Happy Thanksgiving a bit late!

Happy Thanksgiving....a couple of days late!! 

 I hope everyone had a very enjoyable thanksgiving.  I know this holiday is about spending time with the people you love the most so according to that I guess I did just that only you would have to change people to person.  It was just me and the hubby spending the day together again this year. I am very thankful that I wasnt completely alone but it is a very sad holiday to not have family around. It sure seemed like an awful lot of work to do a full on Thanksgiving dinner for just two but after eating leftovers for two days in a row it seemed to make it more worthwhile. 

These are the little motifs I made for thanksgiving.  

As I was making the little ghosties for Halloween I left the little pumpkin (actually an apple pattern by Mark Myers) that I decided didn't look like a pumpkin, laying out on my table. The more I looked at it the more I got to thinking that it wouldn't be too difficult to change the stem to make it look more like a pumpkin instead of an apple.  So the orange part is from Marks pattern and the stem is my first attempt at doing my own pattern.  Doing a split ring at the top made it a bit more dimensional.  I made 9 of these little doodads and I am going to call these number 24 in the 25 motif challenge. Looking at those two numbers together just made me realize I only have one more motif to go to meet the challenge! WWWHHOO!!

Row 7 and 8

Well its been another long time between posts but I have stayed busy with lots of crafting. I finally got the baby announcement cross stitch pattern all stitched and ironed and now I just need to mount it. It took quite a while to get all the information I needed to complete it and now I am dragging my feet on mounting it. Framing my cross stitch projects is probably my least favorite thing about the whole project but I know I need to just hurry and get it done.
I have been working on lots of tatting projects but I don't want to post a picture of them until I get them shipped off in the mail. In between working on my holiday motifs I have worked on my doily a bit.

 I really debated on ending it after completing row 7 but my shuttles were still pretty full of thread so I went one more row.  Part of the indecision was whether or not I am going to be able to figure out row 9. Row 8 went fairly quickly because it is just chains and rings but looking at row 9 I am not sure I can figure out how to join step 4 to step 1 and then go onto step 5. I don't think I want to end on row 8 so I guess I will just start row 9 and see if I can figure it out.

Happy Halloween!

 I just realized that i forgot to hit the post button on my Halloween post so it is a day late...just like most things in my life right now!!

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays.  Things have changed quite a bit in recent years due to my kiddos being all grown up and me moving away.  I still decorate the house (even though nobody but the hubby and me sees it) and we carve pumpkins but I sure miss sewing costumes and planning parties. The hubby had to work tonight and so far we haven't gotten any trick or treaters again this year so it looks like I will just end up tatting and watching Disney Halloween movies.
The good news is I found a pattern to use for the holiday motifs for the family, the not so good news is I was behind in sending them out again so most of them probably didn't make it in time. I didnt love the pattern when I first saw it but in the end I think they finished ornaments turned out ok.

 I ended up making 10 of these little ghosties and I am going to call them number 23 in the motif challenge. I found the pattern by Mark Myers on his web site.  He has tons of really fun patterns and I am very thankful that he is willing to share. I wish I could tell you where I found the beaded bat n' pumpkin pattern but I made the original one years ago so I have since forgotten where I found it. I first made the pattern all in white but I didn't think the face showed up good enough so I did the rest in 2 colors.

             I hope everyone has a very happy Halloween!

21 and 22 pumpkin motifs

It has been a really long time since I have posted anything! I knew it had been a while but after looking at my last post it is much longer than I had thought.  Time is just flying by and not in a good way. I have always heard that happens once you get older but it is even more true when you struggle with depression and panic attacks and anxiety disorders.
I actually had a really bad epiphany about the cross stitch I was working on for the new baby.  I had chose to do it in 18 count because I didn't want the finished project to be too big.  But I woke up in the middle of the night and got to thinking that the pattern has a spot that you stamp the babies foot prints on and there may not be enough space to put them because I used such small fabric.  It is going to be even worse the longer I wait, the baby was born in August so I am sure she is probably growing like a weed.  I have been furiously trying to get it done so I have a higher chance of them fitting.  I am stressing out pretty good because I picked the pattern for the fact that you can personalize it even further with the actual footprints.  The family lives in Nashville so I cant check to see if they are going to fit.  Pretty much every little thing about this project has been a pain. I really don't like anything about this thing so I am trying to get it done and get it out of my sight.

