Category: doily

Butterfly Edging

There are a lot of tatting projects that I need to get done now that I’m back from Palmettos Tat Days.  I knew about them before I went to Georgia but didn’t have time to do them, so it was rush, rush, rush when I got back. I did get two of my projects done, two more to go before the end of October.

Tatted Butterfly Edged Doily for auction on wandasknottythoughts
Tatted Butterfly Edged Doily

One project I finished was an edged doily. Our church participates in an auction to raise money for a local retirement home, which is supposed to be a ‘basket’ of items that we donate. This year, it’s not a basket at all, but several items of a theme that we’ll bundle together. I try to include something tatted every year, and this year I planned a doily with a tatted edging.

Tatted Butterfly Edging looks like Mary Konior's pattern on wandasknottythoughts
Tatted Butterfly Edging looks like Mary Konior’s pattern

Our theme this year is butterflies, so I envisioned a doily with a tatted edging of butterflies. I had an idea of what I wanted and got started without a pattern. While on Craftree I found an edging that was exactly what I wanted: Mary Konior’s Butterflies from her book “A Pattern Book of Tatting.” I don’t have the book and I don’t know the stitch count of her pattern as I made it before I saw a picture of it. As it is so close to her pattern if you want to make it, check out her book.

I loved the butterflies but thought the edging needed to be a bit wider, so I added another row. The result is more suitable to what I planned for the doily.

Tatted Butterfly Edging with a second row on wandasknottythoughts
Tatted Butterfly Edging with a second row

At this point, I didn’t have a center for the doily, I made the edging first 🙂  I had time to tat but not the time to cut and sew the doily center. With the edging done I had to figure out a way to get the center the size needed and found a paper plate worked out nicely. I miscalculated a bit by not making the seam a tad bit wider (making the doily diameter smaller), but it still came out okay. Finished size with edging is about nine and a half inches across.

Tatted Butterfly Edging sewn on found on wandasknottythoughts
Tatted Butterfly Edging sewn on

These are the items we put together for our auction ‘basket.’ We had members of our congregation add the butterflies to the grapevine cross.

Auction items on wandasknottythoughts
Auction items

This is one project down out of four that I want to have done before the end of October. I have one other completed that I’ll post about later. Now on to the next!

“The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.” Rabindranath Tagore     https://brainyquote.com

“Thank You” Doily Finished

I finished the “thank you” doily for my aunt.

Aunt Irene's tatted thank you doily on wandasknottythoughts
Aunt Irene’s thank you doily

There are many beautiful tatted doily patterns out there – I have books full of them.  The Internet has a lot, also.  Do I make one of those?  Of course not, that would be too easy.  I designed another one.

A few years ago I made a snowflake/medallion with a finding in the center.  I used that medallion as the center but made a ring of rings in place of the finding.  That was the easy part.  Some of the rounds went very smooth, the others took more thought.  And several tries.  The end result is a bit ruffle-y until it’s blocked, but still looks nice.  This needs more blocking – it’s amazing how a picture will show things that ‘in person’ isn’t so obvious.

This doily is seven inches across made in Lizbeth #603 Ecru size 20 thread.  I’m not sure of my aunt’s tastes in colors and decorating so chose a ‘traditional’ color. I noticed I put spokes in this doily like several of my other doilies.  I need to try something else next time.  Doing a little more planning in the beginning would probably help, don’t you think?

I had planned to mail it today but will block it a bit better first.  I want it to look good when she gets it.

“Without leaps of imagination, or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities.  Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning. ” Gloria Steinem                   brainyquote.com

Practice and the fair

Tatted earrings based on Lanyard pattern on wandasknottythoughts
Earrings based on Lanyard pattern

I have been enjoying the Lanyard pattern so much I tried making earrings with it. I know there are other earring patterns that are very similar to this but I made these the same as the ends on the lanyard.  Each of these have a couple of mistakes but I will wear them any way.  The next pair will be better.  Unlike with the bigger beads and bigger thread I had to use a floss threader to get the beads on the picots.  It takes so much longer than using a crochet hook!  These were made with Lizbeth #646 Purple Iris Lt in size 20, which is a very similar color to the DMC I used for the lanyard and the bracelet.

