Tag: doily

I’ve been to the fair

"Martha" tatted lace doily Kansas State Fair Blue Ribbon Winner 2015 wandasknottythoughtthoughts.blogspot,com
“Martha” doily © Wanda Salmans
Tatted by Wanda Salmans
I almost didn’t enter anything into the Kansas State Fair this year but at the last minute – the first day you had to pay a late entry fee –  I decided to.  I didn’t have time to make more than one item but I found two places I could enter tatting.  There is only one tatting class and then there is a class for holiday decorations in any fiber medium.  For the tatting class I entered the Martha doily I made back in February. I am excited that I got first place but very disappointed in how very few entries there were.  A grand total of three.
Judging is done against a standard as well as against other entries, so they do not have to give out ribbons if the items do not meet those standards – finished nicely, clean, even stitches (though the judge might not know tatting they probably know knitting and crochet or other lace-making techniques.) It is subjective to a point.  But the judge still liked mine enough to give a blue. That makes me happy.
My pumpkin holiday decoration came in third.  Considering there were more entries and they were in different mediums I’m pretty happy with the result.
"Autumn Pumpkin" tatted lace design by Mark Meyers tatted by Wanda Salmans, 3rd place in Holiday Decoration 2015 Kansas State Fair wandasknottythoughts
“Autumn Pumpkin” © Mark Meyers
Wall hanging by Wanda Salmans
Here is a picture of the other holiday entries. I’m not sure where the blue ribbon – 1st place – item is, I didn’t see one with anything.  Maybe they got a best of class or show and was put in a different place. (My granddaughter wouldn’t get out of the way for me to take a picture but wouldn’t hold still either.
2015 Kansas State Fair Holiday Decorations all entries as seen on wandasknottythoughts.blogspot.com
Holiday Decorations at the Kansas State Fair 2015
My granddaughter did like the second place entry, a crow holding a basket with a watermelon theme.  There was another similar crow with a sunflower theme but I couldn’t tell if they were supposed to be together or if someone else had a similar entry.  They were both cute.
Holiday Decorations from 2015 Kansas State Fair as seen on wandasknottythoughts
Overall I was disappointed in how few entries there were throughout the domestic arts categories.  The last time I was there I seem to remember quite a few more of about everything – quilts, crochet, knitting, all of that.  I have told myself that I must enter more things in the fair next year.  I did go to another building that had categories that I think I could find a way to enter with tatting – I’ll have to give it some thought over the year.
“It is nice to have valid competition; it pushes you to do better.”
Gianni Versace
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Autumn Pumpkin

