The newest addition to the family and some tatting (22 and 23/25)

No the newest addition is not a baby. I still have several weeks left although there is no room left in the inn so to speak.

The newest addition is a kitten who decided to follow us on a walk. It has been a neighborhood stray for a few days and unless anyone claims the kitten it is ours. Everyone is a bit uncertain on the sex, but the general opinion is that the kitten is a girl. I was promised a cat 5 years ago from my husband, but due to living conditions we couldn't have one. We aren't supposed to have cats here either, but the cat will be an outside/garage cat. I've been jealous of all of Tat-land's cats for a while, but now I can say that this Kat has a cat! A few pictures for your enjoyment. As you can see my daughter, known as the Kitten, loves Snowflake the kitten.





I've been trying to tat up some Christmas gifts before baby arrives. I have all of my 3-D ornaments tatted, but I still need to stiffen and shape them. I'll post pictures of all them when I get them complete.

I decided to transform Krystle's Spanish Dancer earrings into necklaces since most people I know don't wear earrings quite that large. Here are some of the ones that I have completed. The colors are all Lizbeth (Caribbean, Wild Flower Garden, Spring Garden, Autumn Spice, Leafy Green, and Autumn Spice).






I had a request to tat something to wear on the big headbands for a baby girl. This is what I came up with. It is one of Jane E's patterns modified to work with a really big button. I put a quarter in the center to give you an idea of how large the button is. The thread is Lizbeth size 10 Juicy Watermelon. The requester really likes it. I'm personally not a fan of the big flowers on babies, but I'm glad that it is appreciated.



Now to get as much tatting in before baby comes!!

Part 2 of the Doctor's visit (20 and 21/25)

This post is the continuation of the Doctor's visit.

She encouraged me to try and tat in the car. Big mistake on the curvy roads on our trip. Due to her urging (she kept pointing at my bulging belly and telling me that I needed to start working on Christmas gifts), I decided to finally tat up some of Krystle's Spanish dancer earrings. Here are 2 pairs in Lizbeth white and Victorian red. I love the pattern. Since I don't wear earrings I decided to tweak the pattern slightly and try a pendant for me to wear. I need to tweak the pattern a bit more, but here is the result in Lizbeth Vineyard Harvest. I hope to make a few more in different colors to help spice up my limited wardrobe. By the way, these are a combination of needle and shuttle tatting! I shuttle tatted around the ring and then needle tatted the rest. I'm still working on my shuttle tatting and have concluded that I don't like Clover shuttles. Although, I do like them when tatting around cabone rings. Maybe I just need some more practice but the tip seems to get in the way.

The Doctor and the kitten loved all of the bright colors at a hot air balloon fest that we went to.



The wind was too strong and we only got to see one balloon up in the air, but the night glow was amazing to see. Hopefully these pictures can help the doctor remember all of the beautiful color combinations.








We enjoyed the Doctor's visit. And hope to have her back again. Thanks for sharing her with us Krystle.

The Doctor's visit

I'm finally getting around to documenting Dr. Vonthreadmore's visit here. Computer problems have been the culprit. The dear Dr. had wanted me to make a postcard with pictures from her visit to send to Krystle, but the same computer problems made this impossible. The Dr was insistent that Krystle see the pictures, so I agreed to post them here.

The visit started off to a rocky start due. My 73 year old widow male neighbor decided to bring a dead month for the kitten to view shortly after the Dr's arrival. This set Dr. Vonthreadmore talking about the state of "Misery" (more properly known as Missouri) and packing up her things to leave for a more desirable place to visit. As she was headed out the door to leave, she discovered a nice slug crawling on our glass door. She decided that she would postpone her departure for a few minutes until the slug left. This gave us a bit of time to chat and she encouraged me (twisted my arm)to try my hand at Krystle's Spanish Dancer earrings. More about that in a future post.

My neighbor felt awful, but thankfully he had an apple pie in the oven.


And he is a wonderful cook. In fact, he kept me in food at the beginning of my pregnancy when I could only eat food that I had not smelled cooking. Here is the wonderful pie complete with a smiley face.



The apple pie solved all of the problems with the Dr and she decided to come on a business/vacation trip with my family down to Southern "Misery". Thankfully the curvy roads didn't seem to bother her like they did me. We saw a fish hatchery--the kitten and the Dr were enthralled with all of the fish and the fish loved the food that they were throwing in. The picture doesn't do justice to the beauty of the fish and water.
They also loved watching the fisherman and the mist coming off of the water. I don't have pictures of this, but there was quite a collection of "treasures" collected between the 2 of them--mostly acorns, sticks, leaves, and rocks. I believe that some of these treasures should be making their way to Krystle's house :)

We continued our trip by visiting Elephant Rocks, which isn't known that well at all (even in the state) but is quite impressive to see. We spotted a beautiful turtle on the walk--he was in quite a hurry to get away from the kitten.


