Tag: gifts

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

A birithday gift

A while back I found some material remnants, one of purple and a slightly smaller one of pink with gold sparkles.  I thought together they would make a cute skirt for my granddaughter’s second birthday gift.  Now, I rarely sew at all and usually only such things as straight lines when putting simple table runners together.  My bright idea was to make a skirt – without having a pattern.  Oh, yeah, real bright. 
So, about a week before her birthday I finally get started on the skirt.  I can’t find my roller cutter so have to cut the material with a scissors, guessing at how big to cut it.  I barely start sewing it together and my sewing machine breaks.  For several days I’m at a standstill with it, trying to find a sewing machine to use.  Then it dawns on me that there are a couple of machines at church that the ladies use when they quilt that I could use.  Finally, progress! It takes a lot longer than it should, or should I say I wanted, the skirt was finally together.  And then the tatting had to be sewn on (you didn’t think I’d give her something like that without tatting, did you?).   It was finished the night before the party 🙂 (Just in time!)
When I tried taking a picture of her in the skirt she got all silly and wouldn’t stand still.  It’s a good thing I got any decent pictures because about five minutes after this picture was taken she tried to be a big girl and put her cereal bowl in the sink, which is great, but it still had cereal and milk in it.  There was milk from her chin all the way to the floor. 
The thread is a size 10 white with gold filament, which looks good with the pink material.  The beads are only on about two thirds of the tatting, front and sides but not the back (she doesn’t have to sit on them).  I added the butterfly in the same thread so she would know the front from the back.
The skirt turned out wearable, which is all I could ask for. It’s plenty long enough and the waist is elastic and can be let out some as she grows.  Flaws and all I think it is a success. 
“In order to succeed, your desire for success should be greater than your fear of failure.” 
Bill Cosby
www.brainyquote.com

Joy

This was my Mother’s Day gift to my mother-in-law.
This idea popped into my head complete once I found the wooden cut-out.  It was unpainted and I’m sure I got it around Christmas time one year but it was perfect for this occasion as my MIL’s name is Joy.
I have a lot of these little flowers around as I usually empty my shuttle with them.  Of course, I didn’t have (couldn’t find) ones in colors that went together so I had to make a few more. The butterfly I made special with the beads just for this occasion.  The little birdy was already done (if anyone can tell me where I found this cute little doodle I’d appreciate it! I know it’s out there somewhere but I can’t remember where! I’d like to give credit to the designer)  Then it was just putting them together in a way that I liked.  
Okay, I had to paint it first.  And the paints were in a nice safe place, it just took me awhile to find them. And decide what color it should be, once I found out what paints I had.  It ended up being green mixed with white to tone it down from the Christmas-y color of the green. 
Then to finish it off it’s completely coated with glitter glue.  It really looks much better in person. Sparkly.
It’s now attached to her wall with some of those 3M Velcro strips.  They were brought along as part of the gift 🙂
For once I didn’t over think an idea, kept it simple.  
I’ll have to keep my eye out for more of this type of cutout.  They could be made into quick, simple gifts for almost any occasion, depending on what they spelled out.
I’d have more pictures to share but I left my camera at my daughter’s house this last weekend.  I really miss it.  And of course all the pictures I took at her house I can’t download, either.  Bummer!  But the plan is to see them again this weekend! :-)) Joy!
“Joy is the feeling of grinning inside.”
Melba Colgrove
thinkexist.com

Marking time

I’ve been tatting all week and have very little to show for it.  Okay, I’ve been tatting but only for short stretches at a time.  That I accomplished anything is wonderful!
I’ve made two simple bookmarks.   One is made with Lizbeth # 166 Pink Cocoa in size 40. I’ve had it on my shuttles for doing the zipper pulls and was trying to work it off.  It didn’t look like there was that much on them!  But it’s size 40 and I’ve been working a lot with size 20 so I was fooled into thinking it was almost gone.

The other one is made with Oren Bayan Perele cotton size 8 in the brown-to-tan variegated and a deep green also in size 8 Perele cotton by Oren Bayan.  I think it would make a lovely gift to a man as it’s in woodsy colors, kind of manly.

 It seems we know a lot of people graduating from either college or high school.  I’m glad bookmarks work up quickly and fit well into cards 🙂  I’ve been working a bit on Mother’s Day gifts as well as graduation gifts and several birthday gifts.  Now if I can just make progress on them!
I haven’t even touched my vest this week.  Still thinking about it though.
“Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.”
Maria Robinson
thinkexist.com

What to do with a bucket

A mini bucket, that is.
There is a restaurant in Wichita called “Logan’s Roadhouse” (it’s a chain restaurant) that has some of it’s desserts served in mini buckets.  I’ve collected a few but never done anything with them.  Then the other day my boss brought in a couple.  His wife didn’t think they should keep them but he thought something could be done with them.  He ended up giving them to me. 
That’s when I remembered that Boss’s Day was October 16 and I’d missed it.  So guess what I did?

Yep, I gave one of the buckets back to him.  It looked a little different than when I got it, though. 
These little buckets have the restaurant logo on them, which I had to take off.  It used to be a sticker but they paint it on now.  I took some sandpaper to it but didn’t get the whole logo off so I ended up painting over it.  I used what paint I had on hand and it needed to co-ordinate with the thread I was going to use.  Originally I had planned to use a red button in the center so I chose green paint instead of red.  After I had painted it I changed my mind.  Oh, well, it still came out looking okay. 
I used Lizbeth #638, Christmas Green in size 20.  There are two layers of tatting, the bottom/outside having silver beads.  I glued a flat-backed diamond gem in the center to brighten it up a bit.  The top looked kind of bare so I put a stand of silver ribbon around it.  I couldn’t get a bow to look good so I tatted a ring with lots of beads on it then glued it down with another, smaller, flat-backed gem in the center. 
I also added some candy to it.  It looked pretty cute and the boss liked it, so I would say it was a success. 
I have a couple other of these buckets I think I’ll do similarly.  I’m going to try to get the logo off better and use a more contrasting paint for whatever thread I use.  This didn’t take me very long to do so will make excellent small gifts with a little candy in the center.  
I met some alpacas at the store the other day….
Yes, alpacas in the store.  Odd Balls, a yarn shop in Newton, Kansas, had an event weekend and brought some alpaca into the store.  
 

Alpaca fiber is used to make yarn and is similar to wool.   They had a display set up showing some of the uses of the fiber. 
It was interesting to see the different natural colors the fiber comes in. 
I didn’t have time to stay long as I heard about it just before leaving for work.  The store does this every year, so I guess I’ll have a chance to go again next year.  I’ve done a bit of web surfing since then to learn move about them.  Here’s a link to ten fun facts about alpacas if you’d like to know more, too. 
Sounds Like a Spitting Good Time!

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