bird update

here is a better picture of the bird's nest. you can tell there are definitely 5 eggs, 2 are blue with brown speckles and 3 are more white. and it isn't just the way the camera took the pic. That is how they look. I don't know why they are not all the same. I hope they are all hers. there are birds that go around indiscriminately laying eggs in others nests. and not having to take the time to raise their young.
I know that Orioles like fruit and I do have a couple of oranges so will find a board with a nail in it tomorrow that will sit on the LP tanks behind the tree and put a piece of orange on it for her.
if anyone knows anything about birds, your comments would be appreciated.
Thanks
I won't be taking any more pictures until the babies hatch. I don't want to disturb mama too much.

plenty of tatting, no pics, but look what I found

I have been tatting this weekend for my daughter's wedding.

I don't have any pictures of the tatting ready yet, but thought you would like to see what I found yesterday.

Looking out our bathroom window, this is what I see.
There was a lot of wind yesterday and while the tree branch was waving back and forth, I discovered a bird nest. I wonder if birds get dizzy from the wind driven roller coaster as we had constant winds in excess of 20 miles an hour with gusts up above 30

The nest is situated so that the leaves will act just like an umbrella, which is good considering that we have been having way too much rain.
I am not sure, but since it is a suspended nest, I think it is an Oriole.
this is a side view,

and here is a rear view.

I realize this picture of the nest and eggs is a bit out of focus, looks like there are 5 eggs.

I held the camera a bit too close, but it was hard to hold the leaves and branches out of the way and still get the camera high enough to take a picture into the nest, as the nest is above my head. I didn't want to disturb things too much hoping that mama would come back, and she did.
I didn't go anywhere near it today. I will check on it from the window watching for babies to hatch.
I will keep you posted.

SSSR with joins

A question was posted to Here-Be-Tatters email list wondering how to use a Single Shuttle Split Ring and still join to elements to either side.

I was thinking that you could do the second side of the split ring as if it was a split chain.
I have tried it out and while it will take a bit of work to get it perfected, it didn't turn out too bad.
The color of thread I used for the SSSR was a bit too light, but you should be able to see the results anyway.


rings are all 4-4-4-4
Begin a regular ring 4+4 then closed the ring until it was the proper size. - step 1
carry the shuttle thread down to the bottom of the ring, and start doing unflipped stitches as you would for a split chain over both threads. - step 2 as you can see, I have made 4 stitches

Join to the element on the right side and continue with the stitch count. - step 3

I didn't do the join correctly on the second side, I had a bit of trouble figuring out how to do it. in the first trial with the light colored ring, I joined in the first half of the ds, but it looked twisted, in the second trial, with the blue ring, I joined in the second half of the ds it will take some larger thread and a few more tries to get the join correct, maybe someone else has already figured it out. seems to me i have joined to a split chain before, but can't remember how. I know that I can do a picot, that is no problem, but the join......

Ringtrim Earings

I haven't posted any tatting for a bit, but I have been busy with other things.
One thing I did the other night was to make this pair of earrings, and I wore them to work on friday.
I used Ann Bruvold's pattern for a baby dragon which she designed to use the Single Shuttle Split Ring technique using a doubled loop of thread originally developed by Matthew Takeda.
The threads are both size 20 Hekelgarn hand dyed by Sherry Pence, aka LadyShuttleMaker. The darker variegated is her Swamp Flower and the lighter is her Pear Glace'

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As you can see, I need more practice with my SSSR. there is too much space between them.

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The next pair of these I am thinking of adding beads, and I may adjust the pattern a bit to support the wing by joining it to one of the picots on the back and maybe the one in front of the wing where I attached the hooks.

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Hope your weekend is going well.

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We have had a bunch of rain this past week, enough so the rivers are back out of their banks and the low places in the fields that were drying out are full again. and some of the crops are back under water. The small town of Abercrombie had 12" of rain this past week. They were just really getting dried out from all the spring snowmelt flooding and now this. This next week we have rain or showers forecast for every other day.
DH cut the hay a week ago and still hasn't been able to get it baled. He is trying tonight, but he is worried that not all of it will be dry enough.

yummy threads

If you want to see some yummy thread, just visit TatsKools blog.
Oh, boy, I almost had to dry out my keyboard.
Talk about good looking HDT.
Now to go count my pennys and see if I can find enough to get some.

