Tag: family

Thanksgiving

Can you believe Thanksgiving day has passed? It came and went so fast! We still have one Thanksgiving family gathering today, but I’ve put away my fall decorations and started on my Christmas decorating.

Table ready for family on Thanksgiving on wandasknottythoughts
Table ready for the family on Thanksgiving

This year we had a bit of rescheduling for some of the family get-togethers, so for Thanksgiving day we only had our daughters and their families and my mother over for lunch. We finalized the menu through texts a week ago. The meal was terrific, with minimal issues, as nothing burned and there was space for everyone at the table. We did add an extra table to the one in the picture so we could seat everyone, but no one was cramped. The weather in the afternoon was cool but sunny, so we ended up outside. Then we played a game before they all had to go home. There were a bunch of pictures taken!

I have been working on the edging for a Christmas table runner that I had been asked to do last year (!). She didn’t need it until this year, so I had plenty of time to get it done. Or so you’d think. I couldn’t make up my mind about the edging! I thought about it and tried several different things over the last several months, trying to come up with something I was happy about. I like the look of the edging I came up with, but I need to tweak it a bit more before I’ll be happy with the pattern.

Candy cane Christmas runner on wandasknottythoughts
Candy cane Christmas runner

The lady that requested the runner showed me another Christmas runner she had and her tree skirt so I had an idea of what type of fabric to use, and I still had a hard time choosing it. There were so many beautiful fabrics to choose from at Jo-Ann’s! And I needed to buy more than I usually do as she wanted a longer runner than I ordinarily make. The tatted edging also needed to be a bit wider than I have made in the past, another challenge.

In so many ways the tatting is the easy part. I rarely sew, which means it takes longer than I expect it to. And then I have to stitch the edging to the runner – on both ends! But the final result is worth it.

Now I’ll be working on perfecting that edging, as well as working on Christmas ornaments. I’ve had a hard time the last month or so not getting sidetracked from the edging by all the ideas I’ve had for other Christmas things. Now if I can just remember all those ideas!

About the September Angel pattern I have spoken about, there has been another delay. I had the whole thing written out but needed to make a correction. I printed it out to test tat it and noted the corrections that needed to be done. For an unknown reason, my computer shut down. When I went back to the pattern half of it was gone! Not sure what the glitch was, but thank goodness I have the printed version. Now I just need to re-write the parts that disappeared.

“The memories we make with our family is everything.” – Candace Cameron Bure.

Cruising

My husband and I tried something new last week – we went on a cruise to Alaska.
This trip was taken with several of my husband’s family, making us a group of eleven.  My sister-in-law and her husband are the only ones to have been on cruises before in the Gulf of Mexico, and none of us have ever been to Alaska.  It was a week of new experiences all around.
My husband and I flew out to Seattle a day early so we could see some of the city before we sailed.  We spent Saturday doing a lot of walking, trying to see as much as possible in the time we had.  That was fun! We spent some time in Pike’s Place at the fish market and the shops down there.  We took a picture of the original Starbucks from outside for our daughter (there were so many people we couldn’t go inside) and stopped at a couple more for coffee.  They really are everywhere up there!  They make great places to stop and rest for awhile. 
Everyone else arrived Saturday evening. We all stayed at the same hotel so we could all go together to the ship on Sunday.  It is quite a challenge to organize even that many people to be ready to go at the same time.
I’m very glad that tatting is so portable.
You notice how dressed up I am?  My husband and I figured we were going to Alaska so we would dress comfortably and fit right in 🙂
I couldn’t think of any patterns I wanted to work on during the trip so I just made sure I had a some thread and several shuttles.  I didn’t tat a whole lot for the first few days – there were so many things to do on the ship!  But I had it with me all the time.
To start with I decorated a few buttons and did an short edging to put on the card holder on my lanyard.  I wore this all the time on the ship.  It had my room key, tatting, crochet hook and scissors, the schedule of events on board for the day, receipts, a pen and cash for when we went ashore.  You see that it was the last day of the cruise before I realized I didn’t have a picture of it.
I gave this button away to one of our servers who had been very interested in what I was doing.  The server was very happy with it.  I hadn’t realized that the schedule I used as the background was from day six instead of seven until later.  
Be fore-warned: there will be a lot of pictures from our vacation in the coming weeks. It was a great week with many, many beautiful things to see.  I haven’t even gone through all the pictures yet , but I’m looking forward to enjoying our vacation all over again as I do.

