New Year's Eve

It's hard to believe that it's New Year's Eve already! Dave and I have a wild night planned. I'm guessing we'll both be in our pajamas by 7 and asleep in our chairs somewhere between 8:30 and 9. Yes, we do live life on the wild side! ;-)

I'm not quite ready to give up crocheting, but I'm going at a much slower pace. I started this one on Christmas Eve. The pattern is 12 Step Sampler Blanket and can be found on Ravelry. I'm using a variety of multi-colored yarns that I have on hand; all of it is I Love This Yarn from Hobby Lobby. The design shows up much better in solid colors, but I still like the way this is working up. I've finished one 35 row pattern repeat. I anticipate this one taking me a couple of months to complete.

I'm not ready to give up Ice Drops. I did a little doodling last night and came up with this design. I'm not sure if this is one I've written up before or not. The problem with writing up patterns is that I have a difficult time remembering if it's something I've done before!

I tatted this one today. I changed the picots a little, but that's the only change. This is one of my new shuttles from Shuttle by Design. I can't help myself. I love any sort of paisley design, and I love blue!

Travel tatting

It's been a busy holiday season for us! It's hard to believe that we've packed so much into the past week.

Monday was Christmas Eve, the kickoff to our family celebrations. Daughter Alison drove down, and we headed over to my sister-in-law's where Carol and Jon joined us. We had our annual Christmas Eve feast of ravioli, repeated and laughed over familiar family stories, and then headed home.

On Christmas Day we sat around watching Hallmark Christmas movies and eating treats of biscotti and chocolate, while waiting for the roast beef and mashed potatoes. We do like to eat!

The day after Christmas, Wednesday, we headed to Minnesota. Daughter Joanne prepared a delicious ham, and daughter Andrea and family joined us.

Thursday, ten-year-old Ella had a softball tournament. It was my first time attending a softball game, so I asked a lot of questions, trying to understand the rules. We watched three games, and then headed back to Andrea's house for pizza, more stories, and more laughter!

On Friday, Andrea took me shopping for some new slippers, with the rest of the family tagging along.

Andrea and I both have problems with our feet, so when she recommended these clogs as house shoes, I knew I had to have a pair!

Food seems to be the overriding them in our holiday gatherings. Andrea recommended Lucky's in Rosedale, MN for lunch. It was delicious! Mom has been asking for a good picture of Dave and me for a long time. This is one of the best ones that's been taken of us in a long time. We tend to get caught with one of us having closed eyes!

Yes, I did take tatting supplies along. I didn't want to be tied down to following a pattern, so I filled my little tatting bag with glass gems, a ball of Lizbeth Snow White, and tatting shuttles. I was ready to go with variations of the basic Ice Drop pattern. The first six are based on my basic Ice Drop pattern. The last three are variations of the one pass Ice Drop. I still prefer the look of my basic pattern, but I do use the one pass method just to change things up.

I will keep tatting Ice Drops in the new year, but I'm ready to start another tatting adventure. I'm not sure what it will be yet. I think it's time to browse through my tatting books and get some ideas!

Go figure

This morning Blogger looks like it always did before my system update. It hasn't worked properly for weeks, and now it suddenly seems to be back to normal. There must be little sprites working overtime inside my computer doing their best to get me to give up working with computers! ;-)

Yesterday was busy with last minute gift wrapping and a little tatting! Again, I stuck with the basic Ice Drop pattern, changing the number of picots for each one. These are in size 20 Lizbeth #173, Purple Marble.

Our holiday festivities begin today and will continue through New Year's Day. I'm not sure if I'll find time to blog, so I'll take this opportunity to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Back to tatting!

It feels good to get back to tatting! All three of these are the basic Ice Drop pattern. The only thing I've changed with each is the number of picots. Isn't it great that they can look so different with just minor changes? These are tatted with size 20 Lizbeth #602, Snow White... my favorite Disney character!

At last!

I finished the last of the afghans!

There are four large ones for the older grandchildren, and three small for the younger ones. I love the variety of colors! Each afghan was crocheted with Lion Brand Mandala.

Please remind me to not undertake such a large project again. Seven afghans in six months almost did me in, and my tatting time really took a hit. I think I'll look for more balance in the new year!

Simple fix

I finally found the info I needed to get Blogger back to normal. The fix was so simple. All I had to do was clear my browser history! It seems to have worked, but if I have any further problems, I'll be sure to share.

Update: I thought it worked, but it didn't. I have too much to finish before Christmas, so researching will have to wait until the new year... dang!

I only have 10 inches to go on the afghan! I'll plug away at it today. I so want to tat more than one Ice Drop a day!

Checking in

I'm still crocheting like crazy! I only need to finish this ball and one more ball of yarn, and I will be done. The only sad part about all of this crocheting is that I've barely made a dent in my yarn stash. How did I accumulate so much yarn?

