Category: doily

Doily Restart and Blogging Buddies

Good morning this Tatting Tea Tuesday! It’s a good day – the sun has come out! Yea!!

It has been raining here the last few days, but only about 4 -5 inches instead of the 10 inches they had in Oklahoma City a few days ago. And not as much as a few other places here in Kansas. And now it looks like we have a chance for a few days without rain – maybe. Now it’s just hot and muggy.

I’ve re-started on my doily, this time in Lizbeth Springtime and black, both in size 20. This is as far as it’s gotten after starting it last week. I haven’t taken a lot of time to tat lately. I did finish the round this morning – the tatting part of this Tuesday, while drinking my favorite mint tea. I may have to put off working on this for a little while as there’s another project that needs to be done in a short amount of time. I’ll share that when I have some progress to report on. But I do like the look of this so far.

I thought I’d share a picture of my blogging buddies. And tatting buddies. And TV watching buddies – pretty much when I sit down in my chair buddies. Cat 1 is on the arm and Cat 2 is on the seat beside me. They’d both be on my lap if I let them.

Looking forward to doing a little more tatting this week – I can hope!

Chamomile any one?

Anyone out there like chamomile tea? I haven’t actually tried it myself, though my neighbor really likes it and recommends it. I’m kind of a wimp when it comes to trying some new things and this is one of them. I’m not saying I won’t, just that I haven’t taken that step yet. So this Tatting Tea Tuesday I drink just decaffeinated tea of an unknown brand instead of something exotic or exciting.

The subject of chamomile came up the other day when our neighbor, a really great guy, was mowing our lawn for us. Probably because it was getting pretty tall. And because he’s really a great guy. But when he got to our driveway up by the house he left a large patch un-mowed. He stopped and explained he thought it was chamomile. We both agreed it smelled very good where it was mowed. These plants are where we don’t want plants, though. My DH is planning to get rid of them soon.

I’m not much on plants, herbs or edibles from the field, so I did a little (key word, little) checking on the Internet about chamomile. I understand that it has been used for medicinal purposes for centuries in Europe and then here in the States as well. It sounds like it could be very good for you as well as quite tasty (so they say). Wikipedia also says that it can become quite a pest because it spreads out everywhere, including in fields where it’s not wanted. I must agree, what’s growing and spreading in our driveway is going everywhere! So whether it’s chamomile or not, smells nice or not, some of it is going bye bye very soon.
I don’t know for sure if the little plant in the picture is chamomile or not but it looks kind of nice there with my tatting. The colors are not quite true-to-life though. The cross actually has purple as the outside, not blue.

The little doily is the center of the one I’ve been working on for several weeks. I’m not very happy with the way it lays now that this much has been blocked. The ds count has to be corrected for it to look better, so this is as far as this one is going. The next one will be in another color with a few more stitches in the pattern!

The cross bookmark is one of my patterns. It will have a ‘tail’ on it soon. I made one just like this for an insert in a wedding card last week but didn’t take a picture of it before it was given away, so I obviously had to make another to share, right? It is made with Lizbeth size 20 thread in Springtime, I think. (The label came out of the middle *ahhhh*) It’s pretty anyway. The outside is also Lizbeth size 20 in purple but which shade I’m also not sure of except it’s pretty close to K States’ purple.

Pretty sad, isn’t it? Until I started this blog remembering what the colors were was only a very minor thing. But sharing what I’m doing with others means keeping track of these things. I’ll have to find a better way of keeping the labels with the threads, won’t I? While I’m making changes I might just have to give chamomile tea a try.

Tatting Tea Tuesday June 1, 2010

Is it Tuesday already? And it’s been two weeks? Oh, my!

Yes, I’ve been lazy. Not really that busy, just lazy. I’ve done a little tatting but not much. I made this on a cabone ring, just messing around. I have no plans for this, I was just seeing what I could come up with.

I did do a little work on the doily. I’ve counted stitches several times so I know the count is correct but it has to be blocked to lay out flat. I’ve gone ahead with it the way the original is made but I’m making adjustments to the written pattern, making a few changes to it so it will lay better right off the shuttle.

It looks okay but I designed this quite a few years ago and have no memory of issues that I had with it when it was done. Also, I didn’t know then a lot of what I know now. There are several things I would do differently with it. It would probably come out looking similar, but I think it would be a lot less work after the tatting is done.

