Valentines Day

 So I am posting Valentines day almost just in time for St Patricks and for a reason I am very much ashamed of.  Actually there is good news and bad news about valentines cards. The good news is that most (and I use that word loosely)  of them actually made it in the mail in time . Unfortunately the ones that didn't make it in the mail were my close families. My parents were actually away from home for the holiday so I figured I had time to mail them later and then I kept putting those off and then I blinked and it was almost March.  The others didn't make it in the mail because I kept putting them off because I was trying to come up with some gifts to send with them. I got overwhelmed with my hoarding stuff  so I didn't get anything together to send.  I didn't want to post the cards until i got the rest of them in the mail and as I sent these out with the St Pats card I am going to go ahead and make this post.

The cute lil teddy bear for this holiday is from a pattern by Eliz Davis. The pattern actually has several  ideas for adding buttons to personalize them for holidays. I wasn't able to find any cute charms or buttons to fit so I actually found some stamping  blanks that were in my hoarded stash that  fit perfectly, so yeah me for using something from my stash instead of buying something more! I rarely do metal stamping and it definately takes practice to do. I dont love the way they turned out but it fit the spot really well.

I first tried using some purple thread because I wanted to use something other than pink or red but this thread was very difficult to work with. I am not sure what this thread is because the label was gone but the plys tended to split. Since this pattern is fairly large I went with a thread that I knew was easier to work with. I am pretty bummed that I didn't keep working with the purple thread because the finished product looks so much better but I knew I didn't want to have to struggle with the thread. This doodad has a weird join around the nose area which fought me on almost every time I had to do it so I didn't want to add more grief to making these.

 I ended up using the pink thread from artiste which is called dawn rose. I have used this particular thread several times but it is nice to work with so I rolled wit h it. I did end up having to press and starch the doodads. I wasn't able to make them stiffer by using glue because of the metal stamp blanks but I guess they turned out ok, just not as stiff as I would have preferred.  I made 14 of these tatted doodads and cards.

I am going to go ahead a punch the publish button and get this posted and hope I have enougth left in me to keep going so I can get something posted for St Pats since they have made it in the mail. Wish me luck!

Belated Valentines Day

 

Another post with some good news and some bad news. The good news is that some of my valentines doodads made it in the mail but unfortunately the bad news outweighs the good. I thought I had mailed them out in time but the weather didn’t cooperate and I forgot that the postal service was closed on  Presidents day  so some of them were late anyway. And as you can already guess..I am really late at getting this posted to my blog! 

Sorry about the poor lighting and the bad shaded areas in the phote. For some reason I cant seem to figure out the best place and way to photograph these so I finally just gave up and went with the best one I could take at the time.

I found the pattern for the little rose on pintrest. It has been posted by lots of people so I am not really sure whose original pattern it is. I had tried to work this pattern when I found a picture of it but didn’t have the directions so It didn’t go so well. Somewhere along the line I found someone else had posted a better detailed picture with numbers as to which section to work next and it is super easy to do.For what its worth this is the pattern I used.  I used a thread called French rose by South Maid. This thead was not fun to work with as the plies tend to split but I had already had my shuttles wound and it is a pretty pink so I just kept using it.

 

The little beaded doodad actually took longer to make than the tatting did yet I still ended up making  18 of these. Unfortunately I was also still in the process of trying to get gifts (Christmas or otherwise ) sent out at the same time so when it came time to get them in the mail only 9 of them ended up getting sent out. And yes, yet again they were late! I am not sure why I was so brain damaged and couldn’t remember who else to send these to. I guess a big part is that they were late getting to the mail, so I just didn’t bother to send more out. Also, it is very rare that I hear from people who receive my holiday doodads so I am quite unsure if anyone actually enjoys them! But since at least some people said they enjoy them, and I would go crazy if I couldn’t bead or tat I will continue to keep making them even though it is getting harder and harder to come up with ideas.

 

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!

Cards inside and out

So since I started looking back I realized that I could be sharing the inside of my holiday cards. My hubby has actually helped me out when I have a mental block and cant come up with a saying. He has got a quirky sense of humor that I absolutely adore so his cards really do deserve to be seen.