“We travel not to escape life, but for life not to escape us.”
Anonymous 

Bedside tatting

A little before Christmas my MIL became pretty sick.  It put a bit of a damper on the whole holiday.  We spent some time sitting with her, to give a break to my FIL. I always have some tatting with me but I don’t always have a pattern or a project with me, which is what happened one evening.  I had green thread, red thread and even some red seed beads but no plan.  This is the result from that evening. 
Let’s face it, a simple round motif of rings and chains in green makes a simple wreath.  The beads I added after it was done because I forgot to add them as I tatted.  I braided strands of the red thread together to made the bow, and, ta da! A wreath!
I completed it while there and thought to leave if for my MIL, but I wanted a picture of it first.  It took a bit of doing to find a background that worked.  I tried several things before I noticed a Christmas stocking that turned out to be the best background.
I’m happy to say that my MIL is doing much better, though she gave us all quite a scare. In some ways the family meeting there, taking turns sitting at her bedside, made us much more aware of how blessed we are with family, even without the traditional Christmas gatherings.  I’m just hoping it’s a long time before we do this again!
“If today was the last day of your life, would you want to do what you are about to do today?”
Steve Jobs
Update – pattern added to My Patterns tab 1/6/15

A busy time of year

Busy with lots of things but very, very little tatting.  There have been family dinners, cleaning in preparation for those dinners, a Christmas play, unexpected events…. It’s just been very, very busy!
I didn’t get as many snowflakes done as I would have liked, but the important people each got one.  A couple of gifts I had wanted to make will have to wait for another occasion as I ran out of time this year.  A few projects I wanted to do will have to wait as I didn’t have as much time off from work as they said we would have.
But it was a wonderful Christmas!  We baked and decorated cookies with the grandchildren.  We played games that included everyone, from the great-grandparents to the youngest child.  We had a variety of foods that weren’t ‘traditional’ Christmas dinner fare but were easy to prepare so time could be spent doing other things.  We sat and talked, reconnecting with family we seem too busy to see much of the rest of the year. For all that there was a lot of time planning and preparing we didn’t let ourselves be too stressed about all that, for stress takes out a lot of the fun, doesn’t it?
We even had a white Christmas this year.  Here in Kansas there is only about an 11% chance of that happening, so it isn’t something you expect.  Of course, because we don’t expect it this early and it wasn’t just snow but ice as well,  not everyone could get out and about like we planned, either.  But it all came together anyway.
One of the few things beside snowflakes I did get done was this headband.
This was tatted on a white button then a sparkly jewel was added in the middle. I stitched it on the headband then added a bit of glue to give a little more hold. It was actually a birthday gift not a Christmas gift to a little girl who just loves purple.  It was a nice break from the snowflakes.
Now it’s on to other things.  Though maybe I should start on the snowflakes a little earlier this year – like, now?
I hope all of you had a wonderful Christmas!
“Gifts of time and love are surely the basic ingredients of a truly merry Christmas.”
Peg Bracken

Snowflakes and Pictures

I made my ‘Crowned Wheel’ (found on my Patterns tab) in white for the first time.  It’s actually the first time I’ve made it in a solid color instead of a variegated thread.  It looks pretty good as a snowflake.

