Happy Easter 2023
Tag: eggs
Decorated Eggs
It is spring! At least the calendar shows that, though lately, it’s been hard to tell. One morning you get up and there’s snow on the ground, the next day it’s 70 degrees. The grass and the trees are greening up, so I hope the cold weather is done. A little rain would be nice. The only thing consistent seems to be the wind. Tomorrow is another day of high wind gusts and very high fire danger, not just here but from Arizona and New Mexico all the way up to South Dakota. Hang on to your hats!
I’ve been doing a lot of tatting the last few weeks. Not necessarily a lot to show, but putting knots in thread steadily. Some things have worked out, some have not. Being the Easter season I have done a little egg decorating and that has worked out – mostly.
I did the egg in purple first. It has a mistake that shall remain hidden on the back of the egg. I did not do enough repeats on the bottom tatting to match the top so the bare thread stitching does not match up correctly. The bottom would have looked much better if I had done it right. As I made it just to be making it, it is just fine the way it is. I used Lizbeth # 632 Purple Med in size 20.
I made the pink one next. I used a thread I was given by a neighbor that his wife had used. It is DMC #224 Shell Pink – Very Light in size 10. I wouldn’t usually use size 10 on eggs of this size, but it was handy and I was feeling a bit nostalgic. I had taught my neighbor’s wife how to tat years ago and still feel her loss. I used the medallion pattern that I designed five years ago for Palmetto Tat Days. Figuring out how to hold these to the egg proved interesting.
The light blue egg is done in Lizbeth # 651 Med Blue in size 20. I had been using this for something else I was working on and had some left on the shuttles. I used the same medallion pattern, but it fits much differently when done in size 20 than it does in size 10. I like how the bottom part came out but the top part not so much. I might need to come up with something different – next year.
The eggs I used were some I bought from Joann’s. Back in February when they put out the Easter things I found a bag of 18. They are the size of chicken eggs, nicer to work with than the plastic ones that come apart for candy, and much less fragile than real eggs. I have decided that I must find a better way to hold the two ends on the egg while finishing them. It was a pain to keep them in place while trying to stitch them together with the bare thread. And that is an issue I will address next year.
“The difference between involvement and commitment is like ham and eggs. The chicken is involved; the pig is committed. Martina Navratilova”
International Tatting Day 2022
Today, April 1st is International Tatting Day. Traditionally, we celebrate by tatting, in public if we can, eat chocolate, and drink a beverage of choice. Sounds like fun, doesn’t it?
Let’s celebrate!
Decorated Eggs 2021
Last week I thought I wouldn’t be decorating any Easter eggs with tatting. But during the week I found the box that had the fake eggs I bought several years ago. Then I decorated them with just a touch of tatting, not encasing them. This year I was inspired by so many people encasing the eggs with tatting that I decided to give it a try.
This is tatted with Lizbeth # 662, Turquoise Lt., a ball that was in a box of miscellaneous tatting things I found in my craft room, one of many such boxes. This color was found in one of the first boxes I went through that day and goes well with the pink egg.
This egg is the size of a real hen’s egg. Doesn’t it look real? It is light but not fragile like a real egg; I didn’t have to worry about dropping it. (Drop it? Me?!) If I did this pattern again I would definitely change the very top, so that each ring of the next round could attach to it. The second round does stay up okay, but I think it would look better joined to the top. This is my pattern, made in four rounds plus the bare thread used to sew the top and the bottom together.
When this one was finished, I tried something else on a much smaller, wooden egg.
This one is made with only two rounds, a bottom round with the top added next, then a thread going through each of the picots of the top to enclose the egg. I don’t use a picot gauge very often but I did while making this. Did you notice that the egg isn’t painted? I thought about painting it, but decided I’d rather just leave it as is.
I used the same thread on both. It looks about right on the larger egg but a smaller thread would have been better on the small one, don’t you think? Give it a more delicate look.