I had a nice, quiet Memorial Day weekend, not going anywhere or doing anything. My husband volunteered to work all three days so I was by myself in the evenings. He also worked slightly different hours which really messed up the days. We had planned to go to western Kansas to visit the cemeteries out there but that didn’t happen. We didn’t visit any cemeteries at all. I’m hoping another weekend yet this summer we’ll make it. Monday afternoon I went over to our daughters’ house for supper and spent the evening. It was a very pleasant time, though I wish my husband could have been there, too. Oh, well, our vacation is coming up soon, when we will have a little more time to enjoy our time together without going to work. At least for a little while.

I think I’ll have another cup of tea and see if I can get a little more done on the doily. May you enjoy your tea and tatting for another week.

Progress and Flowers

I didn’t find where I might have written down the pattern for the doily *sigh*. So I counted stitches and wrote it down. In pencil. And I’ve started making it in Lizbeth size 20 ‘Western Sunset’. It’s shades of red and purples. The second round I’m using red as the chain thread to see how that looks. I’m not sure yet if I’ll like it, but thought I’d try it. The ‘Western Sunset’ was already on a couple of shuttles so I could start right away after I had the pattern done. As there’s nothing fancy in this doily, just one shuttle and ball, it should go rather quickly. No promises about how fast it will get done but it would be nice to have finished by Tuesday :-).

The flowers in the picture are kind of a funny story. I had the idea of taking flowers to church on Sunday (Mother’s Day) and handing them out to all the ladies. We don’t have a large congregation so it wouldn’t be hard or expensive. There were a lot of choices at the store including these bright and cheery colored daisies. When I was getting in the car I realized that daisies really don’t smell all that wonderful, maybe carnations would have been a better choice? But each lady would get several flowers on a stem with the daisies and they were bright and cheery so it was still okay. I left the flowers bundled up but in water overnight. Sunday morning I took the rubber band and the plastic from around them and spread them out a bit so they would be easy to pull out of the vase. And noticed that my fingers were a bright and cheery blue! I was pretty sure none of the ladies at church would want blue dye stains on their clothes or hands. I ended up not taking the flowers to church. Carnations would have been better.

The daisies do look good on my table, though, in their bright and cheery blue water.

Tatting Tea Tuesday after a stormy Monday

It was a wild night last night. There were storms all over Kansas and Oklahoma and a lot of tornadoes came out of them. There are reports of 21 tornadoes between the two states last night. We were fortunate here in Wichita as we didn’t have any tornadoes, but there were a couple that weren’t that far away. There was a tornado warning in Wichita – imminent threat of a tornado – so the plant was sent to the storm shelters. I know my daughter and her family went to the basement. It calmed down here after that but the storms kept moving east and causing damage. I was very glad to see the night over.

Today is a much nicer day here. There will be a lot of people out today checking out the damage and making determination on how strong the tornadoes were yesterday. I hear that the storms are moving east with lots of dangerous potential. I feel for all those people that may have to go through that kind of storms.

Now, on to a much lighter subject. I’m not getting much tatting done yet today, though I might have a chance later. But I’ve been going through a few things – trying to organize (hahahaha!) -and came upon a doily I made years ago. You might have seen it in this post.

I’m trying to figure out if I wrote the pattern down for this. So far, I haven’t had any luck finding anything. So I thought I’d start over and count stitches and get this written out so I can make another one. I’ve got so many more beautiful threads today than I did then. I think this could look pretty cool in colors. Now if I can just get down on paper what I put together in thread!

Secret Santa Exchange

At InTatters we had a Secret Santa exchange. The person you were sending to didn’t know who you were and they weren’t the one you were getting a package from. As this is through the mail it’s a little hard to be anonymous when you sent it, but they wouldn’t know who you were until they got your package. I’d never done an exchange like this before and it was fun!

Among other things, I sent my partner this Christmas-colored doily. I can post now as I know that she received it. I think it looks pretty good in these colors as well as the fall colors I did it in last time. This went to Tarie in Arizona. I hope she likes it 🙂

These wonderful items are what I received from My Secret Santa.
IcePrincess from Germany sent me all these wonderful things. There is a handmade shuttle with blue leaves, a Celtic style cross bookmark, a wooden “W” on a keyring, and some beautiful red/blue/purple beads. The card has a hand made paper seal with an angel on it. Thank you so much IcePrincess, I love what you sent to me! A very lovely way to start the Christmas season.