I have taken a few breaks away from the cross stitch because Halloween is coming quickly so I want to get my holiday project for my family done as well.  I first tried out a few pumpkin patterns that I found on pintrest.

The one on the left is one I found on youtube. The video is in a foreign language and didn't come with a written pattern but the video flashes the counts on the screen so it was easy enough to follow.  It was done with a needle but it is super small so not exactly what I was hoping for. You can find the video here.
The pumpkin on the right is a pattern by Mark Myers that is actually an apple pattern but Le Blog de Frivolet did it with orange thread as a pumpkin. After looking at it for a while I realized the stem is not quite correct for a pumpkin so I searched for another pattern.  I did end up finding another Halloween pattern but I cant post it yet because I want the project to be a surprise.  I am going to call these 2 lil pumpkins motifs 21 and 22.
I have also worked on my doily a little bit but not enough to bother taking a picture. I am waiting to hear back from my friend about some of the babies info I need to finish the cross stitch. In the mean time I am working diligently on trying to get the Halloween motifs done before the holiday hits.

Another incorrect join

After several days of just working on my cross stitch project I finally decided to just take a deep breath and cut into the mistake on my doily and hope for the best.  It actually ended up not being as bad and scary as I was fearing.  (Thanks goes to Sharon and her words of encouragement) The thing I worry about the most when I have to repair mistakes is if I am going to have a long enough piece of core thread to hide that end without undoing a ton of elements.  Thankfully this time I cut in a good place and it went really well.
I was a bit worried going into row 6 thinking it was going to be a real pain doing so many separate elements and having so many ends to hide. That row ended up not being too terrible and it went fairly quickly so I moved right into row 7.

I am happy to report that we actually had a pretty nice weekend.  For the last several years my husbands family has made it a point to all meet every year on the same weekend in Walla Walla.  The weekend always involves going to the annual car show and parade and we get the bonus of getting to see the nephews play in soccer and basketball games.  The days are filled in between with lots of outdoor games, good food and fun conversations and nights are just as fun with sitting around the fire pit making s'mores and playing games. Since the drive is almost 5 hours both ways I got in quite a bit of tatting. On a not so happy note I found I made the first join in the row incorrectly...freakin again!!

 Some of the  little 5 petal flowers that you have to join this row to got a bit funky and the very first one I joined to got twisted. To top that off I have run out of core thread with only 2 more chains to go.  Now I have to decide whether I will be ok just leaving the first join as is or if I should cut off a bunch of elements and have to deal with  hiding lots ends. This doily has been a trial in patience and I am not loving it so I am not sure what to do. I guess I probably should spend time on the cross stitch project anyway so I will try to take some time and think about it.

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.

Same mistake...different doily

It has been a super brutal last couple of weeks.  Holidays away from family never seem to get any easier but I  just had to get through 3 of them.  It certainly wasn't much fun not getting to give my dad a huge hug on fathers day and then on the heels of that, mine and my dads birthdays are a week apart.  That pretty much made the whole week almost impossible to get through.  To top that off I went to close row seven only to find that I had missed putting in a thrown ring in the previous row!! AGGGHHH It is the exact same thing I did with my last doily.  I cant believe I didnt see it as it was only 3 joins in from where I started the next row.