I have these eggs hanging from the bottom of the light shade next to my computer. Other than that I don’t have any Easter or spring decorations out. As I have the decorated eggs from 2016, maybe I’ll put those out as well. Will I decorate any more? I’m not sure.
International tatting day is coming up on April 1st, just over a week away. I’m still trying to decide if I’m going to do anything special for it, or just make sure I have chocolate and time to tat. How about you? Any plans?
A true friend is someone who thinks that you are a good egg even though he knows that you are slightly cracked. Bernard Meltzer
Eggs, blooms, smoke and snow
I had a chance to decorate Easter eggs this week. Nothing elaborate, but fun.
We didn’t cook any eggs to color this year. They have eggs at the store that look almost real, and all you have to do is decorate. My daughter bought two dozen white ones for the kids to decorate. I thought I was picking up the same thing except colored, ready for stickers or coloring.
They were chalkboard eggs. They even came with a package of chalk.
I used colored pencils instead. Along with a bit of tatting, of course.
I had a lot of fun with these though I only finished three eggs. I guess I have some to work on for next year.
A couple of weeks ago I mentioned how many of the ornamental pear trees were blooming. There are a few of those still pretty though most have greened to leaves now. But the Flowering Crab Apple and Redbud trees are now in full bloom.
In the last week or so there was a hard freeze but it doesn’t look like it did a lot of damage. Well, I don’t have a garden or fruit trees so I could be wrong, but there are a lot of trees and flowers still blooming.
This is a Flowering Crab Apple tree in my daughter’s yard and it is beautiful!
The sky has been other than blue over the last week. There have been several large wild fires in the state that created a lot of smokey skies and caused ash to fall miles from the fires. The fires are very hard to contain when the wind is blowing 40+ miles an hour.
A smokey sunset seen from where I work in Wichita. I missed being outside when all the ash was falling.
We finally got a little moisture Easter Sunday. In the form of a beautiful snow fall.
The view from the bedroom window about 8:00 a.m. Easter morning.
This was about an hour later. Check out that blue, blue sky!
It was a perfect snow. The roads were clear, the snow only lasted for the day and it was perfect for making snow balls. It did mean that the grandchildren had their egg hunt in the house, but they didn’t seem to mind too much.
This Friday, April 1st, is International Tatting Day. The two ladies I get together to tat with, my sister, and I are planning to be at the Montana Mike’s Steak House in McPherson for lunch. We’ll have our tatting and chocolate out and I know we’ll be having a great time. If there is anyone in the neighborhood that would like to join us there you would be quite welcome! We plan on getting there about 11:30 a.m. and taking a long lunch.
What are your plans for ITD?
“If an egg is broken by an outside source, life ends.
If an egg is broken by an inside force, then life begins.
Great things happen from the inside.”
Simple gifts
I took a page out of Diane’s book 🙂 and added buttons to several headbands. Diane talks about some of hers in this post on her blog Lace-lovin’ Librarian. She’s been crocheting around buttons but I put tatting around mine instead.
I have tatted around buttons before but never thought to put them on this kind of hair accessory. It adds a little something to these bright but plain headbands that’s quick and simple. And fun. They were gifted to my daughters and granddaughters for Easter.
Last year I tatted around buttons when I made Easter eggs. This year I put a few of them on paper clips as simple gifts for my mother and her sisters. They make really great toppers for them.
On a sad note a friend of mine lost an aunt the week before Easter. I gave him one of my go-to sympathy gifts of a cross bookmark which was put inside the card.
As usual I just had to try for something a little different. This cross is made in Lizbeth #115 Springtime in size 20. I’m not that happy with this pattern, probably because I had trouble making it even though it is a simple pattern. I was a little distracted and I kept making mistakes. And I’m not sure I like the center. It did turn out better than I thought once it was blocked, which straightened it out. I should have joined each arm to the center in more than the one place to make it a bit more stable. Maybe next time.
Do you have any favorite things you give for simple gifts?
“Every gift from a friend is a wish for your happiness.”
Richard Bach
www.brainyquote.com
Disclaimer: There were no books hurt in the production of this blog post