May Heart

Here is my tatted heart for May, "My Heart,"--I don't know who the designer is. I did it in Kreinik Soie Perlee # 2944. To me, it looks more like a butterfly, but it was very quick--just an hour or so.

Below is the first project finished from the red tote: GameBoy's 2009 ornament--I'm really glad to have finally finished something!

April Heart

Here is the April Heart for my Facebook Tatting group challenge. It's Minnie's Love by Heather's Design's and I used DMC Perle Size 8 in Color 67.

Mea Culpa!

Mea maxima culpa!

While sitting in my dorm room--with no computer access--at Women's Conference, I was mulling over Lynda's recent visit. I was missing her already and thinking about the lovely gifts she had made me. In particular, I was considering what I would wear with the necklace she had crocheted for me. Wait. Oh. My. Gosh. I forgot to post a pic of the necklace. It's a beautiful one, too. So beautiful that I put it on right away, and then hung it up with the rest of my necklaces instead of putting it with the other gifts to be photographed. Between that and the flurry of packing, it completely slipped my mind. But I want to share it with the world (or at least my family), so here it is.

And below is a close-up so you can see her work:

And the dorm room where the realization occurred (it kind of made me think of a monk's cell):

More gifts

Lynda also brought me gifts during her visit. I had a really good time while she was here. We went to Shepherd's Bush (stitching), Needlepoint Joint (knitting and stitching) and Sew Sweet (quilting). It was a blast! And we ate at the Lion House Pantry. Now she is on her way back home.

The postcard on the left speaks for itself :-D.












Very fun toys. From the top, clockwise: A pinkeep, three bodkins, a thread holder, a needle-threader, and two tatting shuttles. All have jumprings, so it would be fun to put them on a chain or, even better, make a chatelaine to carry them on!

Beautiful socks with cool wavy cables, and in the perfect colors for a dragonfly, too. Green for water and blue for air. I'm a little afraid to put them on.

Felted slippers. These, I put on right after taking the picture because it's cold here today--very cozy!

A bottom view of a slipper--to keep me from slipping.

And finally, a copy of Mason-Dixon Knitting by Kay Gardiner and Ann Shayne. I cannot wait to read it!

For some reason, my normally ill-tempered cat, Bonzilla, decided to be out-and-out mean and was hissing, snarling and growling at Lynda and her daughter and had to be locked in a room (with food, water and litter-box, of course).
Here is Bonzilla ignoring me. After this she refused to sit for a picture at all. I was hoping to get her in full demon mode, but it was not to be.

2009 Christmas Angel

Lynda is here! We've been having a great shopping time--I took her to Shepherd's Bush and Needlepoint Joint.

And I gave her her 2009 Angel:


My finishing is getting better I think. This time I figured out a way to get it centered, which I will post about another time.

What's up next?

I thought it would be fun to sort of surprise myself with my next project. Last time I counted, I had 32 projects in varying stages kitted up. I've added more since. And I can't remember them all. Now, to be fair, I have a vague idea of what is in the kits I've lined up to work on for the next little while. But I decided to just grab the next one and see what's in it.

To the left is the tote bag (you can never have too many tote bags!) So what is in it?



Hmmm, it looks like just-about-finished ornaments from 2008.

Here is the Just Cross Stitch Ornament issue that all of my ornament patterns come from.

And here are the three ornaments for DH, JazzBoy and GameBoy. Wait! Three? Why aren't there four? Where is mine? I don't know. Not only that, but DH's is from the previous year. I found his 2008 one inside the magazine a few minutes after taking this picture.

JazzBoy always picks a snowman. This is "Frosty Friends" by Mosey 'N Me.

This one has been laced and is ready to put together.

DH likes sleds, but JCS hasn't had any for the past few years, so he chose the architectural one on the right. It's "Deck the Windows" by Julia Lucas Designs. The one on the left is by the same designer from the previous year (obviously not finished), so it's a matched set. When I attached the wreath to the first one, I used the wrong type of glue and it's visible; it's the white spot on the wreath on the left. So I'm cutting it off and attaching a new one.