Charleston doily

The above doily is the one I started work on back in March on my flight to Charleston SC. So I named it Charleston.
The center motif is the same pattern as the antique medallion that I posted before, and am including again. The pattern for which is in the antique booklet.
The outer round was really ruffled until I ruthlessly pinned it into place while blocking it. At the time, I was tempted to starch it and iron it into wavy ruffles, and may do that in the future. so it is likely that the pattern needs adjusting, but haven't been able to figure just how to do it, another round in the middle of the doily to move the outer round further out might do the trick.
As you can see by looking at the scan, I need to get blocking lines on my blocking board so my circles are round. I didn't get the doily perfectly round.
I will get the pattern written up and posted to my pattern blog as soon as I get a chance.
I thought that I would wait to post the doily until the pattern was finished, but I haven't had a night free since I finished the doily last weekend. I do have Thursday evening and Friday night available for house work as this weekend will be tied up.
On Saturday, I will be singing with the neighboring parish as they are celebrating their 125th anniversary. The Bishop will be down to celebrate the Mass at 4:00 in the afternoon on Saturday. 8:30 Sunday morning, I will be singing again as the Bishop says Mass at my parish for a pastoral visit. I will be cantoring the Responsorial and the Alleluia with a good friend of my who sings bass (I am a soprano).
Then my husband's family will get together for the second annual family picnic. After my mother-in-law died last year, it was decided that in order to keep the family close an annual picnic hosted in turn by each of the siblings (there are 8) for all the kids, grandkids. The Chahinkapa park is next to an excellent zoo and there are play areas and a pool so lots of fun to be had by all.

Wedding tatting

Here is the first post of the tatting that I am doing for my daughter's wedding.
The paint sample cards are the colors that she has picked for her wedding. Like always, the scanner changes or washes out the colors. The background is supposed to be gray.
The blues are the colorway that her bridesmaids can use to chose their dresses. They can (within reason of course) chose any dress they want as long as the color matches, that way they will have a dress that they like, that looks good on them and that they may be able to wear again.
The reds are the accent colors.
The letters are the first 3 out of 6 for the bride and bridesmaids, these will be attached to the handles of the bouquets.
I will be tatting some small flowers with beads for the streamer ends of the ribbons that wrap the bouquet handles and also some filler bits for the bouquets.
There has been talk of possibly tatting initials for the groomsmen and groomswoman ( yes, one of the grooms attendants is a female and has been a friend of the groom since they were very little kids) possibly on the pocket hanky or of anyone has a good suggestion that would be appreciated.

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Just found out tonight that a friend of ours died, the visitation was tonight and the funeral is tomorrow morning. That is what we get for not reading the paper when we are busy. and the durn local radio station thinks that it is cute to have lots of dj conversation as opposed to having some actual news. Oh well, I am trying to decide if I should take the time to post a grouch on the radio station's website blog page.

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Went Etsy shopping at work this evening. Today was payday, so of course I had to spend a bit.
I will let you know what I got when it gets here.

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The boss is very understanding, as long as I clock out, I can stay and use the computers at work. We have DSL at work, here at home we have dial-up. It is sooo much easier and quicker to load pages with lots of graphics at high speed.

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A gift from the heart

I received this Dumpling Bag from a dear friend of mine.
MaryBeth from Nimble Fingers on the Prairie made this felted bag for me.
It holds a lot of thread and a folded pattern and some shuttles and hangs on my wrist. It has an extra ring on the handle. I use a climbers hook on my purse to keep my cell phone holder handy and it worked great to attach the Dumpling Bag to my purse this weekend.
I have written about Nimble Fingers on the Prairie before, but if you haven't checked it out, then please do so. MaryBeth has posted some free knitting patterns as well as offering knitted and quilted items for sale. The money going to help keep children warm in a Minnesota Winter.
The Dumpling Bag was first knitted, then embroidered and finally felted.
Thank you MaryBeth, I will treasure it.

Storm Watching, no tatting to show

Tonight I went to training to be a Weather Watcher/Storm Spotter
The picture above looks similar to some of the pictures we were showed learning about Tornadoes, what to watch for and how to call into the Weather Service to report a severe storm or tornado.
We do have them here in the eastern part of the state, they just don't do as much damage as other places where there are more people and structures.
The instructor told us that it is harder to gauge the strength of a tornado in North Dakota and other open areas due to the fact that tornadoes can not be measured while they are active, they can only be measured by the damage that they do. Since damage is difficult to gauge when it is a field instead of a subdivision, there is little debris to give them a understanding of the strength of the storm.
So they need people to take a good look at the weather, and give the Weather Service an actual look at what is going on with a storm and just exactly where it is.
This will count toward my yearly required amount of training for my First Responder position with our local Fire Department.
I am doing some tatting, but don't have anything scanned and there enough energy left to do it now since it is 10:45 at night and I need to get to bed soon.