The small snowflakes are just my doodling around to make small ‘flakes for the bags I’ve been decorating, but I’m pretty sure that some version of these (and more!) are in Patti Duff’s ‘Minitats’ (which is currently sold out) and probably other places as well.  
I haven’t gotten much tatting done in the last week due to having family doings for Thanksgiving.  We had three different dinners in three days.  I didn’t have to cook for all three – one was catered and not at our house; one was at our house but made by my Son-In-Law; the other at our house where I did almost everything but the turkey which was smoked outside.  We’re dining on leftovers still, and will be for several more days.  This is not a bad thing at all – little cooking but a variety of good food 🙂
Have you ever had family get-togethers where you want to take pictures but not everyone is all that enthused about it?  As I take a lot of pictures my family knows it’s coming and they will just have to suffer through it.  This year I tried to make it fun.  The weather was very mild so we took the set pictures outside.  I had purchased some holiday accessories – Christmas tree head bands, gnome/elf hats, funny glasses – and had everyone wear them for pictures.  I didn’t hear nearly as much complaining as I usually do – everyone was laughing too hard. The kids thought it was great and even the guys had fun with it.
Our daughters framing us for the holidays.
It was great to have such a mild holiday weekend where we could spend a lot of time outside and didn’t have to bundle up.  I heard that the weather on the east coast was pretty nasty with a lot of travel delays.  Our turn could be coming.  The temp here today was about 65º F, tomorrow the high is supposed to be about 23º.  
And “breezy” – meaning winds 10 to 25 mph.
And maybe snow.
Lovely.
“You don’t choose your family. They are God’s gift to you, as you are to them.”
Desmond Tutu
brainyquotes.com


More mice

I had to make more mice this weekend due to a few requests.  From the grandkids, so how could I refuse?
We went on a vacation with our daughters and their families this holiday weekend. There were four children ages two to six with us.  I was sitting on the porch of the cabin with my tatting when they came by to see what I was doing.  They saw the two mice I had in my case and immediately started deciding between them who would get them and wasn’t I going to make more?  As I didn’t expect to get much tatting done during the weekend I didn’t bring a large choice of thread. In fact I only brought two balls of thread, Lizbeth #644 Boysenberry Dark and # 662 Turquoise Light, both in size 20.  I also didn’t bring the black beads I use for eyes and nose.   
That didn’t stop me.  I had a partially loaded shuttle of another color thread that had clear beads strung on it so the mice would have light colored eyes and noses.  I did, fortunately, have enough findings with me to make the required number of mice.  With the blue mouse I had already made (in Lizbeth #652) that was specially requested by one of the grandsons I just needed to make three mice.  I made two in the Boysenberry Dark and and one in the Turquoise Light.  
On Sunday, after lunch but before we went our separate ways, I let the kids choose which mouse they wanted.  One of the grandsons wasn’t very happy with the color choices – none of them were red.  So I promised him I make him one in red and send it to him. 

Here’s the red mouse I made for him (Lizbeth #671, size 20).  Of course at home I had the black beads so it has the dark eyes and nose.  I’ll be sending it off in the mail today or tomorrow. 
This snail is Nancy Tracy’s pattern made in Lizbeth #601 snow white in size 20. I have made this before but I thought I would make it again for the Shuttlebirds Tatting Challenge.  This was tatted on the drive to the cabin.  It’s in white as I had a little bit of this thread still on a shuttle.  
Every morning this weekend (Friday, Saturday & Sunday) I was the first one out of bed, which gave me a quiet time to tat while enjoying the beautiful view from one of the porches.  I got a surprising amount of tatting done this way.  These motifs are what I had planned on making if I had time, which dictated the choice of colors I had brought.  They are to go on a denim purse I want to add tatting to.  They are made in the Turquoise Light with 6-point findings.  The shape and pattern is pretty much the same as for the mouse with a reduced stitch count for the rings, 3+3 and 2-2-2-2 for the chains.  I’m planning on gluing them to my purse (I’m lazy and don’t want to try stitching them on).

We spent this vacation at a small retreat in southeast Nebraska called Dana Farms at Mayberry.  The entire family had a wonderful time.  Not once did I hear any of the kids (adult kids or grandkids) say they wanted to go home.  The pond (Lake Suzanne) was stocked so every time we went fishing fish were caught, which really helped the grandkids have a good time.  The owners were great and the cabin was absolutely wonderful.  If anyone needs a nice, quiet place to get away and you’re in that area I highly recommend Dana Farms.  You can find out more about it at http://cabins4fun.com/
(This is my own endorsement made without compensation. We just had a great time there!!)  

We all hated to see the end of the vacation.  It was very hard to go back to work on Monday, too. 
“There is certainly something in angling that tends to produce a serenity of the mind.”
Washington Irving

Tatting in the center

I went to a nephew’s wedding this weekend in North Platte, Nebraska.  When planning the trip I decided I didn’t have to drive interstate all the way, there are other roads to get to where I needed to go.  Some of the highways I took were two lane (instead of four) but well surfaced, and had a lot less traffic.  Okay, I had to slow down for combines a few times but mostly the roads had few cars or other traffic.  The weather was mild for this time of year making the trip both ways very enjoyable. 
On the way back I took a short side trip to see the geographic center of the contiguous 48 states. 

