Category: snowflakes

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?

Motifs # 9 & #10

Yes, Christmas is over but the ‘snow’ is still here. These are two snowflakes I made before we took the tree down. The white one is, of course, Micheal’s snowflake,made with DMC size 10 with silver beads. The red one is one I designed a few weeks earlier, in DMC size 10. It’s a maroon color, not red, with white pearl beads. These are #9 & #10 motifs for the 25 motif challenge. If you look back through my blog I know the last motif was labeled as #6 but I went through all of it and found I mis-counted. There are eight previous motifs and now ten all together.

I have been working on a doily lately, but I’m not very happy with it. I’ve done several nice bits and pieces in it, but over all it’s not very pleasing to the eye, too haphazard from round to round. But it’s something to play with. I have printed off several patterns that have been mentioned recently on eTatters that I plan on making, but I haven’t decided on the thread I want to use with them. I might just have to get some new thread. Yeah, like the thread shopping is going to break my heart!

We are counting down the days to the next grandbaby. My oldest daughter is due in 14 days! She’s very ready for him to get here. He’s been very active, not letting her forget that he’s there. This daughter is in Wichita, much closer to us, so it will only take a little less than an hour to get there when she says it’s time. I keep a phone with me at all times! Another baby, oh boy, oh boy!!

I made it to the New Year!


Well, I survived the holidays. I made it through multiple family get-togethers, family dinners and a baby shower with minimal stress and fuss. Actually, I think everything went smooth and we all had a great time. My youngest daughter was able to come down from Omaha with the baby on the 23rd, a few days earlier than expected, though her husband had to work so couldn’t come.

For Christmas day I invited my parents and two of my aunts to dinner. I kept it very simple – we had soup and just a few sides. It made for very little stress when fixing the meal as the soup cooked in the crock pot over night and everyone brought something to go with it. Instead of spending all my time cooking I decided to use real dishes (instead of paper, the usual) and set a pretty table – which is usually the last thing I worry about. I also put a tatted snowflake by everyone’s setting for a small gift. I made several of Micheal’s quick snowflakes as I was running out of time and they tat up so nicely. The result was simple but very much in the season. We sat around and visited for hours, a very nice day indeed.

As for the new year, I don’t have any resolutions, but I do have a long to-do list. I have actually printed it out and put it on the refrigerator so that I can mark off each project as it gets done, and also so I don’t lose site of what needs to get done. It also will make it easy to see at the end of the year what I succeeding in finishing and what I didn’t.

Wishing all of you success in all the things that you want to do in 2009.

The evolution of a snowflake

Journey of a snowflake found on wandasknottythoughtsI started work on a snowflake the other day and it went places I hadn’t planned on. In fact, I didn’t really like it. But I kinda liked the idea of it so I did it again with a little change.

I liked it a little better but I still wasn’t quite happy with it. I had made both in white size 30 DMC because I had shuttles already wound. Maybe another color or two would look better? Which could be a little tricky because I kept switching shuttles in different places. In one color that’s not noticeable but with two colors it would be. But I decided to try it with blue and green size 30 DMC, also because the shuttles were already wound.

Another little change later and I was much happier! It looked more like it belonged that way than the previous versions. The small points between the long arms really changed the look. The center was also changed, made a little smaller. I did have to switch the shuttles in a few places to get the colors how I wanted them. I’m tempted to make another one and not switch the shuttles so it will be easier to write down the pattern. I’m going to consider these for the 25 motif challenge as #3, 4 & 5.

I’m now working on the “coily” (coaster or doily?) that BoB the Bike designed. I saw it on his website and thought it would be fun. It’s in pink – maybe to go under the rose bouquet I received from Lorena. But then again, I have a friend who’s birthday is coming up that might like it…

New baby and tatting

 

 

 

The last week I’ve been spending a lot of time with my new grandson, Mercutio. He’s quite the sweetie! So far he’s keeping his mom, dad and grandma entertained by making the cutest faces and noises. It’s awfully hard to put him down even when he’s sleeping. But once in awhile it’s best to leave him on his own and I have done a little tatting. I don’t have very many choices for thread colors as we left in kinda of a hurry so I have been making due.
Both of these snowflakes I came up with this week just doodling. I really like the blue and green one. These two are #3 & #4 of the 25 motif challenge. I’ve done several things that I had wanted to add to the challenge but forgot to say so.
The other picture is, of course, Mercutio at six days old. He was sitting in a swing watching the world go by. And we were sitting watching him. Grandma could do that a lot. Thanks for all the good wishes from everyone. I have been reading the comments but haven’t been taking the time to answer. Too busy being Grandma (I seem to be the only one to get him to burp…)!
(I’m still new at this blogging thing and can’t seem to get the pictures right where I want them yet. I’ll learn.)