My sister finished the collage for her granddaughter. She used three of the four flowers and all four butterflies. The white flower is hanging from her Christmas tree! :-)

The afghan is getting to large to carry back and forth to school, so I have been getting a bit more tatting done.

My Ice Drop stash is dangerously low, so I'm focusing on variations of the basic pattern so that I can build up my supply quickly. Inspired by Rita Richmond's Christmas sweepstakes, I've been using some of my favorite shuttles from her. I do love my tatting shuttles!

Excitement!

Have you seen Rita Richmond's newly posted sweepstakes? Rita is giving away three of her gorgeous shuttles! To enter the sweepstakes, email or send via Messenger a picture of your tatting with one of Rita's shuttles. There will be a poll for voting, and three absolutely gorgeous shuttles will be given away. How's that for excitement?

Finished for now

All of the promised necklaces have been finished and delivered!

This one went to Nikki.

This one went to Paige.

This one is unclaimed.

This one is also unclaimed.

This one went to Hope.

The unclaimed ones were possibilities. The girls weren't sure if they preferred the Swarovski rivolis or the compass charms. Now I have a couple of back-up necklaces!

Over the past couple of days, I've also tatted four butterflies and flower motifs for my sister. I forgot to take a picture before packing them up for mailing. Janet's going to use them for a collage she's creating for her granddaughter. Abby recently had her first dance recital, and Janet has put together a framed piece including pictures from the recital, tickets, and the program. There were a couple of bare spaces which will now have tatted motifs from Great-aunt Diane! I'll post a picture when Janet sends it to me.

Yesterday, our high school secretary requested two messy bun/ponytail hats. Knowing I have a long way to go on Aidan's afghan, I decided to knock them out right away. Believe it or not, I finished them both today! However, I forgot to take a picture. Oh, well.

I'm still having a problem posting comments on blogs, including my own. I found that I can reply to comments if I use Chrome. However, I'm used to using Safari, so I am frustrated that I can't use Blogger the way I like.

Are any of you Apple users? Have you upgraded to Mojave and experienced problems? I'd sure like to know if anyone has found any solutions. In the meantime, I'll keep researching!

Success!

Saturday's Christmas in the Village was the most successful craft show I've ever had! I sold 3 Ice Drops, 8 scarves, and 8 Santa Keys. The best part of the day was that I saw people I hadn't seen in years. It was exhausting, but fun.

I did pay for all that fun. I spent Sunday in bed with a crashing headache. I'm convinced it's because of the weather. Dave thinks it's because I overdid it on Saturday.

I'm almost finished with the necklaces for the high school girls, although I'm sure I'll be asked to make more.

It's going faster now that I'm tatting the ones without beads. Also, I'm using the same pattern. I did have some inquiries about the necklaces at the craft show, so that's something to keep in mind for next year.

When we were up at daughter Alison's a week ago, I spied a doo-dad snowflake that I had tatted a few years back. I must have given all of mine away, because there aren't any on my tree. While getting ready for the craft show, I found my stash of doo-dads. Now I have the urge to tat some snowflakes!

Taking a break

That is, I'm taking a break from crocheting! I've been seeing so many beautiful Ice Drops, snowflakes, bookmarks, and edgings, I just had to break out my tatting shuttles and tat!

There's a group of five girls who eat lunch together every day, and they've been admiring my tatting. So, they're each going to get a necklace. I have requests for to blue with beads, one blue without beads, one purple without beads, and one red without beads.

For some reason, my computer won't let me rotate this picture, although it looks fine in my Photos file.

I chose to do the beaded pendants first since they're slightly more time consuming. I'm hoping to finish these up for the girls over the weekend. I'm using the same pattern for each of them since the girls are good friends. The differences will be in the thread and crystal colors.

For the rest of the evening, it's back to crocheting. Christmas will be here before we know it!

A gentle reminder

My blog is set as my home page on my computer as a gentle reminder to keep track of my activities. I haven't been very good at that lately! Somehow, blogging about progress on an afghan isn't nearly as exciting as blogging about experiments with tatting.

I'm happy to say that I'm making good progress on my last Christmas afghan. I do like the color combinations in Mandala Spirit. I do have another afghan started, but that one's not a Christmas present so I don't feel pressure to finish it any time soon.

Since I always carry tatting with me, I have managed to complete another Ice Drop. This one is in Coats & Clark size 70 with a 12 mm  compass charm. I think it turned out pretty good!

Dave and I decided not to go all out for Christmas this year... ha! Although my box of favorite ornaments hasn't made it upstairs yet, I had plenty of Ice Drops, nutcrackers, and acrylic snowflakes to make the tree look festive. I'm sure a big part of it is that Dave loves putting loads of lights on the tree. I like it, too!

I'm off to read blogs now. Please don't be offended if I haven't left a comment lately. I've had a lot of problems leaving comments. Either I can't leave them at all, or I get caught in a Captcha loop of having to click on pictures multiple times. If I can't get through after the third try, I give up. I keep thinking I'll send comments via email, but I forget. Technology is great... when it works!