GameBoy also likes snowmen, although he doesn't always choose one. Apparently he did in 2008. He chose "Let it Snow" by Country Cottage Needleworks

This is foamcore (right) and cardboard (left). I use these for lacing--foamcore for the stitching and cardboard for the backing. But these pieces don't match any of the ornaments. So I have no idea whatsoever what they are doing in this kit. ???
And finally, threads and ribbons for finishing. The green threads are quilting threads I will use for lacing--I like quilting thread because it is strong. It doesn't have to match any part of the project; it won't be seen. The other two threads match the ribbons; they'll be used for attaching the ribbon to the project.

I never did figure out what project I picked for 2008. I can only hope it shows up in another tote bag.

Completely unrelated: I made so "No Knead Peasant Bread" today, from the Food Network Magazine May 2010 issue. It was really easy but took a long time: 24 hours in the fridge, 18 hours at room temperature, another 2 hours after shaping, and 45 minutes to bake. It's baked in a cast-iron dutch oven, which makes a *really* nice crust. Here it is:
And a close-up of the lovely crust:

And the insides:

Looks, yummy, huh? It is!

Catching Up

So, the short answer as to why I haven't updated my blog is that I haven't been doing much, textile-wise. I have been doing things that are far less fun. It makes me wonder why we spend so much time doing drudgery and so little time doing the things we love. I know that after watching a recent "Sewing With Nancy," as well as seeing my friend Melissa's blog post here, I feel much more motivated.

Here are a few small things that I've done since Christmas. Above left is a Celtic Knot Butterfly from the book "Celtic Tatting Knots & Patterns: 12 Original Designs for Needle or Shuttle Tatters" by Rozella F. Linden. I'm very proud of it. First I had to make the tightest double-stitches ever to get the antennae to curl. Then I learned to do a split ring (instructions can be found here), which was really fun. The Celtic Knot part was done by simply making a long chain then loosely knotting it. All in all, very educational and a lot of fun.

My Facebook tatting group has started a heart-a-month project and below are my three hearts:
January's heart, "Lattice Heart" by Birgit Phelps. For this one I learned to make lock joins, also called shuttle joins, instructions here.

February's heart, "Clover Drop Heart" by Nancy Tracy. I learned to make a cloverleaf, which is just three rings made next to each other without turning.

March's heart, "Tat Chat Heart" by LaRae Mikulecky. I didn't learn anything particularly new, but it was a lot of fun. I was in a hurry to get it started and finished (only took a couple of hours), and didn't want to run to the store, so I used a #8 pearl cotton instead of tatting thread. While going through my stash, I ran across a bunch of silk threads. I didn't think I had enough for this one, but I plan to do a mini-heart later this year in silk.

And finally, I finished my Christmas angel from last year. Not 2009, but 2008. It's the free 1997 Angel by Marilyn Leavitt-Imblum. I actually also hope to have 2009's finished within a few days. Still no pix, because I still have not given Lynda hers (shame on me!). But I will give it to her when she comes out later this month to drop her daughter off at college (I'm so excited!!).

And that's all. But I'm hoping this latest inspiration will give me the motivation and impetus I need to keep going!

Non-quilting projects

I guess my previous post was too long; Blogger wouldn't let me add more :-). A few months ago, in this post, I mentioned that GameBoy had selected some Eric Carle fabric while we were checking out a quilt shop in Berlin, Ohio. To the left it is hanging on his wall, finally. All I did was find some artist canvasses--I wanted the stretcher bars actually, but the canvasses from JoAnn's worked--and staple the fabric to it. You can see that the stretcher bars for the middle fabric were a titch too long, but GameBoy didn't care. And then I hung them on his wall. He is a sunny boy and so his room is painted yellow and orange.

Our bathroom is teeny-tiny, and for months now, I've wanted to hang hooks and sew loops to color-coded towels, to save room and also encourage people to hang their towels back up. This week I was able to do that:



And I took my first tiny steps into making altered books. Clearly, this is an inexpensive lined notebook, bought at a back-to-school sale:

First I stapled groups of pages together:
And then I painted (applied?) gesso to the pages:
And that's as far as I got. The next step is to glue pretty papers to the cover, and I am stripping magazines to make a collage for my first entry.

A close-up: The lines show through but I think I like that

I am also working on this year's Christmas angel, a small tatting project, and a small wooden Christmas ornament project. If those work out, they will be presents, so no pix until they're distributed.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that the instructions for the towel loops were from Martha Stewart's website, here. They're very easy.

