Sherry's TIAS

I have joined Sherry's TIAS 




For those who do not know, Tat It And See is a fun tat a long where the designer releases a small part of their pattern every few days.  She doesn't tell you what you are tatting, you get to try guessing as you go. They are really fun.


Sherry has set up a blog just for posting your efforts at her TIAS 
 
The thread I am using is a Manuela, the label is gone, so no idea of color # however, the thread is no longer being produced.
Here is my Day 1

And Day 2

I thought about using a joining technique to minimize the color blips, but decided to let them be.

What I did this weekend instead of tatting

I have been tatting, really I have.  I have finished a test tat doily, am involved in another test tat, and have finished 3 motifs for my veil.  The veil motifs are the only ones I can show at the moment, but because of the very dark color, I need really good sunlight to take the photos, and that has been lacking lately.

This weekend we decided to dig some of the carrots in the garden, The neighbors who garden with us and we decided that too many were getting too big and splitting when it rained, so we were going to dig the bigger ones, well, we ended up digging 3 of the 5 rows.  This was a great year for carrots, not so great for other crops, but carrots did very well.

So, we ended up with 4 big dishpans full.  The neighbor gal took one and I had the other 3. 
A nice little gal came and gave me a hand with the scrubbing saturday, and this is what we ended up with.

Overflowing dish drainer

13qrt mixing bowl

As you can see some of the carrots are very large. 
They were all colors,  White, Yellow, Orange & Purple.  They do taste a bit different, the white and yellow are milder and the purple is slightly different then the orange.  The purple are only skin deep and they will bleed out when you cook it, The center is a very bright yellow green, surrounded by light orange with a purple skin.  The big one you see on the top of the dish drainer is a yellow one.  The white ones usually stayed slimmer, but grew tall out of the ground so they have green tops,  you can see one in the lower left corner of the drainer.  it is actually odd shaped.  It grew is a stair step fashion.  Some of the yellow ones have a bit of green on the top as well, but not as much as the white.

Sunday after church I started slicing, I ended up with this

13qrt bowl

 I filled this, put 7 qrt jars in the canner,  filled it again, then filled the roaster you can see beside it.

I put 5 batches through the canner yesterday.  I took the last ones out at 1 this morning.
This is what my table looked like

14 qrts of plain carrots
36 pints of plain carrots
3 pints of dilled carrots
3 pints of dill pickled carrots

The white lids are the Tattler reusable brand.  They have been showing up in the Fleet Farm stores in the nearby towns, so they aren't just on the internet.  I like them.

A close up of the jars

The look pretty good don't they. 

Well, I am sneaking the time to do this at work.  So gotta run and get back to it.  Have a really great day everyone and please join in Sherry P's TIAS.   Here is Day 1.

I hope to get some tatting done tonight.

Sock knitting machine/ Circular Knitting Machine

I am in search of a Circular Knitting Machine, or sometimes known as a Sock Knitter.

It looks similar to this.

If anyone knows of one let me know. 
Thanks

Labor Day Weekend

This coming weekend is the Labor Day Holiday here in the USA.

I will be spending my days from Friday morning to Monday Evening at Rollag MN at the Western Steam Threshers Reunion.

We have a blast, lots of good people.  Lots of fun.  Great Steam Engines, old time tractors and ladies activities.

I will be to spend all 4 days tatting.  Yipee!

Here is the website http://rollag.com

In the ladies building, we feature Tatting, bobbin lace, spinning, knitting - by hand, flat machine and circular machine, quilting, rug weaving, caning, natural plant based dyes, and oh so much. My profile picture was taken there last year.

A look at a Gaar Scot tractor, the featured brand this year







Come and have some wonderful fun and oh so many good eats.
There is a steam powered calliope for the kids and lots of other things too.

Independence Day

Happy 4th of July Everyone!

more tatting

I have a dear friend who has moved away and just lately sent me a friendship present.  I am "retaliating" with a pair or earrings.

The thread is a LadyShuttleMaker HDT in size 50 Wildflowers.  The seed beads are unknown.  The drop beads and the findings (doodads) are from FireMountainGems. 

I have been working on the turquoise doily again today. Another row, is nearly finished.  I need to concentrate on that so it gets finished soon.

I have another project that I have started.  Many of you may have figured out that I am Catholic.  Many of you may remember way back yonder when the Catholic women wore a veil or hat to Mass.  I have been feeling called to wear a hat or veil for quite some time now, and resisted for a long time.  I occasionally wore a straw summer hat off and on over the years, but was never comfortable. About a year ago, I started to wear a small black hat I inherited from my Grandmother.

It felt right to wear something on my head in respect.  But I started feeling like I wanted to return to wearing a veil. So I started looking for one I could add Tatting to.
There are many websites online offering Chapel Veils, but they are basically allover lace, no plain net.  I finally found one on Etsy at LizzieLovesVintage  It was perfect.

about 40" along the wide end and about 20" deep to the point.  It is mostly a nice net with some lace along the edge.

perfect for adding tatting.  I am going to replace the edging over time, but for now am wearing it as is.  I will be appliqueing tatting to the net ground. 
The first item to be added is this cross.  It is the pattern Camilla by Lene Bjorn from her book of Cross shaped Bookmarks.

It is tatted in Jess's Grackle Mess size 80.  It is a bit hard to see how pretty the thread is in this picture, so I took a closer one.

If you click on it and make it bigger, you should be able see the different colors in the thread, purple, green indigo...

I will also be doing a bunch of VicTats's Roses are Red.  Her patterns are available on her blog along the right side.  or Click here to go directly to the Rose pattern on Keep and Share.

It rained about .7" by the time it was done today, so was able to spend most of the afternoon tatting. 

Have a great week everyone.

School colors

I have finished another Cross Bookmark for a high school graduate from our Church.

The threads are size 20.  The blue thread is Lizbeth Royal Blue and the white is DMC Cebelia.  The Cebelia is a slight bit larger then the Lizbeth but they worked out o.k.   I am positive I have a ball of  white Lizbeth in size 20, but do you think I can find it?  Oh, well, the ball of Cebelia has been in the drawer for a loooooonnnnnngggg time and really needs to get used up.



When I held the PIF several weeks ago, there was one gal who left me no way to get  in touch with her.  She finally contacted me just after holding the 2nd chance drawing.  I have decided to send her a set of earrings in her choice of thread. 

The thread is HDT size 40 RainForest, the beads and doodads are from FireMountainGems and the hooks are from eebeads

A neat trick I discovered tonight while trying to scan the earrings,  There is often a focus problem when scanning an item that includes beads, but there is no good light tonight, so inspiration struck and I dug out a piece of fake fur. It cushioned the scanner lid and filled in the spaces around the beads and I think it worked pretty well.  I will have to remember this.

The garden is all planted, Yeah, in between all the rain.  We have had a lot of rain the past 10 days or so.  And the crops are all in except a very wet spot or 2 where the tractor would have gotten stuck if farmguy had tried it.