As mistakes go it was in a pretty good spot to be able to fix it without having to tear out too many elements but the problem was trying to hide a massive amount of ends all in a small space.  It also meant trying to open several ring of which I am not so good at.  I agonized for a couple of days over the decision whether to fix the mistake or just leave it and deal with it like I did the last doily.  I finally just decided to leave the mistake alone because I figured making a weird join in row 8 would be less obvious than trying to hide so many ends in one spot. 
The week wasn't completely all terrible, we did end up working a Candlebox  show at a casino which was pretty fun.  This one was a complete full production show which means we supplied and set up absolutely everything needed to put the show on.  The only thing we didn't set up was the stage as it was already there.  The hours were super long and the casino was several hours away from home so we got to stay over night at the casino hotel so it was kind of fun being away from home for a few.
 I guess you have to take the good with the bad, we can only hope for more good than bad.  The hubby can usually find the good in the bad but I don't do so good with that but I keep trying.

Shuttle addiction

Our weather took a nasty turn for the cold and rainy so its been a good couple of days of just snuggling in and tatting and trying to stay warm.  It seems to be even colder when you go from a 90 degree day to down in the 50s. The last 2 rows on my doily have gone pretty well as they are just rings and chains.  The repetitiveness of doing a doily seems to be a bit calming so that is a very good thing. It seemed to work pretty well by using my bigger Lacis/Sewmate shuttle for the core/chain thread and using my Aerlit shuttle for the rings.  I am pretty sure I am going to order a Moonlight shuttle to see if it holds more thread than the Aerlit.  I am getting quite a collection of shuttles and thread, I guess that's what happens when you have an addiction..you just want more and more!

Doily remake!

Well another weekend bites the dust! It seemed like the weekend went by really quickly.  I got to work production on a comedy show on Saturday at a casino that we hadn't worked at for a while.  Its not very often that I work a show that my husband doesn't work with me so its was a bit different. Its always a better show when we get to work together, maybe the worse part of not working together for this show was the 2 1/2 hour car ride alone and then another 2 1/2 hour car ride home after working a 12 hour day. The crew I was working the show with are super fun guys so it was a pretty good day.
Sunday was a pretty lazy day because the hubby also had to work a show alone Saturday night so we both got home really late.  I got in a little bit of yard work because it was the first nice day we have had for a while but other than that we didn't get much accomplished.
Earlier in the week I had decided I was just going to do another doily of the same pattern that I had just completed.  I had someone in mind that I was going to do the first one for but since I am not super happy with that one I am going to try it again.  I am going to be brave and try to do this one with several colors which means quite a few decisions.  So far I have already decided on the colors and which colors the first few row are going to be.

 The pink shows up a bit more bright pink than I was hoping it would be but so far things are going ok. The center is red heart classic in burgundy,  the green is the same thread I used on the last doily which  is Artiste in sweet pea and the pink is Artiste in tropical pink all thread is size 10.
I also decided to tryout one of my new shuttles.  I had ordered an Handy Hands Aerlit shuttle which has a crochet hook on one end and a removable bobbin awhile ago but I haven't had a chance to try it out yet.  This shuttle has good points and not so good points.  I really like the fact that I don't have to constantly look for a separate crochet hook to do joins but the hook sometimes tends to get in the way and it hooks itself on the thread when you least want it to.  I love the the fact that I don't have to unwind a shuttle if it has the wrong color thread on it I can just change out the bobbin. I ordered a set of extra bobbins so I think that will be an extra bonus. The down side is I don't think the bobbins hold as much thread so it seems I am having to add thread more often.  I have tried to find out how much thread each shuttle holds but I cant seem to find that info out.  I think I may have to do a little experiment to find out exactly how much each holds so I will know in the future. 

First doily complete!!!