Speaking of which, I entered the bracelet in the county fair.

Tatted bracelet made with Lanyard 2016 pattern on wandasknottythoughts
Bracelet made with Lanyard 2016 pattern

My bracelet was the only entry in its class.  It’s great to see a blue ribbon on it as they do not have to give ribbons or top place to any entries even if they have no competition.

Doily with 'Harper' tatted edging at the fair on wandasknottythoughts
Doily with ‘Harper’ tatted edging at the fair

Doilies have to be mounted on cardboard to enter the fair.  My ‘Harper’ Edging looks good on the black background, doesn’t it?   It, too, was the only item in its class.  I’m glad I decided to enter both bracelet and doily so they don’t eliminate the classes.

Now I’m back to practicing cluny tatting.  I am taking one of Mimi Dillman’s classes at Tat Days in September and need to be a bit more comfortable with them.  I’m not trying to be perfect yet, just able to do them well enough that I can understand and learn any tips she teaches in the class.  Then I’ll practice what I learned 🙂

“To practice any art, no matter how well or how badly, is a way to make your soul grow. So do it.” Kurt Vonnegut

Teacup for Tatting Tea Tuesday

Isn’t this little teacup with the candle inside cute? I saw it and just had to get it for a Tatting Tea Tuesday post. It’s from a candle shop in Silver Dollar City, Missouri. They pour a lot of candles there, in the most marvelous scents! This one happens to be Bayberry. They make the candles right there in the shop; you can watch and talk to them about what they are doing. They also have a dipping station where you can dip your own candles. You actually buy white candles in any of several different sizes (4 inch, 6 inch, 8 inch) then you dip them in different colour waxes for any color combination your heart desires. I had a picture of the ones that I dipped but it seems to be lost in cyber space somewhere. It will have to be shared on a different post.

The lovely little doily the cup is sitting on was designed by the wonderful AnneB (Anne Bruvold), she who designed the Minor Norwegian Flying Dragons. I tatted it a while ago and thought I had shared it here on my blog but I haven’t found it, so I must be mistaken. I know it was done in size 30 thread but I don’t remember in what brand or color, and measures about four inches across. I’m sharing it now because a friend of mine asked if I would make her one. The pattern for it can be found here. If you are interested in more of Anne’s patterns, you can find them at Nuperelle.net (there be dragons!) Some are in English and some are in Norwegian.

This morning I got up and took the pictures of the teacup and doily, several of the dipped candles, then worked on adding the suggestions of the test tatters to Heart’s Honor bookmark. I didn’t get any tea drank or any tatting done during all that. I did tat a whole ring and chain at my in-laws’ house (not of this doily, another project) and then, well, a mess. I was being soooooo careful with my tube of size 10/0 seed beads when I spilled the entire tube of them all over the floor. So instead of tatting I picked up seed beads. The tube says it has 10g of beads and I must have spilled 9.99% of them – there were only about a dozen lonely beads left in the tube when I picked it up. Most have been recovered but quite a few went into my purse, which will be emptied and de-beaded at home.

I didn’t get the pattern for Heart’s Honor up yet – I had hoped it would be today – but it should be in a few days.

“Inanimate objects can be classified scientifically into three major categories: those that don’t work, those that break down and those that get lost.” Russell Baker

On Bookmarks and Following Directions

Welcome to fall! Here the leaves are starting to turn though the temperatures haven’t gotten all that cold; the nights make you think “fall” without being too cold. Getting into the season I made a bookmark for the Tatting Forums’ Bookmark a Month Challenge in Lizbeth Falling Leaves and black in size 20. Now I need to start one for November. What pattern should it be??

Fall is the harbinger of the winter to come, including the Christmas season. It reminds me that I should be getting all those snowflakes done that I usually include in my Christmas cards.

