Sunny yellow

I finished my sunny yellow Spinning Wheel! This is the other Fiore thread from Slovakia. Like the pink, it's very tightly twisted. Dropping the shuttle frequently and closing rings slowly really did make this a time-consuming tat. I tried using a larger picot size, and it did make a difference. I still had to carefully steam this, but not after every spoke as I have had to do other times. I may keep experimenting with picot sizes. You never know, I may find the perfect picot size for me! ;-)

Close to the end

Tonight was the preschool recognition ceremony. Tomorrow is the last day for the kids. Tuesday is teacher institute day. Yikes! The end is drawing near!

I'd better get crackin' if I'm going to finish this Spinning Wheel glass mat tomorrow. Where has the week gone?

Another slow day for tatting

I meant to get a lot of tatting done, but it just didn't happen. Household chores took over my morning, and I spent most of the afternoon helping daughter Carol with her costume for The Little Mermaid. It's not finished, but we did get a good start on it.

The yellow Fiore thread was calling to me, so I decided to work with it before starting with my beautiful new Lilac Sea hand-dyed thread. This time I'm using the next larger picot gauge. I want to see how much of a difference the larger picot makes. Yes, I'm tatting another Spinning Wheel glass mat from Tatting with Visual Patterns by Mary Konior. I'm still keeping on track with tatting at least one per week in 2016!

Eliz and I have corresponded regarding the stiffness of the Concentric Rectangles doily. Is the stiffness from the thread, the tension of the double stitches, or the size of the picots? I want to try my next one with larger picots to see if it changes the look and feel. We don't know if we don't try, right?

Nearly done

At school, that is... I only have two shelves left to inventory. I know I could have stayed late today and finished up, but I'm enjoying taking my time. After all, it is the last time!

I did manage to spend some time on my Spinning Wheel glass mat today. I think I will easily finish this one by Friday!

Costume and set day

Daughter Carol called on Drama Club and community members to help make costumes and paint sets for The Little Mermaid today. So with sewing machine in hand, I headed off to school today.

Cast members who were able to come today had the opportunity to create their own costumes.

T shirts were slit, painted, beaded, and ruffled in a variety of ways.

The set pieces were all built a couple of weeks ago, and today a great deal of the set was painted.

There are 55 cast members, and it's great fun to see moms and dads participating along with their children!

I'm making progress on the medium sized Mermaid Tail afghan. I found out today that one of the moms is making mermaid themed quilts to be raffled off. I think this is going to be an amazing fund raiser!

As Eliz guessed, I started my newest Spinning Wheel is in the pink Fiore thread. So far, I'm really liking this thread! I wonder where I can get more colors?