OK so I had set aside my doily because I thought that I had done an extra element. I kind of let it frustrate me and it started to get to me so when I finally decided to pick it back up I had it in my mind that I was just going to bail back into it and cut the element off and finish it off. I had already made up my mind that this was going to be the last row because it was already pretty large.  I just took a deep breath and cut the element off but  after I got to looking closer, I had cut the element off and realized that I didn't need to.  It ended up that I was just missing an element in the previous row with which to connect to.  It took me a bit to remember that I had made the decision not to go back and fix a missing element in row 4 or 5 and now I am paying for it.  I am trying to take this as a live and learn moment but it is super frustrating to work and work and spend hours and hours on something and then have the ending be a mess.  This doily has quite a few little things I am not happy with and of course as with every project I do I can pick out every little mistake.  I am very critical of every little thing I do.  I am very much a perfectionist and it tends to get in the way of lots of things in my world, nothing I do is ever good enough.  Thankfully so far my will to succeed has outweighed my fear of failure of never being good enough so I keep trying.
I am still not really sure where this doily is going to live because right now I am a bit frustrated how it turned out so I am not sure if I am going to be blocking it immediately so I just went ahead and took a picture of it and I am going to go ahead and call this #17 in the motif challenge. This is Ranulek Spring 2014 napkin done with #10 Artiste thread and the color is snow pea. I stopped at row 8 because this is already 17 inches across, the pattern actually has 5 more rows. Unfortunately it is going to need blocking because it is not laying very flat.  I didn't tat as tight as I normally do and the thread is not very stiff.  It feels good to complete a large project but right now I am not so proud because of the last join and all the little mistakes so I will just set it aside and decide what to do with it a bit later.

Motifs 14, 15, 16

Well it looks like it has been a couple weeks since I have posted anything.  I got right to the end of row of my doily and realized it looked like I had made one extra element that I didn't have too so that frustrated me a bit because it was a big element and they take a while to accomplish so I ended up setting aside the doily and haven't touched it for at least a week.  I have actually done more beading than I have tatting but I did squeeze in a few little motifs.
I decided to do a little needle motif so I didn't forget how to do it. This little heart is a pattern by Vicki Clarke, I found the pattern here and its done with Artiste thread in Windsor color. I got almost half way around before I found that I attached a ring to the wrong picot so I ended up just abandoning my first attempt and starting over. This will be #14 motif in the 25 Motif challenge.  I am not sure what I am going to do with it but its kind of cute.

I have been looking for a choker pattern for a while now. I recently borrowed a book called tatted bookmarks needle & shuttle distributed by Handy Hands. I found a bookmark pattern called hearts by Dee Powell. I first tried the pattern with needles using Bernat Handicrafter thread in iris.  I love the color of this thread but I really don't like the way this pattern turned out.  It was difficult to work with and you cant really tell that they are supposed to be hearts so I tried it again with shuttles and Cameo crochet thread.  This thread is very uneven and has weird texture in spots so I don't like this one at all either. I made one too many hearts so if I am going to use it as a choker I am going to have to cut it off. I ordered some black Lizbeth thread so I will probably just end up making another one. I am gonna call these 15 and 16 in the Motif challenge.

Bassco prayers and bad day tatting

Well its another not so awesome weekend in the books.  This one sucked for lots of reasons.  One of my cats (we have 2... Tabassco, Bassco for short and Tapatio, Tio for short(yes we love hot sauce in our house)) had gotten in a cat fight on Monday and we just kind of was keeping an eye on him since I haven't worked in so long and money is super tight.  He had a couple of bite marks and they didn't look too terrible until Friday when they turned into abscesses. So I took him in and they shaved him and gave him antibiotics.  So this weekend was spent giving my poor baby hot compresses and praying that the infection goes away and that the wounds drain so we don't need to have a drain put in.  I am feeling like the worlds worse pet-parent for not taking him in earlier cause I know he hasn't felt well.  He seems like he has ok hours and bad hours so I have been so stressed hoping that there isn't more going on and that he will get better soon. 

The weather has pretty much matched my mood, or maybe visa-versa. We have barely been in the 60s and raining, blowing and super overcast and foggy. Saturday was a terrible day tatting, I couldn't seem to do anything right.  I ended up cutting out 2 huge elements and untatting lots of stitches due to mistakes and I couldn't seem to get my stitches to flip.  My mind was so scrambled and I wasn't thinking clearly but I couldn't seem to just put it down and walk away. The more mistakes I made the madder it was making me but it made me want to try to do better and not quit.