This Christmas card is one of his quirkier ones! He always cracks me up, some people may not get his silliness but I thought this one was super silly.

This valentines card was my idea but I made him fill out the personal sentiments on the inside. This one was actually intended for my stepson but it never ended up in his hand...I know I suck! Each card actually got a different sentiment but it was a variation on the Bon Jovi theme.

Moving forward I will try to remember to post both the inside and outside of the cards.

Valentines Day catch up

I am not having such good luck playing the catch up game, it is taking much longer than I anticipated but next up we have Valentines Day. I didn’t have much time to work on my Valentines  and St Patricks motifs because they are both so close to Christmas and Thanksgiving so I had to pick something fairly smallish. I ended up finding  a pattern by Anne Bruvold called Christmas Hearts and I used an artiste thread called dawn rose.  I found the idea for the beaded do-dad  from a picture I found on pintrest and I just changed it to fit the heart. I remember the heart taking a bit longer to tat than I anticipated but they were so cute I just kept doing them. Thankfully I only had to iron these to make them lay flat.   I ended up making 19 of these but only 13 of them made it to the intended recipients.

Happy Valentines Day!

Happy Valentines Day....and today is even February 14th.  I know, I know that doesn't happen very often that I post my holiday pictures on the exact holiday but for some reason I was able to get the projects done and in the mail by the day.   I am afraid not all of them will be received by today but at least it will be close.

I actually made 18 of these ornaments and I am going to call these 5 in the motif challenge.  I found the pattern for these fun little hearts on pintrest but you can find the pattern directly on this bloggers site here.  The pattern is very repetitive and they work up fairly quickly.  I used a size 10 thread from Artiste and the color is tropical pink.  You can find the pattern for the little beaded do-dad at threadabead.

I actually tried 4 other hearts before I finally settled on the one I did.  Below are motifs 6,7 and 8. I used a skein of thread that I had gotten from Goodwill so I am not sure what it is.

The heart on the left is a pattern from Bergit Phelps called Sweetheart and it can be found here.  I really like the way this one turned out but the pattern wasn't super repetitive and I needed a patter that would be easy to remember in my head because I knew I would be taking this project with me to California. I would imagine I will be trying this one again.
The heart in the right is a pattern by Betsy Evans and she calls it small tatted heart.  I didn't love the way this one turned out and the pattern was quite difficult to remember so I took a pass on this one as well.

I knew before I started this heart that it was probably going to be quite large but I tried it anyway.  This pattern is very repetitive but it would require tons of stiffening and after the fiasco with the Christmas trees I did I decided to steer clear of this one as well. The name of this heart is Tat Chat heart and I found it in the web archive.  Its a pattern by LaRae Mikulecky and you can find it here.

I really like this little heart by Irene Woo called Butterfly Heart. I found the pattern in the web archives and it can be found here.  The rings in the butterfly are fairly large with lots of stitches making it very difficult to close so I knew I didn't want to fight it with every ornament so this wasn't it either.  I will probably be trying this one again with a better, stronger thread.
In case you were wondering why I didnt trim any of my ends off on these, well the answer is simple...I use the ends to attach a tag to the project listing the name of the pattern and where to find it.  My memory is not the best...old age is creeping in on lots of levels, and this seems to be the best method for me.

I hope you all had a really good day, at least surrounded by people you love!

Valentines Day #1 25 Motif Challange

 I know I am super late in posting these pictures but here we go!! This is #1 of the 25 Motif Challange and it also happens to be my very first try at tatting! I live out of state from the rest of my family so I try to send them a lil something on holidays. For this valentines day I wanted to come up with something that I could attach to my first craft obsession... beading. I found a great video on youtube from onevirtuouswoman   that taught how to tat a heart and it had a link to the pattern on her facebook page. I used some vintage J&P Coats knit-cro-sheen that I inherited from my grandma so it sure made it extra special knowing that I was using my grandmas thread and learning something that my mom always wished I had learned. These ended up being so much fun to make that I made 10 of them!!