Author: wandasknottythoughts@gmail.com

Tatting Tea Tuesday in Washington, D.C.

I’m having tea in Washington, D.C today.
What am I doing there, you ask? Well, one of my daughters was having surgery and I came out to help for a few days. The surgery was nothing serious – if you can call any surgery not serious – but she would be down for a few days and the grandbaby is not quite one year old. Can you imagine trying to keep up with an eleven month old when you’re supposed to take it easy? Not possible! So I flew out to help her out.
The surgery went well, so at least that is now off our minds. And she’s getting along pretty well, which is great. And being here with the baby is lots of fun. Okay, I love seeing my daughter and son-in-law, too, but babies are babies and they don’t stay that way very long. You gotta grab the chances when you can to enjoy them!


I haven’t had a lot of time to tat – the baby moves pretty fast, gotta keep up – but I did get a couple of hearts made, one on the plane on the way out. I’m doing these hearts for Heather at the Tarnished Tatter. She has a friend, Tracy, who is having a double mastectomy on November 11. Heather is a great friend, helping out in a wonderful way. She has designed a tatted heart which she invites others to make and send to her so she can give them to Tracy with words of encouragement before and after the surgery. I’m sending these to her to help out.

I’m counting this as my second motif in my second round of the 25 Motif Challenge.

I’m hoping to see a few of the sights while I’m here in DC. So far I haven’t really been out of the house yet, but I’ll be here for a little more than a week. The other night when I got in it was raining, besides being late. There is suppose to be some sun before I go, and I’m hoping there will be some of the fall colors left, too.

Whether I see very much of the area or not, at least I get to visit with the family for a little while. That definately makes the trip great!

And the winner is…..

Okay, you’ve waited a-l-l day with bated breath to see who won my giveaway.
You’ve waited.
And waited.
And waited some more.
You may have thought I had forgotten.
You may have wondered if maybe the site had problems and didn’t update.
Well, wonder no more. 
The wait is over. 
You can breathe now, the winner has been chosen.
I gave the name of each person who entered a number.  I used a random number generator to choose one number.
And the winner is…..
******
*****
****
***
**
*
(Would you like to know what took so long?  It was a long day where things didn’t go quite as planned.  I meant to do this first thing, but then….)
Oh, all right already!   
I’ll tell you who won!
The winner is
Trayna!
Congratulations, Tayna!  You have won a wonderful box of goodies from me! 
Thank you everyone that entered.  I’ve had a lot of fun trying to figure out what the prize was going to be.  I’m hoping Trayna enjoys getting it as much as I enjoyed putting it together.
As this is so late I’m not sure I’m going to be posting tomorrow for Tatting Tea Tuesday.  It’s going to be another very busy day.  But I plan on having at least one cup of tea, tatting for at least a few minutes (it will probably be in the car!) and maybe have a little chocolate. I envite all of you to join me tomorrow for a little communi-tea and do a little tatting of your own and take a minute for yourself with a cup of tea (or coffee, or hot chocolate, or hot apple cider, or coke or pepsi – okay, the beverage of your choice!)
Happy Tatting everyone!

Tatting Tea Tuesday in Kansas City

Monday I took my mother to Kansas City for surgery that was scheduled for this morning. There was a lot of time spent in waiting rooms today. During which time I was mostly tatting.  I’m probably going to regret it tomorrow as I didn’t take very many breaks. But I did get a lot done. And had a couple of cups of tea while I was at it.

What I spent my time on was a technique that was  mentioned on InTatters the other day. I saw a thread about using the Larks Head Picot Join as described by Lily Morales. Patty D had some great pictures she shared about when to use it and put up a link to the directions. 

Now I have been using a lot of variageted thread lately which leads to joins that either look wrong or have a spec of the wrong color showing.  Not liking the look much, I definitely had to try this out.

For my practice piece I chose to do the heart in “The Gentle Art of Tatting Pattern Book 1” by Patricia A. Rizzo.  It’s a book of easy pieces, but I thought this would be a great pattern, not having to think too much about the pattern so I could concentrate on the technique.  I made it in “Falling Leaves” Lizbeth thread in size 20.  Isn’t it a pretty color?

I did get the idea of the LHPJ pretty quickly, but doing it consistantly was not so easy.  One time I would get it, the next time I’d pull the wrong threads and just tie a hard-to-get-out knot.  I think I’m getting better – at least until the next time I try it!

I’m going to count this heart as the first motif of my second round of the 25 Motif Challenge, because it definately was a challenge!

Look what I got!

See what came the other day?
A box of Lizbeth thread from Handy Hands! Whoopee!

This is all size 20, mostly solid colors. To coordinate with some of the variegated colors that I bought last time. Don’t they just look yummy?

I did get a couple of variegated threads, like Western Sunset. It sounded so pretty I just had to get some. Not sure what I’ll make with it, but I’m sure I’ll figure something out.

Lizbeth has just wonderful colors. I usually buy just one or two balls at a time, but if you have to pay for shipping, you might as well buy enough to get free shipping, don’t you think?

Now I’m going to have a hard time deciding which color to use first! I did have a thought, though – maybe I should make samples with each of the colors. I’d have a thread and a size sample and I’d get to use all of the colors soon! Okay, I’d have to wrap shuttles a lot, but I’m sure I could figure out just how much each sample takes and only wrap that much. Hmm, I’ll definitely have to think on that.

The candle on the table is “Pumpkin Spice” and it smells wonderful! It makes the house smell sooo good. It is an inspiration to use those fall colored threads that I just bought – like I need any more incentive!