Since the kitties haven't been able to go outside the moles have gone crazy in the yard.  We have at least 18 new dirt mounds.  Bassco seems to keep them at bay but now I am nervous to even think about letting him out since he got attacked by something.  We only let the kitties go outside if I can keep an eye on them and I have never known them to leave our yard but our yard is 2 acres so anything could have happened. 

With all the rain and no sun it has pretty much killed off all our iris flowers.  The were so beautiful and plentiful because of all the sun but they look awful and sad now. I am not sure if they will come back but I am hoping they will because they sure make me smile.

Here's to hoping that the week goes much better!!

I am very thankful that I took a while to decide on what to do with my nasty mistake!  I looked at the next row closely and I am definitely going to need the missing picot to attach the next row to.  So I made the decision to cut out the row and fix the mistake.  I cut out part of it and un-knotted part of it so I could have thread enough to tat a bit so I didn't have to hide all my ends at once.  The next row is probably going to take a long time to accomplish judging by how long the last rows took and those rows were easy.  I am hoping that this row will be heavy enough to help lay down the previous rows. 

Rows 6 and 7...new shuttle

It has been a very sad last couple of days.  I am so home sick and having such anxiety that it makes for some very trying days.  Thankfully the weather has been a bit better. If the sun comes out it seems to help at least a little bit. I am definitely a warm weather person, I love the sun and warm.
I haven't felt up to doing much of anything so I have just done a little tatting on the next couple rows of the doily.

 Even though they are very easy rows I am finding they are causing a bit of grief.  I found that I am not pulling the tension evenly on the chains and my thrown rings are uneven.  To top that off I found I dropped some stitches on a chain and its way too far back to fix. Then I found that I dropped a thrown ring and a chain about 6 elements back. That means that is 11 rings I would have to try to undue and I am terrible at doing that.  I could just cut it out but the silly thing is that I just tied in thread 2 elements prior to the mistake.  This time I decided to wind my thread onto a bigger shuttle.  So far I have only been using Clover small shuttles.  I decided to try my Lacis.  I am struggling with it because it is longer.  I am hoping it wont take long to get used to because it seems to hold quite a bit more thread and since I have a bit of trouble hiding all my ends that will be a good thing not having to do it so often.   I am seriously considering just leaving the mistake alone and see what happens with the next row.  As of right now the edges are cupping upward, I believe it is due to my uneven tension on my chains, the same story probably goes for the crooked rings as well.  If I dont make the decision soon I am afraid I will just set the project aside and not finish it...so wish me luck in another decision!  

Brutal Weekend

Well another weekend is done and gone.  This one was more than brutal than most.  We worked setting up and tearing down for a swanky fund raiser for a local hospital/cancer center. We started at 3:00 pm on Friday afternoon and worked till 3:30 am the next morning setting up lighting and a stage for a band. We had to go back to work at 11:00 pm that same night and worked tearing it all back down. We worked till 9:30 the next morning (Sunday). I know most people probably don't think or know what it takes to put on shows and events but there are hundreds of people and hundreds to thousands of hours for even the smallest shows and parties. I enjoy being part of something so awesome but I  sometimes feel like I am getting too old and I am certainly too fat for such work. I guess the best thing I can do it to keep trying to get more healthy and in better shape.

I have to admit it was an awful Mothers Day! The hubby and I were both pretty sore and tired so we didn't do anything but chill the rest of the day so for mothers day I got a $5 pizza.   I cant even begin to tell you how brutal it is to not be able to spend holidays with family.  Each and every day is brutal but Holidays are somehow worse.  I know it was my own decisions and mistakes that created the pain so that makes it all the worse. I keep hoping somehow, someway I will be able to learn to live with the pain but that doesn't seem to be happening. "Just breath" is the theme song and harder to follow than you can even imagine.
Please don't get me wrong, I am very thankful I got to at least talk to my mom and kids on the phone but I cant seem to get past the thought that I have utterly and totally let them all down.  The pain is debilitating but I feel like I deserve it.  "Just Breath"!!

