No Easter just 4th of July

Calendar wise up next I should have Easter to post about.  I spent several hours digging through my tatting boxes and photos trying to find my Easter project. I finally had to come to the conclusion that I didn’t make or send any out. It is quite frightening that I seriously can’t remember why or what happened but the fact remains that I was lame and missed a holiday. I did find a couple motifs that I started that may have been a start of Easter but I can’t post them because they will eventually go out to family.

So I guess up next we have Independence Day.  It looks like I made 15 of these but I only sent out 9 of them. I feel like this year has been a terrible year where I started with the best of intentions but never followed through or finished any of my projects.  It seems like I made lots of motifs but then didn’t get them sent out. 

I tried to find where I got the pattern for the tatted motif from but I can’t seem to find it.  It makes me feel real badly when I can’t give credit to the artist that created a pattern that I used. I am fairly certain that I found the pattern on pintrest and the pattern had a picture of the final project with the pattern behind it. I used artiste thread in size #10 and the color is blueberry. I remember I had a big problem with this pattern with missed joins and I ended up ripping a bunch of stitches out which was not pleasant because trying to open a closed ring that doesn’t have a picot in it is not very easy. I didn’t love the way this pattern turned out but I couldn’t find another pattern and I was in a hurry to try to get them done.  

As for the pattern for the little beaded doodad , I have had most of my patterns so long that I can’t remember where I got them from. I have been beading for over 25 years and I have a huge accumulation of holiday ornaments that I hang on a display for each holiday and more often than not that is where I get my ideas for the tatted accents. 

Now the card however is solely my husband’s idea! It is kind of an inside family joke. My family has plenty of firework stories gone wrong and this was just his little idea of a reminder of those cautionary tales.

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.

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.

Catch up Christmas!

I must say I am blown away! I seriously didn’t think anybody would ever read my blog without  the 25 motif challenge so a massive thank you goes out to YOU!!!

So let’s get on with trying to play the catch up game and start with the next project in the timeline which would make it Christmas! I remember this past Christmas being a super busy time and it completely crept up and was over before I even realized it. We actually ended up having a surprise visit from family which was awesome but since it was a surprise, the time I had planned to finish Christmas shopping and crafting got taken away. I actually had started on my holiday ornaments fairly early but they weren’t  all completely finished when family arrived. Needless to say a lot of them were shipped late and quite a few of them were shipped super late because some of them got put in an obscure place when we cleaned for company and didn’t get found until well after the holiday. In fact it was so late that I felt silly sending some of them out so I just didn’t send them out.

I ended up making 19 of these snowflakes but only 9 of them actually got sent out. The pattern for the tatting is one by Renulek unfortunately I cant remember where I got the pattern for the beaded thing. The thread is just a white skein that I picked up from goodwill but I stiffened them with a glitter glue mixture I know that the 25 motif challenge doesn’t exist anymore but I am still going to count so this is my #16 motif

I realized a couple of months ago that it had been a really long time since I had posted anything  at that time I also discovered that the 25 motif challenge was no longer going to be continued. I was super disappointed that I had let my blog laps and that I didn’t even realize that the 25 motif challenge had decided that not enough people were interested in having it continue. Believe it or not it was the 25 motif challenge that inspired me to start a blog in the first place and it has been one of the big motivators to continue. When I found out that I totally missed the opportunity to tell Sharon the blogger who runs the challenge how very much her blog meant to me I was super bummed. Then I realized the reason why I missed it was because I was so busy with everyday life that I let my own blog go by the way-side so I truly have no idea how she found the time to run such an amazing blog and I will always be grateful to her for her hard work and for inspiring so many tatters and bloggers in so many ways.

I kind of lost interest to keep posting anything  because I kind of felt like there wasn’t much use to keep doing it because she was really the only person who probably  read it anyway. But I have really come to realize how much I have missed not blogging and how much I actually look back to my own blog to remember what my past projects were or to come up with what pattern I used to make a doily. I recently ran across a doily I had almost completed but for some reason I was 4 motifs away from finishing it so I looked back to my blog to find exactly what doily it was and where to find the pattern.   I have decided to try to go back and post a couple of my last projects before I cant remember them at all.  I doubt very much that I will remember much about each project but I am going to do my best.

Thanksgiving on Christmas Eve?!

So I was just getting ready to post my Christmas motifs when I realized I forgot to post my Thanksgiving motifs. This having a full time, big girl job is really cutting into crafting time! I am not loving it but I guess it is paying the bills.
It might be kind of silly to be posting a Happy Thanksgiving  post  on Christmas eve but here it goes! I am going to call these #15 in the 25 motif challenge.

Happy Thanksgiving

I ended up making 14 of these cards which means 28 of the leaves. This was the first project I used a more expensive thread on.  Making half of the leaves with Lizbeth thread and half with the cheaper Artiste thread let me compare them side by side.The Lizbeth color is the variegated one and it is size 10 and its called falling leaves, the solid orange is size 10 and its called Papaya. I found good and bad in both threads. While doing this pattern, which is a pattern from J Paulson I actually tried 2 new techniques I have never tried before.  This pattern called  for Josephine knots and I struggled massively with doing them with the Lizbeth thread . The knot would twist and then I couldn't get them to close but they went just fine with the Artise thread. I also got to try doing a zig-zag stitch when making the stem. I had a bit of trouble keeping the counts on doing that stitch but its not super noticeable so I think they turned out ok.
 I liked the way the leaves done with the Lizbeth thread turned out  a bit better but I was also more concerned with wasting thread while doing them. I am not sure where my extreme frugal-ness has come from but I sure hate waste so trying to convince myself that wasting a bit of thread would not be the end of the world was a constant battle cry. I used almost a full roll of the Lizbeth thread and it doesn't even look like I made a dent in the artiste thread. I may try using Lizbeth thread again but I don't think I enjoy using it as much as my cheaper thread.
Sorry about the Thanksgiving post on christmas eve but I guess its better late than never. I guess if its too bad Santa wont stop at my house tonight. I