Don’t forget to leave a comment if you want to enter my giveaway. One more week!

And check out LadyShuttleMakers giveaway, too. She’s also shared pictures of her “Girl Cave” – I want one!

The good and the not-so-good.

This week has had it’s good moments and it’s bad. Let’s start with the good. I won Isdihara’s Fractured Quotes: “Knot-TEA” Parody & GIVEAWAY! This was a lot of fun to enter. She asked that you write a ‘fractured’ quote about tatting and tea, based on a quote, to enter. I wrote a couple, not necessarily that good but they were fun to come up with.

Now for the not-so-good. I’ve worked on several pieces this week. And none of them have turned out like I planned. The above is one of them. Can anyone see what’s wrong with the unfinished piece on the right?

The problem started because I started the piece with a different size thread than I’ve used before. In the past I’ve made it with size 10 but this time I thought I’d use the size 20 Lizbeth I just bought. Nothing wrong with that – I knew it would be a little smaller. And I added another ring to make it bigger. One ring. That doesn’t work with the rows that follow. So, I had to start it over. **sigh**

I also was going to make a cross bookmark for friend. I probably still will, but I mis-counted the repeats in the long arm and made it too short. **sigh** There should still be enough thread on the shuttle to start over.

I think I just need to slow down a little, sip a little tea, and do it right the first time!

My first giveaway!

Yes, it’s true, I’m having my first giveaway. Why, you ask?

Believe it or not, I’ve been blogging for a year come the 26th of October! And I thought I’d celebrate by giving away some goodies!

As this is my first ever I’m keeping it simple (I hope!)

All it takes is posting a comment on any of my posts, starting with this one, through midnight October 25, central time, and asking to be entered into the drawing. One entry per person.

The winner will be chosen randomly from all of the qualified entries. On October 26th I will announce the winner here.

I think that’s all. Good luck!

There are a lot of giveaways out there right now. Check out LadyShuttleMaker’s Mondo Monday giveaway at http://ladyshuttlemaker.blogspot.com/; Wickedtats Halloween giveaway at http://wickedtats.blogspot.com/; and Isdihara’s Fractured Quotes giveaway at http://ambitatterous.blogspot.com/. These are all pretty cool, don’t miss them!

Tatting Tea Tuesday with Sophie and giveaways

Who is Sophie, you ask? ‘Sophie’ is the pattern I chose to make for the InTatters October Tatting Challenge. This example of Sophie, here with my pink ribbon mug – for National Breast Cancer Awareness Month – is not my entry to the challenge. I made this with a thread that I like very much, thank you, but I was having trouble with my project, so made it first in this. It’s DMC Perle Cotton, color 115, size 8.

Below is my entry for the challenge. It is made with Knit-Cro-Sheen size 10 in Deep Coral. The Challenge is to use a thread you don’t like or don’t use and I don’t use this kind of thread any more. There are too many threads out there that are much nicer for tatting with (anyone heard of Lizbeth?). This thread is something I must have picked up some time ago. I don’t know why I have this thread – it’s not my color really – or why two balls of it. I must have had something in mind when I bought it but I have no idea what it was.

The problem I was having was actually with the pattern. It’s by Lyn Morton of Tatting & Design, which I found a link to in the pattern library on InTatters. The problem? It’s written in long form with lots of words. I found it a little hard to follow. Of course, if anyone has noticed, I make a lot of things with my own patterns, which means I just have to figure out what I meant and not what someone else might mean.

So I took a few minutes and wrote it out in shorter form then made it with a thread I like working with so I could concentrate more on the pattern than the thread. I thought it came out great! (I won’t mention that I forgot the last chain of 10 ds – good thing I cut my tails long – but I didn’t mention it, shhh!)

I have no idea what I’ll do with these, but they came out looking pretty good, even the one in Coral.

Did everyone see that LadyShuttleMaker is having a giveaway? If you haven’t seen it yet, or haven’t posted a comment yet this week check her blog out here.

And Wickedtats is also having a giveaway! Check out her blog here.

Good luck to everyone in the giveaways. I think they’re contagious, because I’ll be having one this month, too! Check back for more details.

LadyShuttleMakers Weekly Monday Mondo Giveaway

LadyShuttleMaker is having a giveaway and the more people who enter the more prizes she gives away. Wow, what a concept! I’ve finally got her banner on the right side of my blog, but it doesn’t take you there (my bad), but this will! She has some awesome stuff she’s giving away, including, sometimes, her HDT (hand dyed thread)! I’ve not bought any yet (I hear it’s very addictive!) but others say it’s wonderful, and I would love to try it. This may be my chance!

Tatting Tea Tuesday Sept. 29,2009

I’m sitting here with my feet up with a cup of tea realizing I have no pictures for today 🙁 I’m tatting something a little bigger than the snowflakes and bookmarks I’ve been doing the last several weeks and have not taken pictures of it yet.

I enjoy Tatting Tea Tuesdays, sharing a few moments of tatting with others who may also be having a cup of tea while they are tatting somewhere in the world. Not quite the same as being in the same place, but still a feeling of belonging. Kind of a virtual tea party.

I happened across a site this week about having tea parties. We’re talking proper tea parties where you dress up and have fancy cups and saucers and everything. Some of these sound like fun – a lot of work, though. They are like our communi-tea in that after your tea party you share it online with others. If you’re interested in learning about how to give a fancy tea party check out Sandy’s Tea Society. She even has books on how to do it right.

One day, if we ever get our house updated like we want, this might be fun. Until then, I’ll stick with our Tatting Tea Tuesdays – I get to have my feet up and I don’t have to clean the house!