Row 5

Well our weather took a turn for the cold and rainy so I just kind of snuggled in and tatted for most of the day.  The good news is I finished row 5 . This one was actually pretty fun to do and wasn't as scary as I was worried about.  The bad news is the edges seem to be curling a bit.  I am just going to jump into the next row and hope it starts straightening out. The next row has lots of thrown rings and I have never tried to do them before but I guess now is as good as time as any to try them out

4th row with clover issues

Well we actually had an ok weekend, it was another busy one as well.  We worked a show at a local casino on Friday from 2:00pm till 2:00am doing sound for an 80s pop cover band.  They were really pretty good, monster players and they did the songs well. Its always a funner work night if the band doesn't suck.  Saturday we drove a few hours away to be able to see our nephew play basketball in a big tournament. Didn't get a ton of time to spend with the family but it was great to see them twice in less than a month.  I did learn on this trip that it is quite difficult to count tatting stitches if the road is bumpy and rough.  Most of the ride was very bumpy so I didn't get any tatting done. I had made up my mind to go ahead and do the next row in green and had hoped to try to get some tatting in.  I had already started on the row and it was beating me up.
Turns out this row pretty much beat me up the whole way around.  I could not seem to figure out how to do the clovers.  With each clover I tried to get it done in a different way hoping I would stumble across a way to make it look ok.  With each clover I kept thinking I may just have to cut that row off.  At one point I jointed a ring in the wrong spot and ended up breaking a thread trying to loosen it.  I have major problems with undoing rings. I almost always break a thread.  I am not sure what the problem is and what I am doing wrong but it is super frustrating.  This one was doubly frustrating because I was super close to being out of thread on my shuttle and I was within 3 rings of being completely done with the row.  Of course the thread that I broke was not the one that was out of thread. At this point I just decided to go ahead and finish off the row because judging from previous experience I know that if you cut motifs off picots the picots are stretched and look a bit funny. 

After this row I am not super happy with this doily. I never did find a good way to do the clovers.   I have taken a peek at the next row and I am quite concerned that this row is going to be a bit challenging as well.  It looks like I am going to have to concentrate on making the right joins and the right chains in the right place.  I am just going to have to jump in and try it because this row requires something to attach the clover to to make it lay correctly.  Wish me luck!!

Row 3

Its been another couple of busy days. We actually had the pleasure of hosting another dinner for a friend that my hubby used to work with.  He is another monster guitar player so it was awesome to have him over for a few hours.  It has been such a treat to have people over that we are going to try to make it happen more often.
I was able to complete another row on my doily.  I ended up finding out on my last element that if I joined "as is" the doily was going to bunch badly. I should have made my picot joins much smaller and some of my chains much tighter. I ended up dropping some stitches on the last couple of chains. It seems to be ok, it doesnt lay completely flat so I am hoping that blocking will help.

I have been having lots of thoughts on what to do with the finished project. I started out thinking I was just going to do this in one color but I am trying to decide if I want to add a color for the next row or just stop at this row and start another project. I kind of picked this pattern because it looks kind of cute with just these rows.  Aggghhh more decisions.  I know a lot of my decisions aren't life changing or critical to anyone's health or welfare but I have massive trouble making even the tiniest of them. Life is all about choices but I have had to make some HUGE world (my own personal world of course) changing ones in the recent past so that has caused making almost all decisions next to impossible.  Really the only thing I don't have to make a decision to do is breath....therefore "just breath" has tons of meaning for me!  Some days that's the only mantra that gets me through the day.  Unfortunately some days that's all I can do but I have been told its a pretty important part.....so  JUST BREATH!