There was some debate on InTatters if we should wait ’til Christmas to open our packages. It was obvious that most of us didn’t wait, or want to wait! It would be rude not to let the ‘Santa” know that you received and liked what you got, wouldn’t it??? Well, I think so! Besides, I think most of us still have that little kid inside that doesn’t want to wait!

This exchange has really gotten me into the Christmas spirit and gotten me motivated to put out the Christmas tree and decorate the house. And start playing the Christmas music! I love to sing along to the carols and songs that I know.

Wishing all of you a wonderful and blessed Christmas season!

‘Sunflower’ doily

Earlier this year I designed a small doily that I call Arches over Arches. For my blogoversary giveaway I made the doily in Lizbeth Falling Leaves size 20. This thread has such a wonderful fall look. I was then inspired to put a brown center in it.

And this is how it turned out.

Doesn’t it remind you of a sunflower?

I hadn’t posted this earlier because I wanted to make sure the winner of my giveaway – Trayna – had received it before I shared it here. It was hard to wait! I really like how this turned out : )

And now fall is almost over and it’s time to think of Christmas and winter weather.
Today is supposed to be the last really nice day for awhile. Sunny, not too windy and pleasant temperatures. After today the temperatures will return to a more normal range – in the 40’s – so we are planning to put out our Christmas lights this morning. Not that we put out a lot of lights, but I would much rather do this when the weather is mild and then enjoy them when it’s cold and snowy!

And then it’s back to tatting snowflakes. Between the colder weather and the Christmas lights, it should really get me feeling festive!

A little bitty doily and a horse

A few weeks ago I needed an ecru doily for a gift. I had a colored doily but found out that the recipient really liked ecru as this was more in line with her home decor (I like to please). Soooo, as usual, instead of going with an existing pattern I tried to come up with something that didn’t take too long. And this is the result.

I call it Arches Over Arches. This is made with DMC ecru (of course!) in size 30. I came up with this from a center I found in my old stuff that was made with size 10, which was much bigger. I think this was supposed to be an edging that went wrong. But it made a nice center for a doily.

The other two rounds I came up with this time around. I have several ideas for the next time I make it – and I do have plans to make it – and my husband has a couple of really neat suggestions, also.

There’s nothing here to compare it to so you can’t tell the size. It’s pretty small, only about 4 inches across. So maybe it’s too small to be considered a doily, but I would use it under a vase for a single rose or some such, so I call it a doily.

I’ve also had another idea in mind that I worked on last night. After seeing all the neat ideas of using a large paperclip as a bookmark, I thought a large paperclip with a horse head would be neat. Now, I make my own bookmarks and doilies and such, but coming up with something like this has not turned out well. I’m not showing my attempts, just say they met a quick end. But the Internet is our friend and makes finding the many wonderful people with great ideas easy to find if you go looking.

If you go to ds9designs you will find that Debbie Arnold has a very cute seahorse pattern. I saw it and thought “if you start here and leave that off, it would make a really nice horse head pattern.” So last night I tried it with thread I already had on a shuttle. (The colors would have made a wonderful seahorse!)

.

This is made with Lizbeth Caribbean size 20. I think I need to make the base a little wider and the neck maybe not quite so long. Then I need to try putting it on a paperclip. Maybe in a horse-y color. And then again, maybe not. To be continued…

Most of this last week was spent finishing the butterfly for the Intatters butterfly exchange. I got it done in time (just barely!) and sent it off to Cindy in Minnesota. After I know she has it I will post a picture of it. I thought it came out well and I’m looking forward to sharing it.

Patriotic pins and Hobby display


This has been a very busy week.

I was inspired by Steph’s heart and Kathy’s version of Sue Hanson’s 5 point Celtic motif, all in red white and blue. With Flag Day June 14 and Independence Day July 4th there is a lot of time yet to be patriotic also. So I tried the 5 point Celtic motif, too. I did it two ways, one as the pattern shows and one with two rings instead of one large. I’m not a big fan of making large rings even if I like how they work in a pattern. I added a flag star wooden button in the center and put on a pin back on the two on the left. Both were made in DMC size 10. The one on the right is size 20 in a variegated red white and blue. It is so busy it’s very hard to see the actual pattern. The two pins are for my parents and the other was just to make. My sister saw these and said she would love to have several to decorate her side table at home when she sets it up for the 4th. Okay, they don’t take long, I will probably make one or two. I’m counting these as #18 & #19 of the 25 Motif Challenge.