This is the roadside historical marker that is on US highway 36.
I had seen this on my way to the wedding but stopped on the way home as the timing was better. 
 There’s not much there.  This has a plaque with the longitude and latitude on it.
There is a tiny, tiny chapel and a covered area with picnic tables and a couple of trash cans.  That’s about it.
 The road to get there (looking east from the site). There is a house at the end of that driveway, otherwise just pastures and fields all around.  This road ends at the site though two dirt roads go off north and south. 
Yes, I was tatting in the center – of the United States.
The wedding gift
I had asked the bride what their wedding colors were, she said ‘green, black and white’.  Black and white were easy but there are a lot of shades of green.  Instead of asking what shade I took a wild guess and chose Lizbeth #684 Leaf Green Med and of course white #601 to make the hearts.  There are a few flowers  on there in #613 Golden Yellow Med and #696 Autumn Orange Med, thrown in for contrast.  The leaves are in #138 Leafy Greens. The hearts are Joy’s Heart (on my pattern tab), and the butterfly is Monica Mancenido’s pattern (aka soyloquesoy on Intatters).  All are made in size 20.

My daughter and granddaughter also came to the wedding., her husband and son having a “guys” weekend at home (my husband had to work). We roomed together in North Platte for two nights, which was great. I had even finished the present two days earlier (amazing!) so I wasn’t even rushing to get that done but could relax and enjoy the time with the family.  It was a great weekend.

“Everywhere’s been where it is ever since it was first put there.  It’s called geography.”
Terry Pratchett, Wyrd Sisters

Birthday gift

I made this cross bookmark for one of my Sunday School students who’s birthday was this week.  I had planned on making it several weeks ago but that was while I was getting ready for the craft show, so it got put off.  Then there was the week before Thanksgiving trying to get some neglected cleaning done before our daughter’s family arrived for the weekend.  Then there was Thanksgiving and all the get-togethers and dinners.  Sunday morning arrived and it wasn’t done yet!
Luckily I woke early, even before the grandchildren, and was able to get started on it.  I kept making mistakes on stitch counts and joins, and then the kids got up.  Just a few more distractions while I hurried to finish it before church.  Amazingly, I did it.
This is made with Lizbeth size 20 in #641 Lilac Dark for the rings and #633 Dark Purple for the chains.  The pictures, at least on my computer, come out looking like shades of blue, but trust me, they’re purple! I’m pretty sure she’ll like it as purple is her favorite color.  
I say pretty sure because after all that hurrying to get it done, her family was out of town for the holidays so she hasn’t seen it yet. Oh, well, it’s done.  Much better to have it done and her not there that the other way around!
We had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend with several dinners and lots of family. We don’t see much of some of the families that much anymore, which is sad.  Fortunately we still try to get together for Thanksgiving and Christmas and most are able to make one or the other, and if we are lucky, both.  Hopefully some that couldn’t make it for Thanksgiving will be able to come for Christmas.
Now things have settled down a bit, at least for a few days, and I can think what I still need to make and do for Christmas.  Unlike Diane I haven’t been getting any snowflakes made.  She has made some beautiful ones this year.  I need to get motivated and make some myself.
“A gift consists not in what is done or given, but in the intention of the giver or doer.”
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
http://www.brainyquote.com

Charmed

At least my wine glasses are.
I’ve been doing a lot of tatting lately but not everything has come out like I’d like.  The wine glass charms are one thing that I think has come out well.   I showed them to my sister the other day when her son, who was there as well, said he thought they were pretty cool.  This surprised both his mother and I as he doesn’t usually notice such things.  
He asked if he could take a picture of them to send to his girlfriend.  Hmmm, like I had to think very hard about that one. 
I’ve made sets of them in jewel tones and autumn colors, four colors in a set.  I’m thinking these will work very well for Christmas gifts this year.  A lot of the nieces and nephews are in college, or at least that age now, and wine glasses with wine glass charms would work well as gifts, don’t you think?
They also make cute, easy earrings.  I still had some thread on my shuttle from the blue ones so made two more and put them on earring wires instead of the rings.  When I wore them to work the other day one lady said she definitely would like a pair.  I asked her what color she wanted.  