Okay, so only one of these is a snowflake. They are both out of DMC’s ‘Tatting for Today’ copyright 1980. The one on the left is motif #5 and the other is motif #22, and this is the one that is alluded to in the title. This is not what the tree looks like in the book because I just couldn’t read the pattern correctly. Fortunately I have enough skill to adapt as I go so I didn’t have to scrap it and start over. The rings around the edges are not per the pattern and the ‘trunk’ is too long, but overall the impression is the same as the pattern in the book.

I bought this book probably about 1990 when I had been tatting close to ten years. There was no Internet in those days to share information on books or other tatters. What patterns I was finding were in Workbasket magazines and how-to booklets, you know the ones – “How to knit, crochet and tat” types, with a few descriptions of how-to for each craft then a couple of patterns of each. I remember being pretty excited when I found ‘Tatting for Today’. It had good pictures of each pattern and the written pattern wasn’t the long wordy type from Workbasket. Looking at the patterns now I find they have something to be desired as they have all the directions in a paragraph making it hard to follow. I usually re-write them, having one element per line instead of everything in one paragraph. I think that’s why I had trouble with the tree motif, I didn’t write it out first. Still, it came out acceptable, just not per the pattern : )

This weekend I tried my hand at adding a little something extra to a shuttle – decoupage. I thought the napkin would really look cool on this Susan Bates shuttle, but it didn’t come out quite like I had envisioned. It’s okay, for a first try I guess. And it still tats okay, which is the important part, right?


I would like to thank everyone that’s stopped by to check out out my old-fashioned doily in last week’s post. You are all so very kind. A big “Thank-you!” to TattingChic for sharing it on her blog and sending people my way. I get such a kick out of sharing something that I’m so excited about. And tatterjil, I’d share with everyone what I was giving away in the drawing – except I don’t know just exactly what’s going to be in it. Okay, some of it’s planned already, but not everything! It will just have to be a surprise – for everyone. I’m having a lot of fun coming up with what’s going to be in it. Come back next week when I announce the winner.

This Tatting Tea Tuesday I slept in and haven’t accomplished much since I got up. I had a cup of green tea and thought about tatting. I didn’t get any done until I was on the way to work (don’t think I tat and drive – I was the passenger!). Just trying to get another snowflake done, as I have a lot of them to do.

Remember to stop back by next week when I announce the winner of my anniversary drawing. Until then take a little time for tea and tatting if you can, and have a great week!

Doily with an Antique Motif

I mentioned last week that I have been working on a doily based on an old pattern. I’m finally done! There was a lot of mind changing and retro tatting due to mistakes as well, but finally, finally it’s done! I’m calling this #12 in my 25 Motif Challenge – I did make 13 of the medallions for it!
This doily is 8 x 8 inches (about 20 cm) made with DMC Cebelia size 30 in ecru. The large medallion is a pattern from Priscilla Tatting Book No. 1, copyright 1909. The way patterns were written back then makes it a lot harder for me to decipher than the way many patterns are written today, so at first I just used the picture as a pattern, then I read through the written text. And, yes, this pattern uses two shuttles (“For convenience’ sake call one shuttle A and the other B” page 5, Pris. Tatting Book No. 1). I didn’t follow it quite like it was written as I climbed out of the center by a picot and went on to the next round without a cut and tie and used size 30 thread instead of the specified size 50. As this medallion has long picots and I was going to be making quite a few of them I made myself a set of picot gauges from a plastic lid, which helped a lot after I got used to using them.

Another way I didn’t follow the pattern was not using the size 150 thread to go around each of the medallions. According to the pattern you should make all your medallions and go around each of them with the small thread, not joining them to each other yet. You then place them all on a piece of material in the order you want them, THEN you stitch them together. You also use ‘simple rings’ (which are the same as the center of the medallions) between the medallions, which you stitch in at this time, too. Okay, I wanted an old fashioned looking doily, but I didn’t really want to go to all this trouble. So I did it my way, joining them together as I went, and the simple rings became small medallions made of the center two rounds of the big medallion, just with slightly shorter picots, to fit in the spaces between medallions. The outside rounds of the doily were not part of the 1909 pattern at all, they are something I came up with. Both rounds were started and restarted several times. I’m still not real sure about them, but for the moment I’ll leave it like this. The question is, did I succeed in making an old fashioned looking doily?

