Finished Doily and motifs 11 and 12

It has been a crazy busy last couple of weeks.  I was actually working away from home and staying in a motel and working 16 hour days for part of that so I didn't even get to pick up my tatting. It took me several days to recuperate so during those days I tatted a bit but mostly just sat in a state of stupor. We have had several days of almost summer like weather so I have spent quite a bit of time outside doing yard work. In between time I did finish my 4th doily.  This one is another Renulek which she calls Wiosna 2015, I used Artiste thread in #10 Wild Berry and black.  I am hoping that pressing the doily will help it to lay out flatter as it has a tendency to bunch.

We were asked to write a letter of encouragement to my mother-in law who was going to attend a women's retreat so I thought I would try to find a pattern for a cross bookmark that I could make in a couple hours as the letter had to go in the mail the next day.  I found a pattern by Mary Konior and I just used some left over thread that I had loaded on a couple of shuttles.

 I didn't like the way this one turned out and in my haste to try to hurry I dropped 4 chain stitches right at the top of the cross so I decided to try another pattern that I had found on pintrest.  I used another couple of shuttle that I already had loaded with thread to try it.  At this point I was out of time so I just ended up sending the little white one.  Its not perfect and it is quite tiny, I don't love it but I am hoping in this case "its the thought that counts".  I am going to call these crosses number 11 and 12 in the 25 motif challenge.

 I am probably not going to get much of a chance to tat this weekend because we are working another production show at a Seattle hotel.  It is going to be tons of extremely hard phyical labor but the money will be nice.

Have a nice weekend!!

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!

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!!!

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!

Row 7 and 8

Well its been another long time between posts but I have stayed busy with lots of crafting. I finally got the baby announcement cross stitch pattern all stitched and ironed and now I just need to mount it. It took quite a while to get all the information I needed to complete it and now I am dragging my feet on mounting it. Framing my cross stitch projects is probably my least favorite thing about the whole project but I know I need to just hurry and get it done.
I have been working on lots of tatting projects but I don't want to post a picture of them until I get them shipped off in the mail. In between working on my holiday motifs I have worked on my doily a bit.

 I really debated on ending it after completing row 7 but my shuttles were still pretty full of thread so I went one more row.  Part of the indecision was whether or not I am going to be able to figure out row 9. Row 8 went fairly quickly because it is just chains and rings but looking at row 9 I am not sure I can figure out how to join step 4 to step 1 and then go onto step 5. I don't think I want to end on row 8 so I guess I will just start row 9 and see if I can figure it out.

Another incorrect join

After several days of just working on my cross stitch project I finally decided to just take a deep breath and cut into the mistake on my doily and hope for the best.  It actually ended up not being as bad and scary as I was fearing.  (Thanks goes to Sharon and her words of encouragement) The thing I worry about the most when I have to repair mistakes is if I am going to have a long enough piece of core thread to hide that end without undoing a ton of elements.  Thankfully this time I cut in a good place and it went really well.
I was a bit worried going into row 6 thinking it was going to be a real pain doing so many separate elements and having so many ends to hide. That row ended up not being too terrible and it went fairly quickly so I moved right into row 7.

I am happy to report that we actually had a pretty nice weekend.  For the last several years my husbands family has made it a point to all meet every year on the same weekend in Walla Walla.  The weekend always involves going to the annual car show and parade and we get the bonus of getting to see the nephews play in soccer and basketball games.  The days are filled in between with lots of outdoor games, good food and fun conversations and nights are just as fun with sitting around the fire pit making s'mores and playing games. Since the drive is almost 5 hours both ways I got in quite a bit of tatting. On a not so happy note I found I made the first join in the row incorrectly...freakin again!!

 Some of the  little 5 petal flowers that you have to join this row to got a bit funky and the very first one I joined to got twisted. To top that off I have run out of core thread with only 2 more chains to go.  Now I have to decide whether I will be ok just leaving the first join as is or if I should cut off a bunch of elements and have to deal with  hiding lots ends. This doily has been a trial in patience and I am not loving it so I am not sure what to do. I guess I probably should spend time on the cross stitch project anyway so I will try to take some time and think about it.

