Author: wandasknottythoughts@gmail.com

Bulletin board

When my daughters were young they were in a local 4-H club.  When my oldest daughter was about 10 years old one of her projects was a bulletin board made with a ceiling tile.  She decorated it for a craft project and entered it in both the 4-H fair and the county fair.  In some counties they are held together but in this county they are separate, with the county fair having 4-H categories. She got blue ribbons on it at both fairs.
 
The material it is covered with was not purchased for the project but chosen from what material I had on hand that was large enough (this is NOT what she would have chosen otherwise!)  Even the flowers were from what I already had. 
Some of the decorations in one corner was old costume jewelry that I had been keeping for some reason.  She added glue to the posts and pins of these prior to poking them into the board.  The string of pearls were from a roll that I had in my stash, artfully arranged and attached with hot glue. 

To go along with the romantic feel I gave her some of my tatting for one of the corners.  It was gathered a bit to give it some dimension – and it didn’t look right when left flat.
The pattern for this is out of “Aunt Ellen’s Treasury Tatting Patterns”  I had been trying to find 
a pattern for a tablecloth and this was one of my trials (I didn’t go with this pattern).  It’s made with an ecru size 10, Anchor thread I think. 
This bulletin board has been hanging in what was my daughter’s room all these years.  Her room has been the guest room since she moved out when she went to college and now where I keep most of my craft-y stuff.  It fits right in 🙂
Today I’m drinking Mango Maui tea from Hawaiian Islands Tea Company.  It has a wonderfully different taste from the teas I usually drink.  I’m sipping it from a very unromantic-looking cup that has a cute crocheted owl cozy on it.  I picked up the cup at a local craft fair where the seller sat crocheting the cozies as she waiting for customers.  This blue owl is the first one she made out of “un-natural” owl colors; she wasn’t sure they’d sell.  The cups were all ones she’d picked up from second-hand stores or yard sales.  
What connection does Mango Maui tea and owls have? None that I know of except I’m drinking one out of the other 🙂
My daughters and others in their 4H club showing off their club banner for the 4H fair, about 1996. My oldest is holding up the banner and my other daughter is on the far right with the striped shirt.
4-H pledge
 “I pledge 
My Head to clearer thinking,
My Heart to greater loyalty
My Hands to larger service
and 
My Health to better living
For my club, my community, my country and my world.”

Tatting Tea Tuesday on a Small Scale

This week I’ve been tatting in small thread.  
This is Gütermann silk quilting thread. in color 386.  I bought it last August when I bought the Perfect Quilter thread.  I have been carrying it around with me for a while but had not even put it on a shuttle until about a week ago.  Other than being so small as to be hard to see it is easy to tat with.  I only broke the thread once while working on this piece (so far!) and it actually broke about four inches from the ring I was closing.  I have to work on this when I have lots of light, as much for the size as the color. It’s been fun working in such fine thread though challenging, especially as I’m working on my vest between times, which is in size 10 thread.  I’m finally remembering to number this for my 25 Motif Challenge – I think it’s number 11.
Today for Tatting Tea Tuesday I had a cup of Celestial Seasonings Cinnamon Apple Spice tea with a touch of honey out of a big mug, not this little cup.  This is a demitasse cup and saucer that my mother gave me.  The cup is 2 ¼” tall, which is how I know it’s a demitasse (meaning ‘half-size’), or child size, cup.  I didn’t realize that the size of a cup determined what it is!  Did you?  I’ve always thought it was a tea cup if you drank tea out of it 🙂  Today while trying to correctly spell ‘demitasse’ I found a blog that describes the history of the cup and saucer and how their sizes define their use.  If you’d like to learn more check it out here on the blog “Demitasse Cups & Saucers”

The white shuttle is another gift from my mother, found at a yard sale. All of the variegated  pink and white thread was wound on it, extending way past the edges of the shuttle.  I don’t know how long it had been wound but, surprisingly, the tips are still tightly together.  In fact I’ll probably have to work on it a bit if I want to tat with it. Unwinding the size 70 or 80 thread wasn’t bad but going the other way took a lot of effort.  There are no markings on the shuttle to say who made it.  I’ve seen similar ones before but I don’t remember where or what brand they were. It has a very smooth surface, is about 3 inches long, and in very good condition.  Both blades are slightly marred in one place along the edge, but other than that it looks brand new.  As it’s already wound and has a ball thread I guess I’ll have to see what I can make with it.  How about a demitasse doily?

