Category: grandsons

Trying New Bookmarks

I’ve been getting quite a bit of tatting done this week but there’s not a lot I want to share today. Most of what’s been made is unfinished due to lack of time. I did make a couple of bookmarks. I’m not exactly happy with them but they have potential.

The one on the left I started at break at work for a challenge on The Tatting Forums, which is to make one bookmark a month. I didn’t have a pattern and didn’t think what I was doing completely through – it didn’t come out quite the way it was supposed to: ( It looks a little unfinished, don’t you think?

The one on the right was another thought, one that pretty much did come out the way I thought it would. It’s a pain to make, though! I did make a few decisions in mid-stream, which is obvious by the couple of ugly rings: p If I make this again I’ll do a few things a little different, and maybe add a tail or something. Both bookmarks are made in Lizbeth #682, size 20.

I also started on a butterfly this week for a friend of mine. The prototype has been made and decisions mad e of changes I would like to see when I make it again. The prototype looks very plain as it was made in ecru size 30 because I had two shuttles already wound with it. Size 30 is definitely too small for what I have in mind for this piece. The next time I plan to make it in Lizbeth Caribbean in size 20 and use beads. I’m not very proficient with beads, but practice makes perfect, right?

I don’t know how much tatting I’ll be getting done this week. I have to work some very different hours during the week. And my daughter and her son from Washington D.C. are here for a week! Yippee! We’re going to try to get together with our other daughter and her family as much as possible this week, too. Both grandsons together – it’s going to be fun!

Hope everyone has a wonderful week this week!

Beautiful Sunday

We are having a beautiful day today! Hardly any wind – for the last week, until yesterday, we’ve had sustained winds around 25-30 and gusts between 45 and 60. Yesterday was very calm but quite cloudy. Today there is a slight breeze – very slight – and it’s mostly sunny with the temperature right at 75 degrees Fahrenheit. I’m sitting outside enjoying the sights, sounds and smells of spring. There are birds of all sorts making their individual songs to the day, insects of many kinds buzzing by, and the locus tree is in bloom giving off it’s lovely scent. It’s very nice just to sit and relax here on the patio.

Before I got too lazy I finally downloaded my camera of it’s visual treasures. I found the cable I had misplaced under some material and a tatting book so am now able to put all the pictures on my laptop. And there are a lot of pictures! When my daughter was staying with us a few weeks ago she and a friend took their children to the Sedgwick County Zoo in Wichita and took my camera. There are a lot of very cute pictures that she took that day. Now I have them and she doesn’t so I’ll have to send them to her 🙂 And then we visited with some cousins and Aunts and Uncles, so more pictures. And then we visited my daughter in Wichita and of course took pictures. Then there are the pictures I’ve taken of my recent tatting.


This is the pendant I received from my Intatters exchange partner Deb (dbrn) in the pendant exchange that was held recently. I like it, and it looks great when I wear it. The crystal in the center picked up the color of the vase it’s on so looks a little strange in the picture. It’s actually clear topaz (?) in person. The beads are gold. She didn’t tell me if this is her design or what thread she made it out of, but it looks like Lizbeth size 20 to me ; ). I wore it to church today and it looked good on my neck. It’s just the right size! Unfortunately I was very late in getting mine to her done and in the mail, but I finally got it in the mail this week. If she doesn’t have it now she should in just a few days. I hope she likes it! I’ll post pictures of my work when I know that she’s received it.

A few weeks ago I treated myself to a new tatting book. I was in the vicinity of a store in Wichita that actually carries a lot of tatting supplies, including a lot of books and thread, mostly DMC in many colors in sizes 10, 20 and 30. Before Lizbeth I used to buy a lot of my thread from her.


I haven’t tried any of these patterns yet but I have several I really want to do. I may have to toss a coin to decide which one will be first. I chose this book because I have grandsons instead of granddaughters. There are a lot of things you can tat for girls but some just don’t seem right for boys. I guess I think of them like the poem about “snails and puppy dog tails”. I think these tatted animal bookmarks could be put on wall hangings in their rooms, and maybe on the edge of a pillow case, that type of thing, possibly leaving of the bookmark tail. If we could keep a hat on their heads right now I think a few of these would look good on them, but the hats come off pretty quick yet. Maybe later.

I’ve been catching up on a few blogs – finally- and see that some of you out there are already thinking of what to do for the fair this year. The fairs around here aren’t for several months yet but I guess if I want to enter anything I should get started. I haven’t put anything in the fair for years, but maybe I’ll try this year. There are a lot of things I’d like to make that might work for that, but we’ll see how energetic I am.

Right now energetic I’m not. In fact, an afternoon nap is sounding pretty good. There are a lot of things I should be doing but it would be very easy to just put my head back and close my eyes. Let the birds sing me a lullaby. Zzzzz…

Rough Weather

Well, tomorrow is the baptism for both the grandsons. My daughter from Nebraska came down yesterday with Mercutio so she could be here in plenty of time.

Today we went to pick up the cake for after church – and spent 10 -15 minutes in the freezer in the store. The tornado sirens went off in town. They made an announcement over the intercom to either leave the building or go to the freezers until the all clear was given. Having the baby with
us we went to the freezer.

There were about 20 people in the freezer we were in, all standing around shivering. It has been above average in temperatures here for several days, which of course leads to tornado weather around here. And the sirens went off because of a sighting close to where we live!

But every thing is fine. There was only a funnel cloud which never touched the ground, a little hail, a little wind and a little rain. We’re still in a severe thunderstorm watch, but it seems to be going south and east of us. I don’t know how well it’s showing up in the picture, but the sky was very orange when this picture was taken, and very dark looking to the south.

Oh, the joys of living in Kansas in the spring time!

Back to the Internet!

Finally, Internet access!
We went to help our daughter and her family move from an apartment to a house up in Nebraska. And of course their Internet wasn’t hooked up yet, so I was in the dark!! It’s amazing how hooked you can get on checking things out on the Internet.
I missed it but I didn’t have a lot of time to surf anyway. Our oldest daughter and her son came with us, so we were with both the grandsons. There was a lot of work because of packing and unpacking and whatnot, but someone had to keep an eye on the boys, right? Grandpa and I volunteered as necessary :))
No pictures yet of the booties. But I’ll get there, really. This could be a busy week, getting the house ready for guests and everything organized for Sunday. I’m sure there will be plenty of pictures next week!

Booties are done – at least the tatting is!

I finally finished the fourth bootie! And it’s not even needed until next weekend!

One set is just a little bit bigger than the other, as one grandson is three months old and the other is barely 4 weeks old. I made one a little bigger by just making the picots longer. It’s no wonder making booties can be a problem, if the size of the picots changes the length by enough to be that noticeable! We’re going up to see my daughter in Omaha this weekend and I’ll find out if the larger set is going to work or not.

I still have to cut off all the tail ends and block them a bit. I also haven’t got ribbon to tie them with. But I’m very excited that they’re done this far. Wooo hooo!

Okay, I don’t have pictures of the sets yet, but I will get some posted soon. And I plan on getting several pictures of the boys wearing them in a couple of weeks, of course 🙂

Now I can get on with some other tatting I’ve been wanting to do. Not that I didn’t want to do these, they just take awhile. I usually do projects that are much less time consuming.

So, on to the finishing touches – cutting all those tails!