Next Doily

After much debating and more time spent cruisin the internet I finally just decide to do another doily from the lovely Ranulek. I absolutely love how easy her patterns are to follow and how she usually posts the execution order as well.  Most rows are very easy to remember stitch counts on and you can pretty much stop at any row to make the desired size doily.  I decided to do the Wiosna 2015 doily.  There is only one row that I am a little unsure of how to execute but it is clear up to row 7 so I figured that if I couldn't figure it out I could just stop before that row.  I m not sure how much I am going to enjoy row 5 as it is making each motif separate and tying off after each one so I will just have to see how I feel up to that point. 
The first 2 rows have gone very nicely. I am working with artiste thread in size 10 and it is cornflower blue. I have had pretty good luck with this brand of thread so far so I am going to stick with it.

It looks like the next row is going to be fairly easy and very repetitive as long as I can pay attention to the counts and the size of the picots. Sometimes I have more trouble with the easier rows because I tend to get a bit complacent and not pay enough attention so I hope that wont happen on this row!

Shuttle addiction

Our weather took a nasty turn for the cold and rainy so its been a good couple of days of just snuggling in and tatting and trying to stay warm.  It seems to be even colder when you go from a 90 degree day to down in the 50s. The last 2 rows on my doily have gone pretty well as they are just rings and chains.  The repetitiveness of doing a doily seems to be a bit calming so that is a very good thing. It seemed to work pretty well by using my bigger Lacis/Sewmate shuttle for the core/chain thread and using my Aerlit shuttle for the rings.  I am pretty sure I am going to order a Moonlight shuttle to see if it holds more thread than the Aerlit.  I am getting quite a collection of shuttles and thread, I guess that's what happens when you have an addiction..you just want more and more!

First doily complete!!!

OK so I had set aside my doily because I thought that I had done an extra element. I kind of let it frustrate me and it started to get to me so when I finally decided to pick it back up I had it in my mind that I was just going to bail back into it and cut the element off and finish it off. I had already made up my mind that this was going to be the last row because it was already pretty large.  I just took a deep breath and cut the element off but  after I got to looking closer, I had cut the element off and realized that I didn't need to.  It ended up that I was just missing an element in the previous row with which to connect to.  It took me a bit to remember that I had made the decision not to go back and fix a missing element in row 4 or 5 and now I am paying for it.  I am trying to take this as a live and learn moment but it is super frustrating to work and work and spend hours and hours on something and then have the ending be a mess.  This doily has quite a few little things I am not happy with and of course as with every project I do I can pick out every little mistake.  I am very critical of every little thing I do.  I am very much a perfectionist and it tends to get in the way of lots of things in my world, nothing I do is ever good enough.  Thankfully so far my will to succeed has outweighed my fear of failure of never being good enough so I keep trying.
I am still not really sure where this doily is going to live because right now I am a bit frustrated how it turned out so I am not sure if I am going to be blocking it immediately so I just went ahead and took a picture of it and I am going to go ahead and call this #17 in the motif challenge. This is Ranulek Spring 2014 napkin done with #10 Artiste thread and the color is snow pea. I stopped at row 8 because this is already 17 inches across, the pattern actually has 5 more rows. Unfortunately it is going to need blocking because it is not laying very flat.  I didn't tat as tight as I normally do and the thread is not very stiff.  It feels good to complete a large project but right now I am not so proud because of the last join and all the little mistakes so I will just set it aside and decide what to do with it a bit later.

Row 5

Well our weather took a turn for the cold and rainy so I just kind of snuggled in and tatted for most of the day.  The good news is I finished row 5 . This one was actually pretty fun to do and wasn't as scary as I was worried about.  The bad news is the edges seem to be curling a bit.  I am just going to jump into the next row and hope it starts straightening out. The next row has lots of thrown rings and I have never tried to do them before but I guess now is as good as time as any to try them out

4th row with clover issues

Well we actually had an ok weekend, it was another busy one as well.  We worked a show at a local casino on Friday from 2:00pm till 2:00am doing sound for an 80s pop cover band.  They were really pretty good, monster players and they did the songs well. Its always a funner work night if the band doesn't suck.  Saturday we drove a few hours away to be able to see our nephew play basketball in a big tournament. Didn't get a ton of time to spend with the family but it was great to see them twice in less than a month.  I did learn on this trip that it is quite difficult to count tatting stitches if the road is bumpy and rough.  Most of the ride was very bumpy so I didn't get any tatting done. I had made up my mind to go ahead and do the next row in green and had hoped to try to get some tatting in.  I had already started on the row and it was beating me up.
Turns out this row pretty much beat me up the whole way around.  I could not seem to figure out how to do the clovers.  With each clover I tried to get it done in a different way hoping I would stumble across a way to make it look ok.  With each clover I kept thinking I may just have to cut that row off.  At one point I jointed a ring in the wrong spot and ended up breaking a thread trying to loosen it.  I have major problems with undoing rings. I almost always break a thread.  I am not sure what the problem is and what I am doing wrong but it is super frustrating.  This one was doubly frustrating because I was super close to being out of thread on my shuttle and I was within 3 rings of being completely done with the row.  Of course the thread that I broke was not the one that was out of thread. At this point I just decided to go ahead and finish off the row because judging from previous experience I know that if you cut motifs off picots the picots are stretched and look a bit funny. 