1st 2 rows of doily

Its been pretty cold and rainy the last couple of days so that means the perfect weather to just snuggle inside and tat!  I finally just decided to take a deep breath, pull up my big girl pants and make a decision on which doily to do as my first.  I decided on Renulek Spring 2014 napkin in a solid color.  It made sense to pick from one of my favorite colors...green!  I chose a green that was a bit muted and earthy so that it will be able to be used in almost any room in my house including the kitchen.  In case it turns out yucky I can use it as a dish rag!  hehehe

I was able to complete the first 2 rows without too much trouble.  Its kind of a good thing I didn't think of having to close the row before I started or I may have been more hesitant to start.  I was able to close the second round ok, it was just a bit of a challenge.   I am not sure if I did it the perfect way but it looks ok, just not flawless.  I believe tatting just requires quite a bit of common sense so I just had to use that to figure out how to do it!  I am hoping that round 3 will go as well.

Mind made up and Iron Dragon

Well the weekend is drawing to a close and as always I cant believe how fast they tend to go.  We actually got to go see a show and not have to work it.  We went and saw Iron Dragon which, in my humble opinion, is the best 80's hair metal tribute band we have had the privileged to see.  We see them as often as we can. They are all amazing musicians and the singer has an amazing voice and its always fun to relive the 80's (OK I admit I still live in the 80's)
 Our weather took a turn for the cold and rainy.  We went from 90's and beautiful to 50's and rain in less than 2 days so the push was on trying to find a something new to tat. I have spent hours pouring over the internet and even searching Amazon to find doily patterns and books that have patterns.  I think I have pretty much made up my mind...  I am going to jump on the Renulek napkin train.  They keep popping up in a lot of different blogs so I believe I am just going to jump in and give it a try.  Now I just need to decide which one to do and what color.  Jeez the decisions can be so difficult! I am absolutely terrible at making decisions and I HATE to have to make them but its kind of hard to start a project without making them.   If I can just make a few more I will be on my way to making my first doily. 

Ahead of schedule

Wow I have completely been slacking about posting anything. It has been a pretty busy last couple of weeks.  We have worked a couple of really fun shows, namely Keith Sweat and ZZ Top.  We did backline for Keith Sweat and we actually worked on the "local crew" for ZZ Top which means it was helping with the full production of the show.  We had some of hubbies family come and stay with us for a few days which was awesome. I have been more than a little home sick for quite some time now so it was great to be around family for at least a little while.  We had a couple of friends over for dinner this last weekend which is kind of a rare treat so that was pretty awesome as well.  In between all of this I have been tatting every spare minute I could find.  I have actually been trying to get a head start on the next holiday which is still several months away.  It is kind of a bummer that there is no holiday for a while because I am a big holiday decorator so when there isn't a holiday that means I have several bare shelves.  The bare shelves look silly and kind of makes me sad so thankfully I don't have to see them too often.
So working on my next holiday do-dads has been fantastic practice with the shuttle, I made a huge turn in mastering the little beastie.  The repetitiveness of making the same motif over and over again let me focus on the stitches rather than trying to keep track of the pattern. I am getting close to being done with the little motifs (well ahead of schedule for once) so I have been in search of a new project. I thought since the motifs are going so well I would try something a bit more ambitious. I have spend wayyyy to much time trying to find a doily pattern that I like and that I can understand the pattern.  Not such an easy task so I am still searching!