“You can often measure a person by the size of his dream.”
Robert H. Schuller
http://thinkexist.com


I linked to Artful Affirmations

TIAS and Tatting Tea Tuesday

We’ve reached the end of the 2014 TIAS.  It was a lot of fun (when isn’t it?), with a sailboat at the end. 
 The “Knotty Thought” in Lizbeth size 20 # 130 Island Breeze and # 657 Ocean Turquoise Dark
I must have been a bit psychic to choose threads that go so well with a nautical theme don’t you think?

Today for Tatting Tea Tuesday I bring you progress on my vest.
I picked it up again – finally.  I started it in April of 2013, got as far as finishing the collar then put it down and didn’t pick it up again until about a month ago. Since then I’ve put about 20 hours into it. This is the center of the back.  I’m hoping that my ideas for this work out. 
Today I’m drinking Peppermint Tea with a touch of honey out of a cup I found at Goodwill.  It stood out amid quite a variety of cups and mugs in it’s color and decoration, the only one of it’s kind there.  The cup caught my eye, with it’s blueberries and blossoms.  I thought it was Corelle but it has ‘epoch’ on the bottom. So for the whopping price of 50 cents I brought it home. It obviously doesn’t hold as much as one of the mugs I’m used to drinking from, but I enjoy using it. 
Did you know there is quite the connection between sailing ships and tea? There was a time when clipper ships brought tea from China to England.  The tea clippers actually raced to be the first to make it back from China.  Those ships must have been quite the sight to see.  There is only one of the clippers left, the Cutty Sark, in dry dock in London. How much easier it is to get tea now, but without the romance of sailing ships!

“Happily, one great tea clipper has survived and is now in dry dock at Greenwich in London. Cutty Sark, launched from the Clyde on  22 November 1869, was one of the last tea clippers to be constructed.  Built for John ‘White Hat’ Willis, she was intended to win the annual clipper race, although in fact she never beat her biggest rival, Thermopylae.  The decline of the clipper tea trade meant that Cutty Sark only carried tea until 1877, but she survived many later incarnations, and is now the only remaining tea clipper in the world.  Small to modern eyes, Cutty Sark is nonetheless breathtakingly beautiful, and a visit offers a fascinating insight into the life of a tea clipper.” 

from the UK Tea Council
The Cutty Sark at Grenwich in London

I linked to Artful Affirmations for her Tea Cup Tuesday

It’s Tuesday

The 2014 TIAS continues
The most often guessed is a sail boat but I’m not sure, Jane can be pretty sneaky! (in a good way!)  Whatever it is we are more than halfway through.
I have been tatting but don’t have pictures of what I’ve spent the most time on.  I do have this little piece made with Coats Cotton Machine Quilting thread.  I don’t really have a plan for this piece but I had the thread with me (why? I found it in a drawer and stuck it in my box…) so thought I’d try working with it.

And it was very trying.  I usually tat with size 20 thread and I’ve got a project going in size 10, so working with this was quite a chore.  I would get about three rings and a chain done then break the thread on the next ring.  Today I very consciously made my stitches and pulled the rings closed very carefully. Success! The thread didn’t break! 

Last week Tuesday I didn’t have to go to work due to snow and bad roads.  We got somewhere between eight and ten inches by the time it was done.  And it hasn’t melted yet!  Which is very unusual around here.  Then Sunday night we got another two inches.  But the sun is shining today and they say we’ll get above freezing maybe tomorrow.  By Sunday it should be in the 60’s (ºF) and the snow mostly gone.
We found some lovely tea related images from tea loving Grace in Italy - which we have put together as a montage and thought we would share...I haven’t been doing Tatting Tea Tuesdays much lately, not because I haven’t thought about it but I’ve been drinking a lot of coffee instead of tea.  Including today.  But I did get some tatting done and I’ve found a blog that’s all about tea cups!  If you also like tea and tea cups check out Artful Affirmations.  

                                                                              image from Pinterest

TIAS and ATC

TIAS – Tat It And See – Jane Eborall’s annual fun-fest of teasing those of us in tat-land that choose to join with small snippets of a pattern every few days.  There have been some pretty fun guesses made by participants but is anyone right?  Only Jane knows!

TIAS Day 9

My TIAS through Day 11
What is it?
It started snowing here last night about midnight.  They are predicting that we could get upwards of 9 inches of snow today with blowing snow and frigid weather tonight and tomorrow. I didn’t even open the door to take this picture.
 The view from my front door about 12:00 PM
Just got news that work has been cancelled for today – yeah!!

