my grand babies and had totally forgot about that until I ran across a picture of it. Since then we have had 2 new grand babies, so I figured I better get on the ball and get a couple more done for the rest of the grand kids. For a couple of them I just ordered a kit but some of them I found patterns on pintrest because hoarder me has a stash of fabric and thread. The problem with some patterns is that you have to pick your own colors and on some of them I had to change a couple things on the pattern, so I have spent hours and hours looking for patterns, colors and making changes.

I can’t post about the cross stitch stuff yet because they aren’t all done yet and I don’t want to spoil the surprise but I can post about my last tatting project that got handed out. Since it is such a long time until the next holiday I wanted to come up with another project to do to let people know that I am thinking about them.  Since nobody is able to take vacations it got me to thinking about the last vacation we had been on and that would the cruise that my parents treated our whole family on 3 years earlier in September.  I had run across a cute dolphin pattern that I figured would remind everyone of the days we spent together watching the dolphins that played around our ship.

 

The pattern is one by Jane Eborall and you can find it here.  She has some really fun patterns on her site, if you haven’t visited it yet you should check it out! This is a fun pattern to tat, it has lots of split rings which I have found to be fun to do. It also has a down facing picot that I had never even heard of. I sure wish I had know about these earlier because I know I have done several projects that would have looked better had I know about them. This pattern also has the option to do a split chain in a couple of spots but since I had not tackled those yet and on this particular pattern you have to also attach it to an anchor picot on a helper item I decided to leave those out.

 

I first tried these in gray but they were so small and the little ships looked huge  that I decided to try them with a little bit thicker thread. The grey one is artiste #10 called cloud and the blueish one is J&P Coats knit cro-sheen called aqua.

 

The best part of these little doodads is that I got to hand deliver several of them. I ended up making 9 complete ornaments  but actually only needed 6 of them. Me and the hubby got to take a trip back home and hand delivered them to the family members that still live there. This happened in September it has just taken me a bit to get these posted. With any amount of luck I will get the next holiday motifs out in time!

Happy 4th of July!!

Happy 4^th of July, it sure doesn’t feel like I should call it Independence day since we are working on day 113th of quarantine. However, our county is finally moving into phase 2 so I hope we are moving toward better days.

I am pleased to announce that I am actually all caught up on posts so these are actually the doodads for today’s holiday. I am even more excited to say that these went out in time for everyone to receive them by today.  These are another holiday that I had completed last year but not sent out.

When I went to put these together I found a good reason why they probably didn’t get sent out last year...these poor stars are super sad and look terrible. I believe I must have gotten the idea for the star off of a picture on pintrest because I could find the actual pattern. I found a couple of trial stars that looks like I tried to figure out the pattern but clearly, I didn’t do such a great job. Looking at these today I know there must be a much better way to do these.

I used Aunt Lydias Metallic size 10 thread and I remember this thread was an absolute nightmare to work with. I used 2 rolls of this crochet thread and I only ended up making 10 of these. I would have liked to make more of them but the thread is awful to work with and it is quite expensive so I decided not to put myself through more torture by making more. I know I should use tatting thread instead of the thread I usually use (artitste) but it is much more expensive and I have to think ahead and order it online so I just use the stuff that is readily available at our nearest craft store which is a hobby lobby about 35 miles away. I also find rolls of this at our thrift store that is just down the road from us so I usually grab it when I find it. Yes, this does add to my massive hoard that I have in my craft room. In fact it takes up a pretty big space since there is not a really good way to store it all.  

These stars tended to curl up and were very fiddly. They seemed to press out ok and I probably could have blocked them and got them to behave a bit better but I wasn’t sure what would happen to the metallic filament if I put glue on them.  The little beaded uncle Sam came from a pattern I bought off of ThreadABead that can be found here.

The card idea was my husbands and I tend to think that it is very relevant for this years holiday. Our governor of the state has made it mandatory that we all wear masks. I hope that whether you are in the group that thinks that this is a good idea or the group that refuses to conform that we can just be kind to each other… NO MATTER WHAT!!

St Patricks catch up

Next catch up holiday is Saint Patricks day so I hope you are all wearing green!

There are not a lot of ideas for Saint Patricks tatting motifs. I pretty much have just found variations on the four leaf clover. For this one I just used the pattern that I used in  2017 doodads and changed the stitch count and added picots. Its kind of fun using 2 different colors for each shuttle.

 This is another holiday that I had done last year, I even had the cards done but they just didn’t get sent out. This year, I am happy to announce that these actually went out in time, in fact I got to hand deliver them to the part of my family that lives in Idaho! I made 12 of these and in looking back it looks like that I forgot to send a couple of them out, probably partially due to the fact I was in Idaho over the holiday  and partially because I was still reeling from being fired and my brain was not on straight.

I believe this post catches me up to the holiday tatting I have sent out so far. The next holiday will be 4^th of July. I know they need to be sent out immediately if they are to arrive anywhere near on time. Wish me luck because I am having a hard time getting motivated to get them out.

