Memorial Day Tribute

http://www.geocities.com/mrperky65/

I love this song, and the pictures are very good.

thank you all who have served our country so faithfully and so well for over 200 years. 

God Bless all our military.

pioneer dress again

just quick to let you see the material I am using for the pioneer clothing.

creamy light yellow with perriwinkle/lavender buds

this is more green in real life

and the material and lace for the underthings

unbleached muslin

The thread is antique ecru size 30 Daisy thread passed down to me from my grandmother, who was born in 1890.  This edging is being crocheted, not tatted, as I can do it faster.

pioneer wear - 1880's

our little local town is celebrating it's 125th birthday the end of June.  how do you say it? Quasquicentenial  that's a mouthful.

we are having 3 days of events. I will be demonstrating tatting along with a friend who will be doing knitting and hand quilting and a group of ladies who call themselves "The Wooley Ladies"  who card and spin yarn and knit.

I will also be heading up the church group running a lunch wagon and helping in the building where I work as we will be open for business and for tours as it is the former elementary school building.  and the all school reunion will be in the garage where the van is peeking out. 

and it looks like I have an invitation to ride horse in the parade.  

can anyone say busy???

I am going to dress in period clothes as i can wear them for several other venues I may be demonstrating tatting.  I have a piece of calico with green leaves and vines, and another in cream with lavender rosebuds that I will be using for my dresses from this pattern

and I also purchase unbleached muslin for the apron and for the underthings

what I don't have is a good sunbonnet pattern.
there are several sunbonnet patterns and tutuorials on the web.  have any of you used any of them?   can you recommend a good one? 

I have been working on the hanky edging.  I may have to set it aside for a bit, as I would like to get some tatting done to put on one of the dresses.

saturday

well, quarter to 8 pm so guess we are still all here.
went shopping with farmguy so got nothing done in the house today. Did get a couple more repeats done on the hanky edging so that was o.k.

 of course the only shopping mall for guys is Fleet Farm  got all the guy stuff, and farming stuff and auto stuff,  what more could you want. 

at least he told me he was going and took me along.  woo hoo  did get some stuff for myself.  a pair of riding boots.  cuz' the gal to the north of us has 2 more horses in her pasture and she has said I can ride one YEA!


I was going to show you the boots I bought, but can't find them online.  a plain jane cowboy boot with heel but no fancy stitching and a rounded toe instead of a pointed one.  too many years barefoot to fit comfortably in a pointy toed shoe.

hanky edging progress

I have made it this far with my edging.

for me this is slow going.  I usually tat much faster then this.  I have had to tell myself to slow down, take care, and get the Josephine knots smooth and completely closed.  I also need to watch my pattern, as the 1st and last rings of each repeat have 1 side that is "backwards" for stitch count.  I have had to "walk" the picot into the proper position a couple of times, when I look back at the previous repeat or 2 and discovered that the picot to join to the hanky is in the wrong position.

While tatting, I have been trying to see if there was a way to "modernize" this pattern, and the only way I can see to do it is to use 2 shuttles.  that defeats my purpose in choosing this single shuttle pattern, so am staying with the way it was written.  I even tried to see if using single shuttle split rings would allow me to not have the "carry thread" showing on the back of the edging.  If  you look at this scan of the back side of the edging, you will note the loose thread going up between the 2nd & 3rd rings of the repeat that allows the floating ring on the top there is also the threads from the bottom of ring 5 through the 2 josephine knots, to the bottom of ring 1 for the next repeat.  to me this looks untidy.  I  tat "frontside/backside but still like my tatting to look the same on both sides.

If anyone has any suggestions about how to change the way this pattern is tatted, please let me know.

oh, if you know this pattern, you will see that I have changed the corner.  it looks more finished to me with the center floating ring instead of only the 2 side floating rings.

teaching honor

I was honored tonight to be asked to present a tatting technique on the Online Tatting Class.

The technique I taught is the Alternating Color Daisy Picot Flower  

Here is a link to Georgia Seitz' website

here is the 2011 Online Tatting Class lesson index  which includes additional information about tatting a Daisy Picot by Riet Surtel, Jon Yusoff, and Mark Meyers, with instructions for both shuttle and needle tatters

if you are interested in joining the online chat class which meets mondays  in the afternoon at 3:00 pm  nights at 7:00 pm central time contact Georgia Seitz by email There is also a beginners class that meets on thursdays both in the afternoon and the evening.

post disappeared! Oh Wait, it's back

my last post has disappeared!
Wow!