I made two sets using two different centers and let her choose.  
My sister and I are going to do a local craft show in a few weeks where I hope to sell some of these, too, both wine glass charm sets and earrings.  We thought business cards would be a good idea, in case there were any special orders.  We used to do several craft shows a year but haven’t for quite a while now.  Lately we’ve been talking about trying to do a couple of local shows, just for fun.  We can’t use the same name as we had before because we had a third person with us which fit the name, but it doesn’t now.  Do you know how hard it can be to come up with a name we both like, fits what we do/may do and isn’t already taken??
I have to thank Sharon and her Design-Tat class for the designs on our business cards.  We plan to print our own as we don’t expect to need a lot, but they needed some graphics to be more than just words.  I looked online for free graphics that would fit our name/theme and couldn’t find any I liked.  There are a lot of sewing ones out there, and a few tatting ones, but, but – not quite right.   So I made the graphics myself utilising the knowledge I learned in the Design Tat class as well as the software program that I now use for my tatting patterns   I think they came out pretty well if I do say so myself. 
One bad thing about making these are that they are very quick to tat.  How can that be a problem?   It means I’m hiding a lot of ends frequently.  I’ve taken to making the charms/earrings in batches then sewing in all the ends.  My fingers have gotten a little sore.  I’ve taken to using my little jewelry pliers to pull the needle through – very carefully.  I’ve already broken one needle. The good news is my fingers are not as sore!
“Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.”  Oscar Wilde

Reflections on things I’ve learned

I was at my mother’s house the other day and noticed a gift I had given her years ago.  It’s been sitting out for all these years but I just happened to ‘see’ it again. It’s a picture of my children and my sister’s children when they were much younger in a decorated frame with a little tatting.  
The frame is an inexpensive one without glass and the wooden hearts were painted to coordinate with the material I used to cover the backing.  Where the ribbon is tied around the flowers the tatting is gathered up, giving the impression they are wrapped in the lace.
For whatever reason, this day I also noticed all the imperfections of this gift.  The backing I’m sure is cardboard, not a bad thing but probably, no, certainly, not acid free.  I noticed the hole I cut for the picture is not quite square and whatever I used to glue the tatting down stained the material.  For all that the material, ribbon and flowers are about the same color, one or another should probably have been a contrasting color to show off the others better.
Back when I did this I didn’t know anything about using acid free paper/cardboard.  With the surge of interest in scrap-booking now almost anyone can know about acid free paper just by reading the packaging of scrap booking paper at the store.  There are now a lot of templates easily available for different shapes to make a finished project look, well, finished. There were probably other glues I could have used that would have worked better than whatever it is I used, but I was pretty ignorant of such things back then. 

I remember this piece of tatting – made entirely of plain rings and chains it was supposed to be a round motif that I put too many stitches/too many repeats in, making it ruffle a lot. By gathering it up around the flowers it allowed the rest of it to lay flat.  It was a good way to use what might have been a mistake.  This wasn’t my first attempt at designing my own patterns but everything I knew about tatting had been gleaned just by the experience of doing it.  The only person I knew that even knew what tatting was, was my grandmother and she didn’t do much at all.  There was no Internet to see other people’s tatting, so my exposure to patterns were in whatever books and magazines I could lay my hands on.  The library didn’t have many books on it and magazines with tatting were few and far between.  Yes, Workbasket was out there with a pattern or two a month, but that’s almost nothing compared to what we have available now.  I had taken to coming up with my own patterns a lot of the time, simple though they were. I was following unknowingly in the footsteps of designers everywhere – trial and error: keep what you like, throw away what you don’t, but most importantly, keep trying!

As I look at the gift now I see all of it’s flaws, but also what went into it: the effort, the imagination, the skill, the courage to do something out of my comfort zone.  And mostly the desire to give my mother something special that she would like and, hopefully, treasure. I must have succeeded as it still sits out in her living room, visible to all who enter her house.



“Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try!”

Dr. Seuss