It’s funny, I thought I did a pretty good job of blocking this – twice – but looking at the picture now I see where I didn’t do as good a job as I thought. I made this with the Cebelia thread because I have several balls of it as I used to tat with it a lot. After tatting with Lizbeth and Manuela threads this seems to be soft and fuzzy. I know that when I was retro tatting I had more trouble doing it without messing up the thread that I’ve become used to lately.

I was inspired to make an old fashioned-looking doily by the Ice Palace Bed and Breakfast that we stayed at while in Leadville, Co. According to the owner, the B & B was built using some of the lumber from the original Ice Palace, which was built in Leadville in 1895. The B & B is furnished with a lot of period pieces and I enjoyed the Victorian look of the whole house. On the way home I got to thinking about a doily that would fit into that decor. So when I got home I started looking through my vintage pattern books as well as on-line, including the Knots pattern page, which has a lot of vintage patterns. I chose the one I did for several reasons: 1) I liked the look (obviously) and 2) the picture was good enough that if I couldn’t figure out the written text I was pretty sure I could figure it out with just the picture. As I mentioned, I did a little of both. I actually have an idea for another doily using the same medallion. Except that I have a couple of other pieces that I need to do first, I’d already be working on it!

For today’s Tatting Tea Tuesday I displayed part of a miniature tea set I had as a little girl on the doily. I think it adds a little bit to the old-fashioned flavor of the doily. The shuttle is a wooden one from The Shuttle Shop my husband bought me. And to really set the mood, I’m enjoying a little mint tea with my tatting today, another old-fashioned flavor.

Thinking on the age of things, I looked back at my old posts and realized that I will have been blogging for two years in a couple of weeks, which got me thinking of having a giveaway. If anyone is interested please leave a comment on this post to be entered in the drawing. I’ll announce the winner on October 26th in my Tatting Tea Tuesday post.

Now on to newer things: I did finally get my homework done for the Design-Tat class and I’m working on a bookmark for The Tatting Forums bookmark-a-month challenge. That’s coming out a little different than planned (again!) but it has a nice fall look to it. I’m almost done and ran out of thread (!) and now have to add some, but it should be done soon.

I did say I would post the pattern for the previous bookmark/bracelet, so here it is. I’ve gone through it for errors but a few might still be lurking. (I’m so hoping that when I’m done with the Design-Tat class that I can diagram patterns!)

Vacation Bookmark/Bracelet Sept. 2010
p = picot += join RW = reverse work DNRW = do not reverse work
prev = previous CL = clover leaf
1 Shuttle and ball. If wanting chain color for center
ring of cloverleaf, 2 shuttles.
All picots on clover leaves are for joining only,
make as small as possible.
CL R 6-3-3. R 3+6-3-3-6-3. R 3+3-6. RW
*Ch 9-9. RW
CL R 6+ (to 2nd p of prev R)3-3.R 3+6-3-3-6-3.R 3+3-6. RW*
Repeat between * for desired length, then
Ch 9-12 RW
R 6+(to 2nd p of prev R) 6. R 6-6. RW
Ch 20 join to base of last two rings DNRW
Ch 12-9 RW
R 6+ (to p of prev R)3+(to 4th p of facing R) 3.
+ (to 3rd p of facing R. R 3+(to 2nd p of facing R)3-6.RW
*Ch 9-9. RW
R 6+ (to 2nd p of prev. R) 3+(to 4th p of facing R) 3.
+ (to 3rd p of facing R). R 3+(to 2nd p of facing R)3-6.RW*
Repeat between * for length, then
Ch 9-12 RW
R 6+(to 2nd p of prev R) 6. R 6+ (to 1st p of starting R)6. RW
Ch 20 join to base of prev two rings DNRW
Ch 12-9 Cut and tie, finish off the ends.
For bracelet:
Put the thread through the chain at one end before wrapping
it around your hand for a ring.
*R 15 ++ to toggle clasp 15. Cut and tie, finish off ends.*
Repeat for the other end.