Valentine's Day

I am happy to post that the next holiday I am catching up on is Valentines day and I actually get to say that I sent them out. Unfortunately, there is some bad news as well. I didn’t send them out in a very timely manner which is a huge shame because I actually had these doodads done for last years holiday and just didn’t send them out. Part of the reason why they didn’t get sent out last year is because I didn’t love the way they turned out and partly because I couldn’t come up with a card and partly because of the shame of not sending out the Christmas cards.

This is the first time I have tried adding beads into the tatting project itself, it’s also the first time I had attempted split rings. I got the pattern here on Etsy.  I tried tatting the key a couple of different ways but because my picots are out of control since the last couple of projects I did I wanted big floppy picots and the thread I use doesn’t really allow for small picots to look good ( I used size 10 Artiste thread called cloud. ) I decided to omit the picots. I still didn’t love the way these turned out and adding the beads, especially the one that you have to add to the second half of a split ring, really was not fun so I only ended up making 12 of these.  Since I didn’t make enough of these and I wanted to give a few more people valentines I sent out a couple of the doodads that I had left over from previous years.

When I went to put these together I found that when I made the beaded hearts I didn’t account for a way to attach them to the tatting.  Usually I add extra beads or a bigger bead on top to attach them but for some reason I didn’t this time. The beads were so small that I couldn’t find a split ring with small enough wire to go through them, so I ended up making my own rings. They don’t look very good but at least I got them attached.

Here's to hoping that I will post again real soon!

Thanksgiving 2019

It is impossible to believe that we have been in quarantine for 46 days, yet here we are. I have spent most of my days with my head spinning out of control, watching murder shows on ID and trying to come up with a new craft project (dang pintrest is a huge contributor to my stress) . I have an extremely difficult time starting new projects: what with trying to make a decision on what craft I want to do next, like tatting, beading, jewelry making, cross stitching or plastic canvas etc.  and then the fun of trying to choose colors for the project aggghhh! I have an okay time while I am in the middle of a project but then when I reach the end I have a hideous time completely finishing it. I actually have lots of new crafts I want to try but trying to pick one is overwhelming. I am a massive craft hoarder and I have a room full of supplies that would almost put hobby lobby to shame but that is completely overwhelming because there is so much and such a wide variety. I don’t know what my problem is but I feel like one big giant mess.

It is getting harder and harder to come up with ideas for my holiday tatted/beaded cards.  It is just as hard to come up with card sayings and ideas, in fact trying to come up with cards is a good part of the reason why they sometimes get sent out so late or sometime not at all. The next holiday is a perfect example of both.

These are the motifs for Thanksgiving  2019

I had already made leaves for a card a couple of years ago but I couldn’t come up with anything else, so I found this idea by Marilee Rockley. I don’t much like the little beaded guy so wasn’t super proud to send these out. I made 13 total doodads but I only sent 6 of them out, mostly due to the fact that I thought they were not so good and partly because they probably got sent out late. I don’t like any of the colors and the poor scarecrow is just sad. I used 2 different brands of thread and I was a bit surprised how different the 2 threads were size wise. The gold leaf is artiste size 10 as is called topaz and the red one is red heart classic size 10 and it is burgundy.

We couldn’t come up with anything witty to put on the cards so we decided to just tell it like it is.  You probably can’t see what is says in the parentheses but it says “insert appropriate number here”.

I hope everybody is staying safely at home and working on lots of fun projects. It is quite the feeling knowing that the whole world is doing the same thing and going through the same stuff. 

Halloween 2019

Time is just absolutely flying by. I am still behind on my posts so I am going to continue to try to catch up on posting about past holidays. As I have said before I rely on my blog posts if ever I want or need to go back to previous tatting to remember what I have done.

I believe the next holiday that I need to post about is Halloween 2019.

I ended up making 13 of these doodads but I only sent 7 of them out. I would venture a guess that they probably got sent out late because that’s the way I usually do things (I am not  proud of that but I am really trying to figure out why I have such a hard time completing projects). That would also explain why only part of them got sent out. I found the pattern for the tatting on pintrest, it’s a pattern by L. Shelby and you can find it here. I changed the pattern a little bit because she has the pattern listed as a dragon and I wanted it to look like a bat. This was a pretty fun pattern to work but it’s one you have to pay attention to while doing it because its easy to miss a join. In fact, I made 2 of them that are unusable because I forgot a small ring on one of the wings and on another one I missed a join. I used artiste thread, size 20 and the color is called pewter.

