End of January

With it being the last day in January, I felt the urge to tat as many Ice Drops as possible. I was able to that three!

I love this green, size 20 Lizbeth #638 Christmas Green. It's such a beautiful shade, and it goes really well with my handi-wind shuttle from Grizzly Mountain Arts!

This lovely purple is size 20 Lizbeth #633 Purple Dk. The handi-wind shuttle is another beauty from Grizzly Mountain Arts.

I finished the day with size 20 Lizbeth #640 Antique Violet Med. I love this dusky color! Yes, that is a third handi-wind shuttle from Grizzly Mountain Arts.

I've been hanging my Ice Drops on this little faux feather tree that I keep out year round. I love this little tree!

I really had no idea how many Ice Drops I tatted in January until I laid them all out. There are 35, which means I exceeded my goal of tatting one per day. We'll see if I'm able to stick to that goal.

I've emptied the tree and stored the finished Ice Drops in a box. It will be fun to see how full the box gets by the end of the year!

Pick up sticks

Not the game, the yard work! Yup, Dave and I spent time picking up sticks in the yard today, that was after a trip to Menards for mulch, a couple of new bushes, cat food, and a couple of fans. This is the weekend to get things done, because Dave's super busy time begins this week and will go until the beginning of June.

All of the shopping and yard work must have been too much of a distraction for me, because my latest Spinning Wheel glass mat has a big blooper!

Can you see it? I forgot the chain section at the beginning of one of the spokes. I don't know how I managed to do that. I have plenty of thread, so I will fix it. I'm not sure I'll do it right now, though. I'm itching to start another color. 

Pink set complete!

This is the last of my set of six pink snowflakes, and I really like it!

Don't they look pretty all together? I may have to make a set for my tree. These are all Christmas presents.

My friend Jules asked me to tat a purple snowflake with an initial charm in the center. It turned out pretty nice. Hmmm... an idea for next year's Christmas presents! ;-)

The last purple flake...

...for now! I've grown tired of tatting with purple, so I think I'll take a break. Maybe I'll go back to Victorian Red for a while.

I may have tatted another flake or two since between the last post and this, but if I did, I didn't take a photo. The flakes I have will be mailed to Mom for her fundraiser at the end of this week. I hope they go over well!

The past two weeks have been incredibly busy. The first couple of days after my car accident, I just didn't feel like tatting much. Good thing... my daughter asked for some help with the middle school play. I was very happy for the distraction, and I didn't feel at all bad about losing tatting time. Now that the play is over (it was fantastic!), I'm in the mood to tat again.

Black Beauty is still in the shop. We hope to have her back this weekend. We were very surprised to learn that there was $7,000 worth of damage. Thank goodness for insurance!

And another...

I just can't stop tatting with purple!

One more purple flake...

I wish I could capture the purple of this snowflake with the camera. It just looks black to me on the computer screen. I've been taking my snowflakes to school for all the teachers to look at, and they love the Purple Dk and Victorian Red. Funny... the Blue Ice is still my favorite!

Denise went shopping!

...and surprised me with this adorable little Mary Engelbreit tin bucket and a ball of size 20 Lizbeth. The thread, Falling Leaves, matches the colors of the leaves on the bucket... too cute!

Her timing was great! I needed a little cheering up...

I was in my first car accident on Sunday. My poor little car! She's not even a year old, and we waited so long to get her... ten and a half years. Luckily, no one was hurt, and my car was the least damaged of the three. My Little Black Beauty will be home soon, hopefully as good as new!

I've finished two more purple snowflakes.

I'll keep tatting snowflakes until the end of October. I wonder what tatting binge will take hold next?

Purple snow?

Yes, it's true! There is such a thing as purple snow. I learned that by researching snow with my students. In fact, if you Google purple snow, you will see that a portion of southern Russia was blanketed with purple snow in March of 2010. One of the interesting facts that my students and I learned is that snow can be a variety of colors, depending on the dust in the air. The purple snow in Russia had dust from Africa!

Maybe the snow wasn't this deep, dark purple, but purple snow does exist!