I thank those who commented,  Happy Bluebeard, Zarina, Fox, Michelle, Julie R and anyone else, for commenting on the "non-existent" post.

I think I will do the edging Beauty Spots by Mary Konior in the book Tatting with Visual Patterns in the HDT thread Wisteria Lane by Krystle in size 40, ........  Yeah, I just realized that the pic is available in Picassa.  so here it is.

and the missing post is back.  

so  thanks Blogger for straightening things out.

hanky edging and thank you

I spent some time the last couple nights looking through my pattern books and loose pattern sheets and the patterns stored in  my computer for an edging that would work with the hanky Michelle sent.  I set a requirement that I be able to do the edging with only a shuttle, no ball.  I haven't done any single shuttle work for several years, and it is a way to honor my grandmothers who taught me to tat as that is all they knew.

I could have gone for the simple and done rings with thread spaces between,  been there, done that, but that isn't what I was aiming for.

I could also have done Hen & Chicks, and still could, but that really didn't catch my fancy either.

I did take a good look at Beauty Spots by Mary Konior in her book Tatting with Visual Patterns  suggested by Happy Bluebird in her comment to my previous post.  I decided to give it a try .....

I did 2 repeats tonight to see how it looks.  I would have done more, but had to run into to town for the monthly fire dept meeting.

I didn't want a big elaborate edging as I felt it would detract from the hanky.  The thread is size 40 in Krystle's HDT called Wisteria Lane

let me know what you think.

The weather has finally decided to warm up a bit and to dry up a little so farmguy has been able to get in the field the past several days.  The wheat is planted and he is starting on the corn.

Oh and Michelle,  I have tea everyday at work instead of coffee, and while today is wednesday not tuesday, I had your very delicious Moroccan Mint tea today.  YUM!

goody box in the mail

I want to show you the wonderful goody box I received in the mail today.

Michelle over at Tela Magistrae had a drawing a few days ago.  and I won one of the hankies she was giving away.

I received a hanky and a nice selection of other goodies


a package of Moroccan mint green tea, a Lindor chocolate, a ball of size 70 Lily tatting cotton in yellow/purple variegated, a barrette base, and a little baggy with 4 clear plastic rings and a gold clip.
My goodness, what a wonderful selection.











You have to see the very pretty card that came with the package.

A couple of days ago, I received some thread that I had ordered from Krystle.

I'm thinking that the size 40 Wisteria Lane just might be the right thread for this hanky.  The colors don't seem to look very good here in this photo, I maybe should have scanned the threads instead, but laying the thread on the hanky, you can see that the Wisteria Lane looks pretty good.  It picks up the greens in the leaves and highlights the lighter purple  in the roses. 

I have not yet choosen an edging, will have to pull the pattern stash out and do some digging. 

If any of you have a suggestion as to the edging you would think appropriate, please leave a comment.  Thanks

by the way,

Do you know that it is the 1st of May today, and we woke to snow on the ground again?

Sheesh,  will spring ever come?  Farmguy has actually been able to get a few acres of wheat planted, but last year was a wet spring too and he was done with the wheat (except for the wet spots) and started with the corn by this time last year. 

Another late spring.

I really do still know how to tat

I bet some of you are wondering if I still know how to tat.

Live has been very busy for me the past month or so.  But I did finally finish some tatting.

and what did I tat you ask??
A Seahorsedragon by Anne Bruvold and Debbie Arnold

I had started out wanting to tat something for the cover of my Kindle e-book.  I was seeing edgings in my mind, with maybe a freeform flower or 2 framed in the center.  I chose 3 different but coordinating skeins of HDT by Sherry Pence ~ LadyShuttleMaker.  All size 20 labeled, Seaweed, Confetti and Spring Poppies.

As I started the first edging that I chose, it just wouldn't click for me.  and I kept hearing whispers in my head saying "seahorsedragon, seahorsedragon,..."  So I untatted the 6 rings and chains that I had done of the edging (it was HDT after all) and started the seahorsedragon. 

and here she is