I have sent out Halloween motifs for the last 4 years and I haven’t missed a year since I started tatting so I have pretty much ran out of patterns for this holiday. I found a witch hat by Gillian Buchanan that has a written pattern and a diagram but for some reason I tried it and failed dismally. I can’t seem to figure it out. I may have to try it again because I can’t find anything else. I haven't been doing much tatting lately because I cant seem to find something to tat. Since I didn't send out any holiday ones last year I am ahead of the game for this year and Halloween 2020 is actually the next project I need to make stuff for. I have been doing lots of cross stitch because I realized that I never made a birth announcement for our grand son (my husbands daughters son) that will be 2 in June. I had made one for his brother so I figured I should do one for him as well.  I also decided to make one for our new grand daughter (Jeez she will be turning 1 this month) and she has 2 siblings that I am working on as well.  These have kept me quite busy but it has been way too long since I have tatted and I am starting to really miss it. I need to find a project soon before I forget how! 

Thanksgiving

We ended up getting a huge snowstorm that has caused lots of grief on lots of levels.  We ended up getting  at least 24 inches in less than 2 days. It is super heavy snow so trying to get unburied has been an ordeal.  On top of that we have gotten rain and then freezing at night so everything is like an ice skating rink in places where the snow has been cleaned off.  Thankfully the only real damage we have suffered so far has been extremely sore back and legs and the snow pulled off several gutters and flashing off the house but so far we have survived.

The next holiday I need to get caught up on is Thanksgiving.  I had an idea of beading a turkey body and using a piece of tatting for the “feather part”.  Due to the short amount of time between  the next couple of holidays I needed to hurry to get on the project.  My brain power is pretty much just being taken up with dealing with the problems at work and the everyday task of just trying to survive so I didn’t have time to try to invent a pattern or pour over the internet looking for one .  I was going through past projects and found, by happy mistake, that I could repurpose one of Mark Meyers , aka Tatman, patterns to work with the concept I was going for. I used this same pattern for my Thanksgiving 2016 cards, it's called back to school apple. I had my bobbin wound with left over thread from last years thanksgiving project  so I just used that thread which is Lizbeth called falling leaves in  size 10.

 I ended up making 16 of these but only ended up sending 9 of them out.  I have been so late in getting these out lately that I am embarrassed so I end up not even sending them out at all so I end up with extra motifs and have no idea what to do with them.

The card idea was my husbands this time,  I always come up with the picture and I have recruited him to help with the sayings.

Halloween

I was going to try to take advantage of our snow day off and get another post out of the way. I started several posts but I didn't get them finished on the snow day but at least I made the attempt.   It snowed on Sunday night through till Monday morning and as I work for a service company that runs service trucks and live in an area that is not equipped for snow removal my boss made the decision to not even open the doors. We actually got about 6 inches on Monday and we stayed down in the teens all week so the snow didn’t get much of a chance to melt so when we had an anticipated storm set to hit the area again on Friday my boss decided to not open on Friday either. We did end up getting about 4 more inches which is huge when we don’t have snow plows or sand trucks so it was probably a good idea that we didn’t have the guys come in and take the chance of getting stuck and being snowed out of home.

Anyway, up next we have Halloween. Since there are several months between 4^th of July and Halloween you would think that I would have plenty of time to come up with a fun motif and have plenty of time to get them done but apparently, in my world that is just not the case. I remembered seeing a spider web motif somewhere in my cyber surfing but it was a bit difficult to find it again. I remembered that it was probably “tatman” site that I saw it on but since he has taken the site down it was quite difficult to try to find. For some reason I had it in my mind that that was the next pattern I wanted so I searched for a long time trying to find the pattern. I did end up finding a picture of it and it took me several tries to figure out the pattern.

  I am terrible at figuring out what I need to change about the counts in order for my project to lay flat. It took me several motifs before I remembered that you can climb out of a row with a split ring so that the web ended correctly.  My end product doesn’t look anywhere near as good as Mark Meyers (tatman) but I think the little beaded spider kind of redeems the project. 

I made 12 complete cards (not including the mess ups in the picture above). These are probably one of my least favorite projects I have ever done but at least I got most of them sent out.  The card idea was mine, my husband didn’t get the concept but I sent them out anyway.

St Patricks catch up

I had every intention of posting three days right in a row , I was just missing one little thing...to hit the publish button two days ago...LOL. I am still playing the catch up game so up next we have St. Patricks day. Due to the short amount of time between Valentines Day and Saint Patricks day I ended up making and sending out only 10 of these. 

  I found a super simple shamrock called Irish for a day by Sharren Sarver Morgan that worked up pretty quickly. You can find the pattern here. The shamrock on the left is made with size 10 artiste thread called snow pea and the one on the right is made with size 20 Lizbeth thread called leafy green. It was quite interesting dong the same pattern with  2 different brands of thread.  I don’t often get to use the Lizbeth thread, for one it is much more expensive and for two it is hard to find around here. If I want to use it I have to plan ahead and order it well ahead of time which rarely happens.  Each thread had its own strengths and weaknesses so I am not sure I could pick my favorite. 

The beaded little leprechaun is a pattern that I bought on the site threadabead, you can find it here

This card idea was mine. .I am not sure if you can read the tiny print at the bottom of the card it says “Just in case that’s not what you wished for we have included another clover for an extra wish. I know, it is a lot on the corny side..maybe my husband is rubbing off on me.