Here is a glimpse of the impressive rocks at Elephant Rocks. The big rock in the picture is on top of a large mound of rocks and weighs almost 700 tons.



I'll post more of the Doctor's visit later, but she wanted to make sure that Krystle was able to see all of the great outdoors that she was able to visit.

Any ideas Tat-land?

I have had my watch since I was 12 years old and have replaced more batteries and watchbands than I can count on it. I love my watch even though certain family members keep wanting to buy me new ones!! I recently was in need of a new watchband--the leather kind. I couldn't find watch bands, so I ended up buying a new watch and putting the watchband on my watch. This left me with a watch face that needed something done to it! I immediately wondered about tatting a band for it. Has anyone ever tried this? Then my thoughts went to Jane's flowers that I made a bracelet out of last fall (see here for the post). I thought that it would be stunning in black and white or black and silver--as a gift since I obvious don't need a new watch, right? I'm having troubling trying to attach the tatting to the watch. This is my "solution" each ring has 3 or 4 strands of thread around it to hold it, but I'm not certain if this is enough. Any thought or suggestions?

Christmas tatting (10, 11, 12, and 13/25)

Here is some of my tatted Christmas gifts. Hopefully the recipients enjoy them. I like to make gifts especially for the person and pick colors that I think they would enjoy.

This first is the first round of a wreath designed by Laura Bobay and found at Tat-man's site. I made 3 of these for the neighbors. I was excited to find that one neighbor's mom used to tat and was able to see some of her mom's tatting. She thought that tatting was a lost art! This is tatted in Lizbeth 20 leaf green medium. The beads are clear and all that I had. I wish that I would have had red beads, but the only beads are found at least 2 hours from me. Next time I get near a craft store I sense some red beads getting sold to me.
These are what are going in my Christmas cards this year which will be send out next year. They are tatted in Lizbeth size 20 Christmas delight. The pattern is by Birgit Phelps.
These are the Easy Tatted Cross posted at In-Tatters by xstchntat. Thanks for posting this xstchntat. For some reason I had a rough time on the first one, but they tatted up extra quick after that. There are a few more to be tatted as well. The colors (in clockwise order) are Autumn Spice, Leafy Green, Spring Garden, Caribbean, Tropical Punch.
And last but not least are some necklace pendants. These are the ones that I found on Pieknits blog. The non-black ones are size 20 Lizbeth Vineyard Harvest and size 40 Lizbeth Turquoise Twist.
Merry Christmas to all!!!

Happy Thanksgiving or Happy Thursday!! (1/25)

Happy Thanksgiving or Happy Thursday to you--whichever fits you. I decided to take a break from the letter edging--which is almost done by the way--to make something to wear for Thanksgiving. I'm not a big jewelry person, but thought that I would try a necklace again since it has been so long since I've worn one. The patterns is one from pieknits's blog. I'm thinking about trying a few modifications and maybe making some for Christmas gifts.

Finished (12/25)

These are the reason why I haven't had as much time to tat. There are 3 more that didn't make the picture. Juggling balls!! We decided to learn how to juggle. Tom-Kat is great, but I haven't quite mastered it yet. Hopefully soon. The kitten loves to "juggle" like mom--that is throw the balls everywhere.

The bracelet is finally finished. My wrist is really small, so it is way too big for me. I would need to take one of the flowers out for it to work for me. Just so I can remember, the bracelet is about 9 inches long. I'm going to wear it just the same this weekend at a function and will probably give it to the first person who likes it and has a bigger wrist :) Thanks so much to Jane Eborall for the button flower pattern. I think that I will be making more of these!



And last but not least. Here is one of my current tatting projects. This is Mary Konior's glass mat spinning wheel done in Lizbeth size 20 Country Turquoise Medium. Sorry the picture isn't great, but I didn't feel like working with the scanner :) Hopefully I can finish it soon and show you the finished project. I'm also working on an edging for a skirt of the kitten--I might be asking for opinions next week.

Aha!! (11.75/25)

I figured out Jane's lock join. I just needed to figure out what "outside" meant! When I figured it out I said "Aha" just like Winnie the Pooh (see "In which Kanga and baby Roo come to the forest, and Piglet has a bath" from the Pooh Bear books. If you haven't hear or read them in a while it is worth laughing at again).

So I started with one and used black so that I could clearly see a difference in the threads, but then I wondered what it would look like with 2 joined together. And then I wondered what it would look like with more. Before I new it there were 5 together :) Now is it just waiting for me to buy a clasp and figure out how to finish the bracelet. Not quite my color scheme, but I still love the idea and I think I know the perfect person to give this to. Since it isn't finished I'm counting this as my 11.75 th motif :) Hopefully I can finish it soon and post the finished product.





Any advice for hiding ends with black thread? It is so hard to see. I guess the benefit is that no one can see if it isn't perfect, but boy is it hard.