More mistakes!

I can't quite believe it has been so long since I have posted anything but it has been just as long since I have even touched my tatting.  I had about gotten to the end of row 4 when I realized that I did the very first join wrong.  I set it aside for about 2 days trying to figure out the best way to fix it before I got so frustrated that I completely put it away to deal with later. In the mean time I was busy trying to find the perfect cross stitch pattern to do as a birth announcement for some friends that have had their first baby.  I just about drove myself crazy trying to find a pattern so I finally just settled on one that I had purchase way before the birth that at the time I thought I loved.  So far I am pretty much hating everything about this piece.  I decided on 18 count fabric in white because I had it in my stash and I didn't want the finished piece to be too big.  I have never done one with this small of holes and it is about killing me trying to see.  The colors that the pattern is calling for seem to be super washed out and dull so I am wishing I would have picked some of my own to make it a bit brighter but that would have required a bunch of decisions that I just wasn't up for. 
At this point I am so frustrated with the cross stitch that I am getting tired of doing it and I am only about a 1/4 done with it.  I am also still stumped as to how to repair my mistake on my doily without having to cut a bunch of it off. Now that I have seen it again I have noticed that it is also curling up a bit.

  It has been a  bad week with my head spinning out of control so I really need to keep busy with something. The weather has gone from mid 90s last week clear down to barely being in the low 60s with nasty black overcast clouds with no benefit of rain to make things green again so things are just cold and dreary.   Most of the big projects that I need to do around the house have been overwhelming me and making my head spin more so I was hoping I could get lost in tatting or cross stitch.  The thought of starting a new craft project or even finishing off the ones that are almost done makes the anxiety rise.  I sure could use some happy loving thoughts!!

Row 3 mess up

I seriously cant believe I messed up on row 3!  To add insult to injury the mistake happened 7 chains into the row.  I did a long picot where is should have been a joining picot and I didnt find this mistake until I went to close the row.  The big decision now is whether to cut out part of the row and repair it or just leave it be and hope it wont be too terribly noticeable.  If I choose to repair the row it means that I will have tons of ends to hide and I really am dreading that. For some reason the doily seems to be bunching up a bit and I am not positive how I would have to try to fix that. I can only hope that the next row will help it lay flatter.  If it doesn't I will just have to try to figure out how I can avoid the same problem with the next try.  So I guess as soon as I make a decision whether to fix the mistake or roll with it I will just keep tatting along!

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!

20 motif

It has been a very emotional and stressful last couple of weeks. The trip back home to Idaho was great but as always  it was way too short.  As always the first couple of days after our visit are extremely difficult. It is very difficult to leave and it is so very lonely for weeks afterwards. 
I ended up taking only my new black Lizbeth thread in size 20 plus lots of shuttles. My thought was I could buy more thread there if I found I needed more. This was my first try with Lizbeth thread and my first try at anything smaller than a size 10.  It was certainly not the best idea to start with black! The darker the color the more difficult it is to see the knots so tatting with black requires really good lighting and the right eye wear.  If I have my contacts in I need really good cheater readers, it is better if I have my glasses on and I can slide them down off my nose to get my work close enough to see.  I am legally blind without lenses so crafting while doing anything else (like visiting or watching tv) can be a big challenge.  It ended up that I didn't really have much time to tat while we were there so it wasn't a huge issue.
Once we got home I was able to finish the choker I had started. This is motif 20 in the 25 motif challenge.

  I used the same pattern I used before which I found in the book Tatted Bookmark edited by Barbara Foster.  I decided I liked the way it looked by stopping after the first row.  They look like little hearts  so I am going to try wearing it to see if it is stiff enough without blocking it. I used one of my new shuttles and this thing fought me the entire time.  It is a moonlit shuttle by handy hands that has a crochet hook on one end.  The hook seems to be longer than the one on the Aerlit so I could not find a way to hold it that it didn't try to hook on everything. I wont completely give up on this shuttle until I try it with different thread and with a different mind set but for now I don't love it!

I think I let the combination of the hard to see black thread, the new smaller size and the shuttle that fought me, get to me so I haven't tatted since I finished the choker. I decided to start a cross stitch that has limited colors so that I didn't have to make any decisions. I am just about done with it so now I am in panic mode because I have to make more decision on what project to do next. Once again we are between holidays so I cant base my decision on holiday.  For my mental state I would like to find something that is easy, very repetitive and one color.  I have been looking for a doily to make but so far I haven't ran across one yet. A few weeks ago I scored several tatting books at Goodwill so I have been pouring over those as well as the ones I ordered off amazon. I am finding I don't understand the patterns and most of the pictures are not clear enough to figure them out.  I spent most of yesterday on the internet looking at doilies and catching up on some of my favorite tatting blogs but all it did was overwhelm me.  It is so easy to loose track of time when on the internet so I try not to do it too often.  Since I  didn't find a pattern I feel like it was a bit of wasted time.  I really need to find another craft project so I can keep my mind busy.  I am sure hoping I find something soon!

