Happy St Patricks Day

 

Wow I can't believe that I am actually posting this on the exact day that it should be posted on!

Yeah me!!

I hope everyone remembered to wear green today!

If you have read my previous post you already know that my St Patricks doodads actually made it in the mail, but the not so good news is I am not sure if all of them made it on time. I have really enjoyed making the cards with my die cuts but the bad side is that the inside of the cards are completely blank. When I see a blank piece of paper I feel the need to fill it up so it is a bit overwhelming thinking we have to come up with so many words to do it, so we both had a hard time trying to get motivated to fill them all out. I have to admit my hubby is quite creative when he puts his mind to it but after he works all day his brain is tired so he doesn't want to think at night. We have been working at the casino doing bands almost every weekend including Thursday Friday and Saturday nights and we dont get home till 2am then hubby has to be up super early on Sunday to get to church to play on the worship team so we haven't gotten much done on the weekends either. The cards and doodads were actually done a couple weeks ago but it took us a bit to fill them out. I guess the important thing is that they at least made it in the mail even though they may be a bit late!

As I have mentioned before it is getting harder and harder to come up with new ideas for my holiday cards. I have done St Pats tatting cards 5 times now and I have run out of patterns and there are only so many different ways to do clovers. I was on the hunt to try to come up with a rainbow and wasn't able to find one so I decided to try to come up with a pattern of my own. After several tries I came up with one that actually seemed to look ok. I also had to make the pattern for the beaded  horseshoe. I really dont love the way they look but I hope they at least look somewhat identifiable. 

These tended to curve inward all on their own so I didn't starch them. I am not really sure how they are going to re-form once they have been flattened in the envelope and then abused by the mail system.  I am hoping they will be ok. I used Aunt Lydia’s thread called mexicana . The thread is what actually gave me the idea for trying to come up with a rainbow. This thread was great to work with so I may have to come up with another idea to use it again!  I made 12  of these doodads and cards but so far I have only sent 8 of them out. We were hoping to have friends over this week and give them in person but that didnt happen and we have to work the next several days at the casino.

Did I mention my hubby is silly and creative? I decided to share a couple of his cards with you so you can share in the awesomeness! 

So the good news for the next holiday (which is Easter) is that I have the doodads already done. The silly bad news is that they have been done for over 2 years. Looking back I have only made 2 Easter cards and I am not really sure why I have so few. I know part of the reason why these didnt get sent out in 2020 is because we were all in the beginning of covid lock down. And last year Easter was super early and came right on the heels of St Pats. Anyway, I have already started to work on die cutting the cards out so please keep your fingers crossed for us that we actually get them in the mail in a timely manner…nay, maybe even early!

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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.

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.

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!!

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!

Happy St. Pattys day

Well Happy Saint Patricks day all!! This is one of my favorite holidays because my all time favorite color is green.

Here is #9 in the 25 Motif Challenge. I actually made 6 of these to send them to my family (sshhh dont tell though cause I didn't get a chance to get them in the mail yet)  I did end up taking the pattern from Frivole and changing the counts and adding picots to come up with this pattern. It is very encouraging because I just found out that I should be able to create my own patterns so i am pretty excited. My first attempt actually ending out to be kind of cool even though it started out with a mistake.

I didn't find out that I attached one of the chains to a wrong picot until I was several elements away from the mistake. Instead of picking it all out I decided just to try to see what happens when you weave a chain under or over another one and  attach it at random places. I don't love it but it was kind of fun.

In other news...I finally made a turn in figuring out the shuttle!! I worked on it until it started to frustrate me then I went and drummed for a while to work out some aggression's and low and behold when I came back it started to make a bit more sense. I am not able to do the little flick with one finger yet but I am hoping it will come with time. I am super super slow because I basically have to let the thread fall completely off my left hand to be able to get the stitch to transfer. I hope this isnt starting a bad habit but I feel like as soon as I understand how the knot transfers I should be able to hold the thread with more control. I have made up my mind that I am going to keep trying!!

No goodies yet ,25 motif challenge

So I am still waiting for my shuttles and Lizbeth thread to come. Its a good thing I haven't been holding my breath waiting because its sure taking its own sweet time. In the mean time my needles have been kept busy trying to find the perfect shamrock in honor of St Patricks day.

I do believe this makes 5, 6 , 7 and 8 of the 25 Motif Challenge. The 2 beaded ones at the top I learned from a youtube video, the link is here. One of them has picots around the outside and the other one doesn't. The video is in a foreign language but I was able to follow along. The little lone red one in the middle is a pattern by Georgia Seitz that you can find here. Its done in red because it was sitting by my work table and I was just too lazy to get up and find some green. The little lone light green one (say that fast 5 times) by the stem of the red one just didn't turn out like the picture on the pattern. For one, it was supposed to be a four leaf clover and there was no way I could squeeze another round of stitches in there. I would guess that is because of the difference of thread size,  All the rest are made from a free pattern I found at Le Blog Frivole.  These are my favorites but I was hoping to find one a bit bigger so I may try to change the counts to see if I can make them bigger.
Now I guess I just keep my fingers crossed hoping that my goodies arrive soon!