After this row I am not super happy with this doily. I never did find a good way to do the clovers.   I have taken a peek at the next row and I am quite concerned that this row is going to be a bit challenging as well.  It looks like I am going to have to concentrate on making the right joins and the right chains in the right place.  I am just going to have to jump in and try it because this row requires something to attach the clover to to make it lay correctly.  Wish me luck!!

Row 3

Its been another couple of busy days. We actually had the pleasure of hosting another dinner for a friend that my hubby used to work with.  He is another monster guitar player so it was awesome to have him over for a few hours.  It has been such a treat to have people over that we are going to try to make it happen more often.
I was able to complete another row on my doily.  I ended up finding out on my last element that if I joined "as is" the doily was going to bunch badly. I should have made my picot joins much smaller and some of my chains much tighter. I ended up dropping some stitches on the last couple of chains. It seems to be ok, it doesnt lay completely flat so I am hoping that blocking will help.

I have been having lots of thoughts on what to do with the finished project. I started out thinking I was just going to do this in one color but I am trying to decide if I want to add a color for the next row or just stop at this row and start another project. I kind of picked this pattern because it looks kind of cute with just these rows.  Aggghhh more decisions.  I know a lot of my decisions aren't life changing or critical to anyone's health or welfare but I have massive trouble making even the tiniest of them. Life is all about choices but I have had to make some HUGE world (my own personal world of course) changing ones in the recent past so that has caused making almost all decisions next to impossible.  Really the only thing I don't have to make a decision to do is breath....therefore "just breath" has tons of meaning for me!  Some days that's the only mantra that gets me through the day.  Unfortunately some days that's all I can do but I have been told its a pretty important part.....so  JUST BREATH!

1st 2 rows of doily

Its been pretty cold and rainy the last couple of days so that means the perfect weather to just snuggle inside and tat!  I finally just decided to take a deep breath, pull up my big girl pants and make a decision on which doily to do as my first.  I decided on Renulek Spring 2014 napkin in a solid color.  It made sense to pick from one of my favorite colors...green!  I chose a green that was a bit muted and earthy so that it will be able to be used in almost any room in my house including the kitchen.  In case it turns out yucky I can use it as a dish rag!  hehehe

I was able to complete the first 2 rows without too much trouble.  Its kind of a good thing I didn't think of having to close the row before I started or I may have been more hesitant to start.  I was able to close the second round ok, it was just a bit of a challenge.   I am not sure if I did it the perfect way but it looks ok, just not flawless.  I believe tatting just requires quite a bit of common sense so I just had to use that to figure out how to do it!  I am hoping that round 3 will go as well.

Mind made up and Iron Dragon

Well the weekend is drawing to a close and as always I cant believe how fast they tend to go.  We actually got to go see a show and not have to work it.  We went and saw Iron Dragon which, in my humble opinion, is the best 80's hair metal tribute band we have had the privileged to see.  We see them as often as we can. They are all amazing musicians and the singer has an amazing voice and its always fun to relive the 80's (OK I admit I still live in the 80's)
 Our weather took a turn for the cold and rainy.  We went from 90's and beautiful to 50's and rain in less than 2 days so the push was on trying to find a something new to tat. I have spent hours pouring over the internet and even searching Amazon to find doily patterns and books that have patterns.  I think I have pretty much made up my mind...  I am going to jump on the Renulek napkin train.  They keep popping up in a lot of different blogs so I believe I am just going to jump in and give it a try.  Now I just need to decide which one to do and what color.  Jeez the decisions can be so difficult! I am absolutely terrible at making decisions and I HATE to have to make them but its kind of hard to start a project without making them.   If I can just make a few more I will be on my way to making my first doily.