At the beginning of August, I realized that the Kansas State Fair was coming up and that this year I was not going to be on vacation while it was on. So I got the bright idea to enter a couple of items. You know, get a little more tatting out there for people to see.  The fair only has one class for tatting and you can only enter one project but they have a couple of other categories that tatting could fit in if you do it right.
With the fair so close I thought I would take something I’ve already made for the tatting category.  I looked through the pieces I haven’t given away or sold and decided on the Martha doily I did back in February. The rules state the items must be made within the last two years, so it works out okay.
The other category I thought I’d try is the “Holiday Decoration other than Christmas”.  This is the same category I entered the spider in a few years ago.  But what to make?  And for what holiday?  No idea just jumped out at me so I made a list of holidays and what was associated with each. Then I searched for patterns that looked interesting or fun.  I decided on Mark Meyer’s “Autumn Pumpkin“.
"Autumn Pumpkin" by Mark Meyers tatted, using Half Rings on wandasknottythoughts
“Autumn Pumpkin” © Mark Meyers 2009 with stem tatted by Wanda Salmans 
The entire pumpkin is tatted with one shuttle, no chains.  It’s not really hard, just different.  The outside is done first then you fill in the center, piece by piece, then add the stem, then the leaf.  I think I started each individual piece at least three times. The start of the pumpkin at the top still doesn’t look that good.  When the stem was added per the pattern the rest of the pumpkin puckered a bit so I added one more ring to it.  Now it lays much better.
"Autumn Pumpkin" by Mark Meyers with leaf, tatted in Half Rings on wandasknottythoughts
“Autumn Pumpkin” © Mark Meyers 2009 with leaf added tatted by Wanda Salmans 
The top part of the pumpkin still looks a little off but with the leaf added it disguises it a bit. Maybe the judges won’t notice ***fingers crossed***
Of course, that doesn’t mean it was done as an entry.  The category is “holiday decoration” not “tatted applique, finished” so the next step was to decide how to finish it as a decoration.  While at Jo-Ann’s the other day (before the actual tatting had begun) I had purchased some brown material with this in mind.  When the pumpkin was done this material was too dark, completely hiding the brown stem.  With time getting short a quick trip to Walmart saved the day.  They don’t have nearly the fabric selection as Jo-Ann’s but it was the closest place available and did have a something that would work.
Just having a background material wasn’t enough – the pumpkin by itself just didn’t look like a finished decoration.  So further tatting had to be done.  The day before it had to be taken in I thought it was done, but when looking at the picture I had taken of it there just looked to be something not quite finished about it.
"Autumn Pumpkin" by Mark Meyers, tatted, on background on wandasknottythoughts
“Autumn Pumpkin” © Mark Meyers 2009 almost finished tatted by Wanda Salmans 
A late night was in order to add a finishing touch.
"Autumn Pumpkin" by Mark Meyers, tatted, ready for the Kansas State Fair 2015 on wandasknottythoughts
“Autumn Pumpkin” © Mark Meyers 2009  ready for the State Fair tatted by Wanda Salmans 
I think this looks a bit more finished.  I didn’t have time to take a picture in better light as a friend offered to take it to the fair with her as she was taking her quilt in, so I let her (with many thanks!)
This category has all types of textile mediums entered and, from what I’ve seen in previous years, a lot of people put in a lot more thought and time into their entries than I do.  I’m hoping for a ribbon but not really expecting one with all the marvelous competition.  But this will get tatting out there in front of people in a way that isn’t a doily or an edging (which I like, by the way, but some people aren’t interested in them so much).
I’ll be going to the State Fair next week to see how I’ve done and to check out all the fabulous things people have made.  I’m hoping there are a lot of tatting entries – wouldn’t that be cool?
“If you ever start feeling like you have the goofiest, craziest, most dysfunctional family in the world, all you have to do is go to a state fair.  Because five minutes at the fair, you’ll be going, ‘you know, we’re alright. We are dang near royalty..'”
Jeff Foxworthy
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Random tatting

The zipper pulls on my purse are wearing out.  The purse has fake leather pulls which last okay, but the material that actually attaches to the zipper do not.  As these pulls are used a lot something needed to be done.
Original zipper pull on my purse
The plan was to get black grosgrain ribbon to go on the ring and tat around that.  The problem was there was no black grosgrain ribbon to be found anywhere in the stores I was able to check, including Hobby Lobby.  There were spaces on the shelves where this ribbon usually is but every place was out of the black.  There were a lot of other colors but of course nothing that matched or coordinated with my purse.
Except white.
White ended up the only other choice.  All the thread colors worked okay with it, but I think the black would have been better.
Tatted zipper pull on my purse on wandasknottythoughts.com
The pull is longer than the original, but that isn’t a problem.  The tatting is doubled so it looks the same on both sides, so no matter if the purse is open or closed the pulls hang with the tatting visible.
Thanks to Marilee Rockley for tatting only partway around a do-dad.  I don’t know why I never thought of that.  I wanted a pair of earrings to go with a blouse but didn’t have a lot of time to make them. I was inspired to make these even though I would have liked to add beads as well.  When I’m in a hurry beads are not a good idea.  Check out Marilee’s cute little earrings on her blog,  they are very pretty.
Simple tatted earrings on wandasknottythoughts.com
I’ve just finished tatting the center for my Craftree Round Robin doily.  After several starts at tatting it I finally did it without mistakes.  Now I need to write out the pattern and get everything sent off in the mail.  I think I’m the last one in the group to get their center done.  I’m looking forward to seeing every one’s doilies.
I’ve also been working on an edging but have gotten frustrated with it.  One of the colors keeps twisting so bad the rings are hard to close.  Yes, Fox, it is Lizbeth thread.  It’s only one of the balls but that is more than enough!  I’m going to try to finish anyway as the thread colors go well with the material.  Wish me luck 🙂
lolsotrue #2009
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Round Robin