This last Friday the home where my dad lives had a Hobby Day. They had seen my tatting on my dad’s hat (a hat band) and asked me if I would like to participate. So my sister and I dug up stuff we’ve made and set up together. The displays were of hobbies of both residents and staff and us. There were some wonderful quilts (hand quilted!), jewelry, a salt-&-pepper shaker collection, angel collection, wooden toys, a few other things and my sister’s embroidery and my tatting. It was a very fun afternoon. I demonstrated tatting to a lot of people and we showed off a lot of our pieces that we’ve actually kept instead of given away.

They started us out on one table but were so happy with what we had brought that they got us another table so we could put everything out. I even brought a few books along so people could see that patterns are available.

We intermixed our things kind of like we did the few times we did craft shows. And our work some times even compliments the other’s.

Some of these things were gifts to either our kids or each other. The green doll with the embroidered apron my sister made for one of my daughters. Until recently she was in the Air Force and her husband still is so they haven’t got a place they know they’ll be in for any length of time so I still (!!) have a lot of her things at home, including this doll. It came in handy today.

This baby tied blanket my sister made for her daughter. “The Three Little Kittens” was my niece’s favorite book as a child to the point they had to buy several copies of it as it wore out. My sister rarely keeps anything for herself but gives things like this away for birthdays and Christmas.


I used to make doilies quite frequently. I don’t so much anymore because of how much time one has to put into them.

The birdhouse towel in the lower part of the picture was a birthday present from my sister to me. We have to tell people it wasn’t done on a machine, sometimes even turn it over so they can see the back side.


These two pillowcase dolls my sister and I worked together. She made the doll bodies and clothes and embroidered the ladies bodies while I tatted the skirts.

My sister does a lot of pillowcases. They make wonderful wedding gifts, or for graduation or…

The one at the bottom is mine from another birthday.

The large tatted piece is my BIG UFO. It was supposed to be a table cloth for my brother-in-law. It was started many years ago and this is as big as it has gotten. We are all in agreement that I need to find a finishing round and call it good. It’s made in ecru with size 30 DMC so takes a long time to get very far. It has been fun, though.

The green book is my newest acquisition, bought just the day before.

And finally, this is my sister, Elaine, and myself.

We really enjoyed ourselves that afternoon. We weren’t trying to sell anything, just having a good time sharing our hobbies with anyone that would listen. I don’t know how many people came through, but it was pretty constant for the three hours they ran it. While we were setting it up we had people come by, too.

It was a lot of fun, and then I had to go to work. I guess the fun has to end sometime.

Thanks for sticking around through this very long entry. But I just had to share!

Wall art part 2

So this is how I added a little more art to my wall. The doily and shuttle picture is to the left of these shuttles and snowflakes.
The backgrounds for all of these are unfinished wood pieces from Hobby Lobby covered with silk material that matches the colors in my livingroom curtains. The shuttles are sitting on a ribbon that is glued on the back of the wood only.

The top shuttle is an old plastic shuttle that I picked up at an antique shop about 10 years ago. The points are in bad shape and not really usable to tat with.
The middle shuttle is wood from a place in Washington state called Blue Bird shuttles, I think. It was the first shuttle
I bought other than Susan Bates plastic or Clover shuttles 15 (?) years ago. I’m not that fond of tatting with it because the pick is a little thicker than I like (and I see it’s sitting a little looser than the others, I’ll have to fix that).
The bottom one is a buffalo horn shuttle picked up at a sewing/craft shop in Lawrence, KS about 1999. It’s very slick and likes to slip out of my hands when tatting.
The way they are mounted I could get them down easily if I wanted to use them.

The snowflakes are glued to the material. They were on the Christmas tree this year.
The top two are my designs, both several years old.
The bottom one I’m sure is a pattern I found in a book, but I don’t remember where. If anyone recognizes it, please let me know so I can give credit to the designer.
(Editor’s Note 1/17/09: Kathy Niklewicz, a sharp-eyed tatter, recognized that this motif came from ‘The Complete Book of Tatting’ by Rebecca Jones. Thanks Kathy!)

The picture with these pieces make a nice grouping of mixed media. What do you think?