New Techniques Learned

Have you ever not tried something new because you just KNEW that they were going to be difficult? That’s me. There are a lot of techniques I haven’t tried because I didn’t have the time to spend on learning them – or didn’t think I did. But this weekend the time came to give a couple of them a try. Can someone just kick me now for procrastinating on these???

Thanks to Toptattyhead, aka Linda S. Davies, and soluranne, aka AnneB, for their wonderful tutorials on YouTube. I have now successfully learned split chains (Linda) and single shuttle split rings (Anne) **happy dance** I have not even tried these before because I thought they would be difficult! Man, when I tried the SSSR I really could have kicked myself on how easy it is!!

The first ring above is a normal ring and the second one is my first try at the SSSR – it looked good until I pulled it closed. The third ring is my next try and I figured out what I hadn’t done on the previous ring – and wa-la! The whole time I’m making these I’m going “Is this all it is? Really?” If you haven’t tried this yet I encourage you to check out AnneB’s tutorial and give it a try.

Linda’s tutorial on the split chain is good. She takes it slow so you can understand what she’s doing. And of course, being a video, you can go back and see it again and again until you get it. The picture shows my first attempt. The piece is just for this practice, it’s not part of anything else. I’m not saying I don’t need to practice this a bit, but I’m not afraid to use it now.

Thanks, ladies!

Update on my doily: I’ve completed the fourth round and still have two rounds to go. This has not been blocked as there is more work to be done.

It’s late summer here in Kansas, obvious everywhere by blooming wild sunflowers. These are in our yard, but can be found in ditches and fence rows everywhere this time of year. I look forward to seeing them as they are hints of the end of hot weather and the start of fall.

Another indication of the end of summer is the Kansas State Fair which starts this Friday. My sister and I plan on going. I plan to take my camera with me, so next week be prepared for a picture heavy post. I didn’t enter anything this year but I’m going to check out what others have. I also want to see the quilts, the photography, the butter sculpture and the pig races and… There is so much to see and do at the fair I know one day won’t be enough time, but I’ll get in as much as I can : )

Today I had a cup of George’s Cherry Tree Tea with my tatting before getting ready for work. As yesterday was Labor Day, a national holiday here in the states, today is the start of the work week. I love short work weeks! May all of you have a great week and fit in a little tatting if you can : )

Miscellaneous Stuff on Tatting Tea Tuesday

I actually got quite a bit of tatting done this week. I had to restart my doily again – it seems to have had the wrong number of repeats : ( – and then got the second round done as well. It’s not blocked as there is a lot of work yet to be done on it, but it’s looking pretty good. Some of this was done while waiting to pick my entries up from the fair.
I forgot to take a picture of my fair entries with their ribbons. My doily and the bookmark (same pattern as this one but in different colors.) each received blue ribbons and the earrings received a red (it was in the same class as the bookmark). I was pretty happy even though there was no other competition. If nothing else this should help keep the tatting classes for another year at least. I kept the fair book to keep in mind other places that I might be able to enter next year (maybe jewelry, note cards and stationary).

While I was at my mother’s house the other day she gave this piece of tatting. It was on a doll/baby dress that her mother gave her. Mom doesn’t know who tatted it, but she knew I would like it. I haven’t decided how I’m going to display or use this piece but I would like it to be seen instead of tucked away in a drawer somewhere. It is made with small thread, looks like size 70.
On InTatters there is a thread about Innocent Design Challenge which I thought sounded like fun. I started several times: had one that looked waaayy too big. It might have been okay, but I cut off some and tried again. I don’t have a bottle to try it on, just the dimensions Kersti gave. Obviously I need to have a sample to work with as this was the next result.