I am participating in a round robin doily on Craftree. Each of us are designing the center of a doily then sending it on to another tatter to design each consecutive round until each person in the round robin has done a round on every doily then it is sent back to the original tatter.  In the end there will be five unique doilies.
I’ve started three times on my center for this.  The first two weren’t bad just not what I have in mind for this project. I’m finally happy enough with the third try to send it to someone else to see what they will do for the next rounds.
Okay, I’m happy with the pattern but I have to actually finish tatting it to send it on 🙂
Start of the Craftree Round Robin 2015 on wandasknottythoughts.com
Round Robin start 2015
I looked for a thread color that will set off this doll-sized tea set that I found in an antique store on the way to Colorado earlier this month.  It has six tea cups, tea pot, creamer and sugar bowl, all like new.
With that in mind I’ve decided to make this doily in Lizbeth size 20 in a shade of pink.  The label in the center of the ball says it’s #617 Magenta Med, but it looks a lot closer to #608 Coral Pink Med on the computer monitor.  I wonder if sometime when using this thread I got the labels mixed up???  I’m going to have to have a ball of thread to go with the center of the doily when I send it so I was going to order thread anyway, but now I’m going to have to order both colors so I get the right shade.
Someone twist my arm.
Like I’ll only order one ball of thread at a time anyway.
Except for this doily there hasn’t been much tatting done lately.  I’ve been distracted.  I found a book series that I just couldn’t put down.  There are five books in the series and I read all of them in less than a week and a half.  If you like fantasy stories I recommend The Legend of Eli Monpress series by Rachel Aaron.  It is a lot of fun to read.
(I was not compensated in any way for reading or mentioning these books.  I just enjoyed them a immensely!) (She also wrote Nice Dragons Finish Last, which is also a fun read.  I’m waiting on the next book of that series which is due out soon! I wasn’t compensated in any way for reading or mentioning this book, either!!)Now that I’ve read the entire series I can focus more on tatting again. I’m sure the other members of the round robin would appreciate it 🙂

“The sharing of joy, whether physical, emotional, psychic, or intellectual, forms a bridge between the sharers which can be the basis for understanding much of what is not shared between them, and lessens the threat of their difference.”
Audre Lorde
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Odds and ends

It has been a busy week, both at home and at work. At home there are several things coming up that I have to get ready for – including a craft show – and I’ve been putting in a lot of overtime at work.  Evidence of this can be seen at my house (it’s a mess!).  After a while a person gets tired, body and mind, and it’s hard to keep track of what needs to be done.  Or have the energy to do those things you know needs to be done!
In spite of being tired I’ve actually gotten a lot of tatting in – as the passenger in the car, sitting in waiting rooms – but none of my projects are at a place I want to take pictures and share.  But I like posts with pictures in them so I’m sharing a doily I made a long time ago.  I can’t honestly say who’s pattern this is, whether it’s from some book or other or one of mine. Anyone recognize it??  (Please let me know!)  I think the thread is size 30 but what color or brand I couldn’t tell you. The cup and shuttle were found in antique stores, the cup just recently, the shuttle several years ago.  I don’t try to tat with the shuttle as the points have something to be desired.  Let’s just say it looks very well used (but I couldn’t resist buying it anyway).

In the midst of all my busy-ness, several things happened this week that I am pretty excited about.  One of them is the prospect of giving tatting lessons in a month or so.  There is a quilting guild (club?) that meets in the fellowship hall of our church once a month.  I needed to pick up some things from the hall this week while they were there and one of them asked if I would be interested in giving lessons. (!!☺!!) Several of the ladies showed interest.  Now we just need to agree to a date and time.
The other thing I got excited about this week was tatting I saw on a shirt.  There was a lady in the waiting room at the doctor’s office wearing a shirt that was covered in tatting.  It was all the way around the collar, all the way down the front with the buttons, it was across the top of a pocket.  And then there were four (?) large butterflies in various places. I asked the wearer if she had tatted it all but, no, she had picked it up at a garage sale. (!!)  I wanted to take a picture of it but the lady was filling out paperwork and I didn’t want her to think I was trying to steal her information, so the opportunity for a picture was lost.  But it was an impressive display of tatting. 