 ATC stands for Artist Trading Cards.  These are supposed to be no larger than 3½ inches by 2 ½ inches (the size of most any trading card, like baseball, hockey, etc, as well as most playing cards) and can be made of and with almost anything you want.  It’s a small piece of art to be traded or given away, not sold, to other artists. Originally this was done at face-to-face events but a lot of people now organize swaps on the Internet and through the mail.  They are also sometimes used by artists to try a technique or idea on a small scale, kept instead of traded.

I have been admiring Singtatter’s ATCs for sometime, but never tried any.  She and her friends do all sorts of different media and I haven’t seen myself being that ambitious.  But I got to thinking the other day that I’ve enjoyed decorating the photo album covers and I had a lot of fun decorating the little bags.   And I have quite a lot of flowers, butterflies and birdies and such from emptying shuttles.  Hmm, it could be fun to decorate something small like ATCs.

So I attempted a few.

Tatting and colored pencils

Paper, thread and heart button – oops, no tatting!

Tatting, paper and ribbon
Dove pattern by JoAnn Stearns, ‘Joy’s Heart’ pattern by Wanda Salmans

Originally I wasn’t going to put that butterfly on this last one, I was going to write a few words.  And I messed up the few words.  So I had to cover them up.  Oh, well, this is just for me anyway, and I had fun doing it, so all is good.

These are very simple ATCs compared to many I’ve seen on the Internet, but now I have a lot more ideas to try.  What’s funny is for some of these ideas I will have to do some tatting made special for them *hehehe*.  I suppose as fun is the main reason to do these that’s not a bad thing.

“The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls.”
Pablo Picasso
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TIAS days 7 & 8

We are up to day 8 of the 2014 TIAS by Jane E.  
And I still don’t have any idea what it may be.  Several other participants have suggested sails for a boat, which could be – the boat itself may be last.  But with the TIAS in pieces and no way to know which way is up or how they fit together it’s very hard to see what may be coming.
Day 7
Lizbeth #130 Island Breeze size 20
Day 8
Reading through all the entries on Jane’s TIAS blog it’s interesting to see how everyone is coming along and all their guesses.  Most are using variegated thread (Jane suggested to) which gives each person’s venture quite different looks due to the thread color combinations.  When I take pictures of mine I keep thinking it’s not laying flat when it is, it’s just the color of the thread giving that impression. 
I don’t know what we’re making yet, Jane, but it is a lot of fun!
I haven’t been getting a lot of tatting done this week – I keep getting sidetracked.  I see something that needs doing (the ‘h’ word) or something I’ve thought about doing (crafty things) or anyone of a number of things that catch my attention and off I go on a tangent. I finally sat down the other night with a piece of tatting I started some time ago and didn’t finish.  

Garden 10 Nazli Gelin size 10 white
I found the center of this long-picoted motif inside a bag of other tatting.  I don’t remember what I was going to do with those long picots but the motif was obviously unfinished.  For whatever reason it intrigued me enough to work on it a bit.  I put an outside around it, playing with the stitch count until I thought it was right – and found I probably should have used a couple more stitches than I did.  Now I have to decide what comes next.  Maybe it was to go on a ball Christmas ornament?  I need to see if that center will fit over one.  Hmmm.
“Nothing is a waste of time if you use the experience wisely.”
Augusta Rodin
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TIAS and mice

Today Jane released Day 6 of her 2014 TIAS (Tat It And See). So far she’s done a great job keeping everyone guessing as to what it might be. 
This is my TIAS up through Day 6.  Days 1 through 4 is on the left, Days 5 & 6 is the small piece in the middle.  I’m sure the two pieces will eventually be joined together but I have no idea how.  Do you have any ideas?
I’m using Lizbeth #130 Island Breeze in size 20.
We were very busy this last weekend with family.  Our daughter came down from Nebraska and we all got together with our other daughter in Wichita.  By the time Sunday night rolled around my husband and I were bushed!  Needless to say very little tatting was done during this time.
Though not much tatting was done there was some thinking and planning being done. This is something I’ve been thinking about doing for a while. It’s not done yet, but when it is I’m wanting to mount this so it can be put on the wall, whether on a plaque or in a frame.
  

“I only hope that we don’t lose sight of one thing – that it was all started by a mouse.”
Walt Disney
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