This is the top of a soft drink bottle, which I am very sure is much smaller than the top of the Innocent bottle, as the dimensions given are about 2 to 2.5 inches (5 – 7 cm) diameter at the bottom of the hat and about that tall. This is about 1 inch x 1 inch (2.5 x 2.5 cm). I guess I could make that third round a little longer so the shape doesn’t cup so much and put it on the top of an egg for Easter. Or maybe I can figure out a cute look for a Christmas decoration? ; )

I was planning on having a cup of Rooibos tea today to go with my tatting. As far as I know the cup of water is still sitting in the microwave…

Tatting Tea Tuesday July 20, 2010

Welcome to Tatting Tea Tuesday. I started off the day with a cup of George’s Cherry Tree Tea, described as “China Tea Scented With Luscious Burgundy Cherries.” I picked it up on our vacation when we visited Mount Vernon, the home of our first president, George Washington. The cup belonged to my maternal grandmother; my mother gave to me a couple of years ago. This is the first time I’ve used it but it looked appropriate to use for this particular TTT. This tea has a definite scent and taste of cherries. I’m pretty hesitant to try new tastes sometimes, but today I took up my courage and tried it. It has a very nice taste. I am pleasantly surprised.

(Warning! I kept adding pictures!)

We visited Mount Vernon on July 5th. Talk about hot! This is a very busy time of year there – people were everywhere. There were long lines that snaked into other buildings before getting into the main house. They had people dressed in period costumes talking to the visitors in line, probably to keep them interested and entertained while they waited. The gentleman to the left was supposed to be George’s physician. The gentleman below was an upper-class servant. They were very interesting to talk to because they stayed very much in character. My daughter wasn’t quite sure how to be greeted in such a manner.

There are several rules you have to follow when you visit Mount Vernon: No chewing gum on the estate, no strollers in the main house, no pictures in the main house. The property is owned and run by The Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association so they can have any rules they want and they do make sense when you think about them. They have done a wonderful job of furnishing the house with period pieces and returning the rooms to their original colors and uses (you wouldn’t believe some of the colors!). The property had deteriorated greatly after Washington’s death and before being sold to the Ladies’ Association. They’ve returned this to a working farm with animals and gardens and everything.

The building on the right of the main house is the kitchen. I took this picture standing in line waiting to tour the house. We had to go through a building that housed servants most of the time but sometimes guests (if they stayed for awhile) on our way to the main house. There was a line of people from us, through this small building, through the house and then exiting, with no gaps. We talked to people around us as well as the costumed characters. There was actually quite a few things to see before we reached this point. Then, before we entered the first building, we had to park the strollers to be picked up later. Un-costumed members of the Mount Vernon Ladies Association were along the route, explaining what each building and room were used for and which room belonged to which one of the family members.

Behind the buildings seen here (kitchen on the left, storehouse/clerks quarters on the right) there are a lot of other buildings – smokehouse, wash house, coach house, stables. Past those are the fruit garden and the nursery and then Washington’s tomb and the slave memorial.

After walking around looking at as many things as we could before the heat got to us we had lunch in the food court at the visitor’s center, then checked out the shops. They had some lovely things in the shops. It was hard to keep my money in my purse.

After we were fed, cooled off and wallets a little lighter, we were off to the distillery and gristmill, which are a couple of miles away. What amazed me about both the main grounds and this place is where they are located. They are located not very far out of Washington DC in the midst of residential areas. We drove the few miles over to where the gristmill and the distillery have been rebuilt in the locations they were originally. Neither are more than a few years old but built as close as possible to what they would have been in Washington’s time.

We started with the gristmill. Like the main house they have costumed characters here, but unlike at the house these people are the ones that describe what was done in here and how it was done. And unlike the house there are no restrictions about taking pictures. They actually started the water wheel and ground a little corn while we’re there.

In Washington’s time they made the corn meal for local use and very fine wheat flour that was shipped all over the world. There are lot of things I didn’t know about Washington that I learned here. Okay, there’s still a lot I don’t know.

