Tatted Edging

tatted edging
Originally uploaded by Iris Susan.

I've been working on this bit of edging. It's done with size 80 tatting thread...very fine and difficult to work with. The pattern is my own design...I find that I don't forget to do picot joins on my own designs. Yes the needle is bent but it works just fine...it's a very thin needle.

I joined the baggie swap that Sandie is doing over at abeautifulcraft... check it out if you haven't seen it yet. I am adding several of my tatted pieces to each baggie.

Hopefully I can find (make?)time to sew up a few cq hearts and do some embroidery this weekend. I have had such a good time tatting and teaching myself to crochet that the embroidery has been neglected for sometime now. I want to learn how to do thread crochet but I can see it is going to take longer to learn than the tatting did. LOL (:o)

Small Tatting Motifs

small tatting motifs
Originally uploaded by Iris Susan.

I think my tatting is improving at least a little. The purple piece (doesn't it look like a dog?) of tatting is about an inch long... that should give you an idea about size. The red one has a few mistakes...forgot to join picots...I always do that.

Purple Heart

Purple Heart
Originally uploaded by Iris Susan.

I like the colors of this heart but I think it needs something on the print...I just don't have whatever it needs in my stash. I tried buttons, charms, tatting, and nothing suited. The butterflies are tatted.

Spring Snow

We did have some snow and ice. I could hear the sleet hitting the roof early this morning. Then we had enough snow to cover it up. The roads must be a mess. I took these pictures of the birds enjoying the feeders this morning.

The birds in this picture are mostly gold finches... they like the thistle feeder...there just isn't enough room for them all so they sit all over the pole and wait their turn. This morning as I was watching there were purple finches, house finches, song sparrows, cardinals, chickadees, one junco, and a pair of brown headed cow birds. The cow birds have to go...I scared them off every time I saw them on the feeder. I made the wooden feeder...the birds like its plastic roof it keeps the weather off but allows them to see predators.

It isn't easy to capture a bird in flight but there is one in this picture....fuzzy but there. This is the view from my back porch. I actually took the pictures through the glass of the back door.

Spring...Maybe...Maybe not!

It might be the first day of spring but the weather report is that we may have ice and snow tonight. It isn't all that surprising...I remember an Easter when I was seven or eight that we had a half inch of ice. It was so sad...my oldest brother and his family were home for Easter. All of the girls had new Easter dresses and bonnets to wear to church but the ice was so bad we couldn't get out of the house. I'm not sure how Dad made it to the barn to do the chores that morning.

Blogger still won't let me upload photos...wish they would get it fixed.

Still here

Sorry it's been so long but there hasn't been anything to blog. None of my projects are far enough along to share and I have had other things to keep me busy this week. Soooo....I thought I would share some photos....but blogger will not let me. Blogger has had several problems this week...for two days my blog was lost on a server that was down.

The best that I can do is send you to my flicker site to look at the pictures of my daffodils. We have had frosts the last two mornings and I'm worried about the ones that haven't bloomed yet. My tulips are showing themselves but hopefully they won't show buds for a couple more weeks. My crab apples trees were showing green...I haven't been brave enough to look at them since the frost.

There is also some photos of my Chain of Hearts vines...also known as Ceropegia woodii. The original plant was my mother's. When she passed away I rooted four or five plants from the original so that my siblings could each have one. The vine grows very fast and I have rooted several new plants and given several away. Now I have five plants and two of them need shortened. They are easy to start...they have nodules on the vine and I lay the section I want to root on soil in another pot, anchor it with florist wire until it roots itself then cut it from the original plant.

I'm off to have another cup of coffee it's cinnamon hazelnut this morning...would anyone care to join me?

Snowflake

It's finished...it's not great... but it's finished! I just wish I could get the turns right...if you look closely you can see were it looks twisted and doesn't lay flat. Tension is a problem for me too...some places are too tight and some to loose.

Saturday was a fun day even if it did rain all day. My dearest and life long friend and her husband were here for the weekend and she and I want shopping. I had found an ad for a yarn shop that I wanted to visit and we went to check it out. The lady that owns the shop spins a lot of her own threads and weaves... there is a workshop with several looms set up. It would take several weeks to look at all of the things in her shop. It's definitely a place to visit often. After the yarn shop we had lunch at a local steak house then spent some time at Hobby Lobby. On the way home stopped at Starbucks and treated ourselves to a latte. All in all a very nice day.

Sad Tatting Attempts

I have had some very nice compliments on my tatting and thank you all.......but I thought I would share some of my sad tatting attempts with you. I plan to persevere in spite of my "sta" (sad tatting attempts) and I'm determined to improve.

The sta on the left should have been a medallion I think.... but I couldn't figure out when to join the picots.

The sta on the right...well I didn't make it loose enough ....anyway it doesn't look the way it should.

I had a very good start on this sta when I realized I wasn't making some picot joins where I should....then I realized that not all of the large rings were facing the same direction as they should have been. But I didn't give up and a second attempt is on the needle at this moment.

These two are actually pretty good. I have had several sta at this heart...I like it but it needs to be done on a shuttle I guess...it doesn't look like it should. The Butterfly I actually like but this is the result of the second or third attempt.

Hearts and more Hearts

I spent last week and the weekend working on improving my skills using silk ribbon and these are the hearts I worked on. Three ladies have their choice...Maureen B has first choice then Rosemary and Toni. I'm afraid Maureen is having trouble making up her mind which one she wants.

Yes, it is a piece of my tatting on Millie.

Sadie and Millie


Water Lilies and Cardinal

Topiary Tree

I finished the tree over the weekend... the only thing left is maybe signing and dating it. When I have improved my stash of silk ribbon I would like to make another one. Thanks again Julia for sharing the design with me and for your help.

Hearts Received

Thought I would share my resent swaps from the Chain of Hearts group.

This one is from Maureen B in Australia.




Pat from Indiana sent this heart.












This heart is from Sue in the UK











Toni from Ohio sent this heart.








There are all so lovely... I wish the scanner could really do them justice. I think I'll make a frame to put them in when I scan them....might help the hearts stand out a bet better. Still not sure what I want to do with them just yet...it's just so much fun to look at each one and see all of the detail and admire the work.

More Tatting

This piece of tatting I did this evening...its the same pattern that I used on the first piece I tried. Today I worked out how to finish it.

Tatting

I did it! I did it! I actually finished a piece of tatting actually two pieces of tatting! The one on the left is the first one tatted and it's a little rough in places but I think the second one is much better. If anyone out there does needle tatting and would give me a few pointers I would love to hear from you. I can't always figure out what the pattern means for me to do next. The piece that I'm working on now is more difficult and the instructions aren't as clear for a beginner as they could be.