My first quilt is nearly done

I have been working on several different projects--in fact, I am a little amazed at how much I've been able to do. For the past year and a half, approximately, I've felt guilty about any time I've spent working on my stitching. Because I enjoy stitching, I suppose, I've felt like I should be spending time on service and other more "spiritual" activities instead.

Through some of my reading, including The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron and Simple Abundance by Sarah ban Breathnach, as well as the talk Happiness, Your Heritage by Pres. Dieter F. Uchtdorf, I've come to realize that, as the daughter of a Creative Being, I'm allowed and even expected to be creative myself.

Above is a completed quilt block--my first one! I made four in total.

All facing the same direction
Another layout
And another

I went with the third layout--very Palladian. I liked it the way it was, but because I wanted to learn to add sashing, I bought another fabric to coordinate.

Sashing added
Sashing and the short side of the border
Jazzboy (or is it Kilroy?) holding up the finished quilt top

I actually don't care for the sashing fabric too much. I feel like it's too close to the main dark color. I do have trouble mixing colors and prints. I was always taught never to mix patterns. Oh, well, I also learned to "flip" the tatting knot, and then had to unlearn it, so I suppose I can learn to do this as well. However, I just *love* the backing fabric:

A close-up; below is all the thread I had left

What have I been doing?

It's been since July since I posted; have I been doing anything? Well, I've been working on a variety of projects. So here is an update.

TATTING: It was time to learn to make split rings. I used two sites for instruction: Tatra-Sutra and Georgia Seitz' site. Tatra-Sutra was a good site to begin with: It actually had me tat upside-down, which allowed me to understand what I needed to do and how it was different from regular tatting. However, to do this, I had to contort my wrists and hands to do it right and it became painful. Picots were especially difficult. So I attempted Georgia Seitz' method. This had the benefit of being similar to the method I'm used to, and, as it turned out, allowing me to keep even tension. I did have quite a bit of difficulty learning not to flip the stitches. It was difficult enough that I almost gave up. But after a good night's sleep, I gave it one more shot and decided this was the method for me. Now I all had to do was practice making even picots and making sure each split ring was closely butted up against the previous--this will be important for my next tatting project.

These are my first attempts. I would go until I messed up, then cut it off. That is also how I learned to tat originally: Tat, slide, tat, slide, tat, no-slide, snip. (Sliding lets you know you did it right.) I started by using two shuttles with two different colors, but soon gave that up because it required a knot to get things started, which I hate, and because the thread was so thin that I had trouble seeing what I was doing wrong.


My first successful split ring, using the Tatra-Sutra method. Here, I used a size 20 variegated thread, the Continuous Thread Method (no knots) and differently colored shuttles. My favorite shuttle is the Clover tortoiseshell one, on the left. The variegated thread allowed me to easily see whether I was making the knots correctly.

QUILTING: I started my first-ever quilting project. A friend of mine started a beginning quilting class in our neighborhood/ward, and naturally I jumped right on it. Some of you are aware that I actually already had a couple of projects lined up, but had never started them. This is because I sometimes need someone right there with me, showing me what to do and how to fix my mistakes. I generally have no trouble with threads, but am a little afraid of ruining and wasting my fabric.

I used two purple batiks that I had in my stash, and bought a very pale purple marbled fabric for my background.



My first quilting strips, and my first quilting seams (on the very left).


My friend showed me how to pop the seams. I haven't done it yet myself, but it looks pretty cool!


A close-up of the popped seams.


My first patch! Notice that the corners almost touch. I'm very proud.

TRAVELING: I attended Wool Gathering in Ohio in September. You can see their website here. This was one of the best festivals I've attended in a while. It's all about the fibers used in textiles (mostly spinning and knitting) and where they come from. Raising the animals, shearing them, processing the fibers.

Yak yarn and its applications.

Colors and non-colors.

What you need to get it from sheep to yarn.

I was in extremely frugal mode, so this marudai was the only thing I bought. It's for kumihimo, or Japanese braiding, which I've wanted to try for years. Here is one site where you can read about it and see examples.

TRYING TO CATCH UP: What time I've had to stitch has been divided between finishing my Christmas angel from last year and crocheting a doily for my table.

Where I am on the angel...

...and the doily.

And that's it! My next post will probably be on starting Christmas projects, which I intend to kit up this afternoon. I (finally) received my Just Cross Stitch Ornament Issue 2009 yesterday and the whole family has made their picks.