Early International Tatting Day

So last week was a pretty busy week. I have been trying to do a bit of spring cleaning but I have been finding out that I probably shouldn't have saved so much for the spring time LOL! It kind of feels like I celebrated international tatting day a bit early. Wednesday I had planned to ride the ferry across the to knock something off my bucket list. This little jaunt put me in the direct path of coming across several thrift stores, 2 Jo-Ann fabrics, and 2 Hobby Lobbys. It seems my vehicle just cant seem to drive by any of them without stopping...ok, ok I know I cant blame the vehicle but that is my story and I am going to stick to it. I ended up bring home a couple balls of vintage JP Coats thread, a couple balls of Lizbeth thread (the selection I found was very slim), some cool buttons to try to tat around and a starlit shuttle. The shuttle is giant compared to the small clover shuttles I have been using so I am not sure how quickly I am going to be trying it out but I will add it to my collection. I can tell it will hold much more thread which may come in handy at some point. I am looking forward to trying the Lizbeth thread out. I kind of ran out of time to explore each store for as long as I would have liked but I also didn't want to miss the ferry.
It was a beautiful spring day and a perfect day for a ferry ride. The ride was only half an hour but I spent every minute of it sitting outside at the front of the boat shuttle tatting. I had one person stop and comment on my tatting. She said that her grandmother used to tat! That sure made me smile.

The ferry ride ended at a casino to watch the show "Thunder from down under". Heheheh...male strip show..check off the bucket list! It was a super late night because the production company we sometimes work for did the lighting for the show so we got in free so we stayed and helped with tear down and load out. I didn't get home till almost 3am because I missed the last ferry so I had to drive around. Totally worth it cause it was a pretty awesome day. So I am going to call it Happy early International Tatting day! Whhooo hooo for once I was ahead of the calendar!!
I spent the week trying to find a motif to give to a lady at church that has given  us some eggs and a couple of homemade rolls for Easter dinner. I did these lil guys but they are super tiny and I wanted something a bit bigger. I feel really bad because I cant re-find where I got the pattern from for the tiny one. The bigger ones are from Marilee Rockley. These will be #12 and 13 of the 25 motif challenge. These were all done with a needle.

This will be #14 of the challenge.

 The pattern is from Sheila Edlunds and this too was done with a needle. There were several mistakes in the pattern that I didn't catch until it was too late so I really dislike how this one turned out. I absolutely HATE the colors I used so needless to say this one is going to be put away in the tat of shame box. So come Sunday I still have not come up with anything to take. Oh well I guess there is always next weekend

Happy belated Easter

Is anyone else seeing a pattern here?  Here lately I have been having trouble getting things completely finished on time. I seem to be one step behind the calendar. For some reason Easter just crept up and now its already gone. It was so close to St pats that I didn't even put the Easter decoration up.  I did get my motifs done in time I just didn't get them in the mail in time and I didn't get them posted on here on time but here they are...

This is #10 in the 25 Motif Challenge. I ended up making 7 of these. The pattern can be found(  here  ) I wish I could tell you whos pattern it is but I never could find a name on the site. The thread is vintage J&P Coats in pastel and I did these with a needle. I am so much quicker with a needle but I am still working with my shuttles to try to get faster with them.

First ever shuttle motif

I do believe I am going to count this one as #11 in the motif challenge!

Since I was very familiar with the egg pattern I decided to try one with the shuttle. Wow was it ever full of firsts. I used 2 shuttles so I could see if I could change colors where I wanted to and I do believe I did that. Right out of the gate I had to do a split ring and that wasn't too terrible. Then I had to do a folded join, now that ended up being much more difficult! I had to pick it out twice which is no easy task and it made the thread in that spot pretty wonky but I did it! Then I got to do a split chain, that went ok but I had to pick it out once so it made the thread in that spot funky as well. When I started on the outside I only hid one end of the thread. When  I got toward the end I had a bad feeling I was going to run out of thread and sure enough I did on the very last chain so I ended up finger tatting to get me to the end.  When I came to the end I used a loop of thread to try to hide the ends (including the one I didn't hide at the beginning of this row) but I wasn't able to pull through so much thread at once so I wasn't able to hide the other end and to top that off it was so short that I cant use a needle to hide that in so that one is just not going to get done. All in all I believe this went ok for my very first shuttle motif! I am a perfectionist so of course when I look at it all I see are the mistakes so I will probably just hide it away and bring it out after I do a bunch more so I can compare how far I have come!