These bookmarks are not the impressive display of tatting as I wanted them to be. I had this idea to decorate these cards with scrapbook paper roses but also with some tatting.  Nothing I tried seemed to work, nothing looked right.  So I added the thread at the top and gave them to my mom and her sisters for Mother’s day anyway.  There are only so many hours in a day and I ran out of time (and imagination).  But I do have more of the rose paper and plan on trying again another day.
Now back to being busy.
“I put my heart and my soul into my work, and have lost my mind in the process.”
Vincent Van Gogh
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Tatting Tea Tuesday flea market find

Wanda's Knotty Thoughts tatted teacup doily
 Tatted Tea Cup Doily © Wanda Salmans 2014
Another find from our flea market stop last week was this pretty demitasse tea cup and saucer.  I’m a fan of roses on tea cups though this is quite different from the ones I purchased for the auction.  I didn’t really need it but it was such a pretty set. 
The doily is the one I made when I was inspired by another tea cup with roses. I just noticed it is also the same horn shuttle that I used in the other picture.  I’ve made a start at the pattern for this doily, but there is still a long way to go before it is ready to share. 
I’m having to slow down on my tatting a bit. I got carried away and didn’t take breaks like I should have which made my arm sore.  Nothing serious, just have to do some arm and hand stretches a little more frequently and take it slower so it will get better.  I’m using some of that time to work on writing out patterns. Typing uses the hand and arm a bit differently than tatting so I’m taking a tatting break and still working on tatting 🙂
I also am anxious to work on a few of those stick pins I found at the flea market.  I have several ideas percolating in my head, I just need to decide on the colors.
  
“Tea is quiet and our thirst for tea is never far from our craving for beauty.”
James Norwood Pratt
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Martha Doily

Martha Doily © Wanda Salmans 2010

I made this doily almost five years ago (five years?!) while on vacation to Washington, D.C.  I got to thinking about it the other day while working on Queen’s Crown Edging, wondering how it would look in two colors.  Why would this doily come to mind while working on an edging?  Because both have a lot of switching shuttles and changing directions. 

So I took a break from edgings and tried Martha in two colors. 

Martha Doily © Wanda Salmans 2010

This one is made with Lizbeth #658 Ocean Turquoise Light and #657 Ocean Turquoise Dark, both in size 20.  It is seven inches across from point to point.  The original was made in DMC size 30 ecru and ended up being six inches across from point to point.

 Martha Doily © Wanda Salmans 2010

Here’s a comparison of the two doilies side-by-side.

Does anyone see the mistake in the ecru doily?  Obviously the judges at the county fair in 2010 didn’t see it, either, because it won a blue ribbon that year.  I only found it now because I was going through it trying to jot down the stitch counts to write out the pattern.  I had to laugh about it – I’d never seen it myself.  An obvious but very well hidden oopsie.

Isn’t it amazing how different a pattern looks when done in different colors?  It can change the look and feel of a piece a lot.  I noticed this last week when I tested the pattern for QCE and again with this doily.   To see another version of the QCE done in two colors but differently, check out Jane McLellan’s version of it on her blog.

When I made the original doily it was in July and very hot.  This second one was done in February with cold temperatures though very little snow here.  If we lived just a few miles west we would have had a lot more snow.  Today is mild with temperatures in the 30s and low 40s F but the forecast is for much colder weather and snow.   Quite the contrast, just like the doilies.