My grandsons were fascinated with all the things going on. It was great to be able to let them touch things and let them down to walk once in awhile. Here are my daughters and their sons checking out where the corn hulls drop into a barrel after the corn has been ground. (A SIL is under the hat behind the kids.)

Then it was a short walk over to the distillery. The gristmill and the distillery share the mill race (a small stream) that once came from a mill pond. There is no longer a mill pond, houses being built up since Washington’s time, so it is a very small stream. Then this woman explained how whiskey used to be made here. It was a hot, hot job! They didn’t have anything brewing while we where there. They said they only made whiskey when it was cool as things just didn’t come out well when it was hot.

And there’s me, sitting on a grinding wheel outside the gristmill. We were so busy doing things I completely forgot to do this at the main house. I think I can still say that I have tatted at Mount Vernon.

There is actually tatting in this post as well, more than me doing a few stitches at Mount Vernon. I want to mention that the doily that I posted about last week did get a blue at the county fair(yea!). I don’t know what competition it had as it was not in a tatting category and mine was the only tatting entry, but it is still exciting. I’ll have to try to get something there next year as well.

This is what I’ve been working on since we got home from vacation. They aren’t showing up very well. These are glass tea candle holders that I have put tatting around. I’ve actually put beads on them! They look much better in person. I did have quite a time gluing the tatting down. It just looks like it’s on lopsided! I’ll have to work on that.

The shuttle in the picture is one I bought 10? 15? years ago. It is made of tulip wood by Dennis Hand. I’m not even sure if I picked this up in person or sent off for it. Strange how memory is. But it is a beautiful shuttle and it fit in with the theme of this post. The doily everything is sitting on was made by one of my neighbors as a gift. It makes a lovely backdrop.

I took a lot of pictures while we were on vacation. This is a warning that there will probably be more in the next few posts.

Until then, may all of you enjoy a little tea and a few minutes of tatting.

Tatting Tea Tuesday at home again

We are back home again after a wonderful vacation. I wouldn’t have minded if it had lasted a little longer! We had a great time with our family and look forward to doing something like this again.

As the picture from last week showed, I’ve been working on a new doily. It started with a doodle and just kept growing. It’s made in DMC Cebelia size 30 ecru with two shuttles. This is it so far; it’s six inches across from point to point. I’m not sure about the last round. Does it look like it’s finished? Does it need another round? Is this round how I want it to be?

The local county fair is at the end of the week. I was thinking about entering something but with our vacation I haven’t gotten anything ready. The fair book actually came in the mail the day we left! Not a lot of time to decide on what I could enter. There is only one tatting category – pillowcases – but there are a few other categories that I could enter tatting in. “Tea towels (set of 4 or more) – Miscellaneous”; “Doilies – Miscellaneous”; and “Household – Miscellaneous”. Well, obviously I don’t have time to make four tea towels or a pillowcase (sewing the tatting to the case would take me forever!). I have this doily that might (!) be done. And I might be able to come up with something for the household category (napkin rings? decorated candle holder?). Whatever I decide I have to make up my mind by Thursday afternoon. I’ll let you know what I decided next week.

And now for the vacation! Okay, one picture – or maybe two. Our first destination was Nashville, TN. Our SIL really wanted to stop here and all of us thought it would be fun. We spent the morning in the Country Music Hall of Fame. So this is me, with shuttles in hand, in the entry hall. This is after we went through the museum and, obviously, after we had gone to the souvenir shop ; )

Mostly my husband and I bought gifts for family but I did find a little something for myself. I did leave home with the glass case for carrying a working project in but I had couple of shuttles to use for my ‘documentary’ pictures. I didn’t want to mess up on a nice project just for pictures! So I thought this little change purse would work great with this in mind.

This worked great! There was nothing to fall out unexpectedly and I knew exactly what I’d get when I reached inside. And I have a little something to keep small take-along projects in that will always remind me of our 2010 family vacation.

There will be more vacation pictures next week. And the results of my decision of what, if anything, I take to the fair.