Another decision

Looks like it is going to be another day where I cant seem to get going. Its been 5 whole days since I have touched a craft project.  I enjoyed working on the last 2 doilies because they take so long to finish therefore I don't have to decide what the next project is.  Right now we are also between holiday seasons so I cant base my next craft project, be it tatting, beading, plastic canvas or cross stitch, on what holiday is next.  I have been trying to find the perfect baby announcement cross stitch pattern to do for some really good friends that are expecting their first baby in September. So far I have not been able to find one.  They don't have a nursery plan yet so I cant base the choice on the decor of the room but I cant wait much longer to start or the birth announcement may become a graduation gift. 
I was pretty excited to see my new shuttles and Lizbeth thread in the mail late yesterday but now I cant seem to find a project to do. I have been trying to find something I can do on the plane because we are leaving tomorrow to go back home for a visit. Really the only pattern I have memorized is the little stars I did and I am pretty sure I don't want to do any more of those for a while. I am pretty sure I wont have time to look for a new doily to do so I am hoping something will hit me soon. I am looking forward to trying out my new shuttle so...come on inspiration!!

Doily finished!!

Well there is another weekend in the books.  It was a pretty fun weekend but very exhausting.  We worked production at The Bite of Seattle.This is a food festival that involves over 60 different food and craft vendors and 5 different stages that have live bands that play 40 minutes and they start every hour on the hour.   Our part involved setting up the stage  and then being responsible for getting different bands set up and then playing a 40 minute set which means we had 20 minutes to get one band completely off the stage and the next band set up and sound checked. Set up day was all day Thursday and then the bands played Friday, Saturday and Sunday from noon to 9pm and Sunday night was tear down and loading out of all the sound equipment and backline gear we provided.  We have worked this show for the last 6 years and its always been a highlight of the year.
I cant seem to get going on anything today. I could probably chalk that up to being tired after such a long weekend but I think its more of a matter of being lazy and not wanting to make a decision on what project to start next.  I finished my Renulek 2014 doily just before leaving for the festival. I ended up finding several mistakes in the second to the last row so i got my first taste of cutting out 5 inches of elements and then un-tatting several inches so I could tie on in the middle of a row. That was sure not my idea of a fun time tatting as it was hiding lots of ends but it seems to have gone ok.  I decided to end this doily at row 11 because I would have done the next rows in the maroon color and that thread seems to be just enough bigger that it caused major bunching in row 8. I used 3 different brands of thread on this one and I am going to call this a lesson learned not to make that mistake again! I still need to clip all the ends off and starch it but this completes my second attempt at a doily.

Motif 18 and 19...Foreigner

Time has absolutely just been flying by. I am almost afraid to blink because it is going by so quickly.  The hubby was off work for a week for a company vacation/shutdown and we had a big long list of honey-do's to get done around the house.  The biggest project we tackled and completed was stripping and staining our 2000 square foot deck including deck and railings. We did several other small projects one of which was finally mailing off my 4th of July projects I had been working on for a while now.  I actually had them mostly completed over a month earlier but once again I sent them out in the mail late so they didn't quite make it by the 4th.

These are #18 in the 25 motif challenge. I made 6 of these which means I made 18 of the little stars.  The pattern is called Twinkle Twinkle by Joelle Paulson and it is a very fun pattern to complete. I first tried it with a needle and then I tried the shuttle and I found I liked the way the shuttle one turned out so I ended up doing them all with a shuttle. I am going to call the little star done with the needle motif  #19.

We have also done some pretty fun shows in the last couple weeks.  During the long 4th of July weekend we worked a couple shows at Quil Ceda casino.  These bands were all local bands and most of them were pretty good and not too bad to work. This last weekend we worked an amazing show that was a ton of work but well worth it!

We worked complete production on the Foreigner show!!  We set up absolutely everything needed to put on the show.  The only thing we didn't set up was the stage as it was already set up.  This show involved loading and unloading two 56 foot trucks that were loaded from floor to ceiling with gear and then setting up all the gear.  It also involved working with Foreigners road crew loading and unloading and setting up the bands full sized semi-truck that was loaded  floor to ceiling with all their gear. The show was awesome and the whole crew was a lot of fun to work with so it was a pretty good weekend.
I had also been working on my doily. I had thought I was making pretty good time on the last couple rows but I found out that I had made several mistakes in row 10. I had started on row 11 when I realized about 13 elements in that I had joined that row wrong so I had to cut it all off. I found right away that I had also forgot to add 4 floating rings in row 10. Thankfully I had recently read a comment from muskaan (thanks tons muskaan) about adding a  left off floating ring so I as able to add these without too much grief it just took lots of time. I am hoping that the next couple rows go better.