“People don’t notice whether it’s winter or summer when they’re happy.”
Anton Chekhov
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Not much done

I haven’t gotten much done on either the triangle doily or the horse picture.  I’ve thought about them a bit, more the horse than the triangles, but no progress on either.  The doily still taunts me from the blocking board where I’ve been ignoring it.  The horse has been teasing me from several possible backgrounds to give it a pasture to run in.  I’ve played around with tatted flowers and birds, bunnies and grass, background colors and frame sizes, and still haven’t made up my mind.
We’ve finally been making progress on a house project that’s been put off for a long time, which is now taking up some (okay, a lot) of my time.  I think most of my creative thoughts have been funneled into this instead of my tatting.  Instead of trying to come up with ideas for the doily or the horse I worked on my vest Sunday night.  I’m at a place in it where I’m just repeating the same thing over and over for a while so I didn’t have to think much.  It was very relaxing.
This is a doily I gave to my mother several years ago.  I noticed that as it aged it looked like it was stained.  I brought it back home and washed it.  It now looks good as new.
A cup of tea
A ball of thread
A shuttle close to hand
A little time
A plan in mind
A tatter’s wonderland

A pretty teacup

This was supposed to be posted yesterday for Tatting Tea Tuesday but I have lost my photo editor on my computer. I tried re-installing it but I can’t find the disk.  So instead of several pictures I have one.
I was in a local antique store/flea market a couple of weeks ago and saw this pretty teacup.  It has no markings on the bottom to indicate maker or anything else but I thought it was pretty and so elegant looking.  So I brought it home.  I think I should dress up and wear a hat to drink tea out of this, don’t you?
Lizbeth size 20 in #617 Magenta Med and #644 Boysenberry Dk
I was inspired to make a doily to go along with the teacup.  I think I chose the colors at night with bad lighting as they don’t match the cup like I thought they did.  Oops.
The first seven rounds of this doily went pretty smoothly but the last two took forever!  I just couldn’t get it to do what I wanted it to. I kept changing my mind on those last two rounds, which probably took as long to tat as all the others put together. And I think I should have reduced the stitch count on the last round.  The doily ended up being just over seven inches across when finally finished.  It had to be blocked a lot before it would stay flat, due, I’m sure, to those last two rounds of (mostly) chains.  I’m thinking of doing it again in different colors and changing the stitch count in a couple of places. And maybe the dark thread at the center.
The shuttle is made of horn.  I haven’t tatted much with it as it’s pretty slick, I keep dropping it.  It is marred on both sides though I’m not sure how that happened.  It is still a pretty shuttle.  
There hasn’t been much tatting in the last week and I’m not sure there will be much in the next week.  There are a lot of family things going on and it’s hard to tat with a lap full of children.  I’m not complaining.  I’ll just smile and sip my tea.
“When in doubt drink tea”

Faux Tatting

A short while ago we were in a furniture store looking around, not really in the market for anything just passing time, waiting for a friend to meet us outside.  Of course, we found several things we added to our wish list….  While walking around I noticed a doily under an old-looking picture and had to take a closer look.  Both doily and picture were only there as “window dressing“, to give the place a homey look. 
This is a bit fuzzy as I took it in low light with my cell phone, but you can see why it caught my eye. 
A little bit of plastic ‘tatting’.
I wish I would have moved the frame off of it and taken a picture of the whole thing.  Plastic or not, it is a pretty pattern.  It would be interesting to try creating a “real” doily with nothing to go on but this, wouldn’t it?

My Not-So-Purple Grapes

I’m still working through Sherry’s new book, Branching Encapsulation.The next pattern to try      
was the grapes.   Again I just used the thread that was already on my shuttles so they aren’t grape-colored grapes, but they look like grapes 🙂

“Grapevine Edging” Sherry Pence © 2012

The pink and green are unknown colors in Lizbeth size 20 and Cebelia ecru in size 30.  They make for slightly odd-looking grapes, but the idea was to learn how to do them.   I only made this much of the edging but I’m pretty comfortable with the technique, even if there is room for improvement.

I’m not sure I’ll be getting the tatting done I planned on for the wedding gift.  It’s fast approaching and I still haven’t even started it yet!  They may get it as a belated gift.  They’ll have lots to open right away, maybe they’d appreciate another one a little late? You think?

“I dreamed of a wedding of elaborate elegance, a church filled with family and friends.  I asked him what kind of wedding he wished for, he said one that would make me his wife.”

from thinkexist.com