I was thrilled to find out that I was one of the winners in Marilee Rockley's drawing last week! The surprise was the amount of thread that was included. Yes, I saw the picture. Still, it looked like so much more when I opened the package. To say I am thrilled is an understatement!
It was a lazy day around here. It rained all morning, so we just sat around talking. Daughter Carol made blueberry smoothies for us, and I baked a loaf of beer and cheddar bread for my brother.
This afternoon, I watched t.v. and worked on Renulek's Spring 2021 doily. I'm taking care to check every three to five motifs now. I keep telling myself that slow and steady wins the race!
I made another big mistake on round 13 of Renulek's Spring 2021 doily. Do you see it? There's an extra section of chain that shouldn't be there. The funny thing is, I kept looking at that spot thinking that something wasn't right. I decided to do a quick press before taking a picture for today's post, and the mistake popped up as clear as day. There was nothing left to do but snip, and I snipped off nearly half of what I had tatted.
The correction has been made, and now I know of another pitfall that I need to watch for!
This morning I was in the mood to tat flowers, so I pulled out Mary Maynard's Tatting Rings of Flowers and played with rings all morning. It was very relaxing! My oldest granddaughter, Eva, likes to make cards. Maybe she'll want these for her card making. If not, they're easy enough to store.
In the afternoon, I watched a movie on t.v. and worked on Renulek's Spring 2021 doily. I'm pleased to say that I've been able to keep working with all joins in the correct place!
My newest shuttles from Rita Richmond of Shuttle by Design arrived today. Aren't they lovely?
I finished a December 4 button ornament, and then I went back to the December 1 pattern and used donuts. I was inspired by my friend Pamela's latest creation. Pamela used an opaline donut and her Blue Moon hand-dyed thread. If you've never tried hand-dyed thread, I highly recommend indulging yourself. It's wonderful!
I've carefully restarted round 13 of Renulek's Spring 2021 doily. I did have a bit of a hiccup. Have you guessed? I joined in the wrong place again! Luckily, I noticed right away and only had to un-tat a small ring and 3 ds on a chain. I think I need to pay close attention from now on!
I've been working on round 13 of Renulek's Spring 2021 doily for the past few days. I didn't post my progress, because it seemed a bit boring to show pictures of just a few pattern repeats. Maybe I should have posted!
About 7:15 this morning, I "finished" round 13 and laid it out for pressing. I found a mistake, a motif joined in the wrong place. Not a problem, just a little snip, unravel, and re-tat. It wasn't difficult, but it took me about two hours.
I headed back to the steam iron a little over two hours later and found a similar mistake in another section. Sigh! I carefully snipped out the mistake, unraveled, and decided to give it a quick press before re-tatting. That's when I found another similar mistake!
The whole round looked very messy to me, so instead of fixing another mistake, I chose to snip off the whole round and start over. Maybe I'll do better starting over!
It's hard to believe that this is the last Saturday in April. I wasn't even thinking about it until Sue posted a reminder!
I worked on Renulek's Spring 2021 doily. I tatted until my wrist got too tired, and then I quit for the day. I'd be close to finishing this round if I hadn't had to un-tat several mistakes!
We had a very nice virtual visit, and I think it's safe to say that we are looking forward to our next Zoom meeting!
My newest shuttles from Rita Richmond of Shuttle by Design arrived the other day. Aren't the colors wonderful?
I needed to work on something different after nearly three hours of tatting this morning, so this afternoon I picked up my knitting. Mom has started her second Orenburg warm shawl. I'm still working on the second of four borders from my first shawl. Still, I've been inspired by Mom, and I think it will do me good to switch between tatting and knitting so that I'm working different muscles.
My friend Ines recommended The Salt Path by Raynor Winn. I started reading after dinner. Now, will I spend the evening knitting or reading? I haven't decided yet!
I also managed to bake a loaf of triple cheddar and black pepper bread for daughter Carol. I'll deliver it to her tomorrow.
It was kind of fun to be out on the town today!
I over-tatted yesterday, so I really needed to take it easy today. Once I have the idea of how a round is tatted, I find it fairly easy to set it down to take break. So, today I tatted two pattern repeats of round 13 of Renulek's Spring 2021 doily. I think I'm done for the day!
My friend Katie recommended A Man Called Ove by Fredric Backman, and I'm so glad she did! I found myself laughing and crying, something I haven't done while reading a book in a long time. As soon as I finished reading it this morning, I looked for the movie and found it on Amazon Prime. The movie didn't follow the book exactly, but it was close enough that I didn't feel like the story was ruined.
This afternoon I focused on round 12 of Renulek's Spring 2021 doily. I finished, but I'm paying the price now. My wrists and forearms are pretty sore from too much tatting. I may have to take a break tomorrow!
I'm off to a good start with round 12 of Renulek's Spring 2021 doily. I've tatted about 1/3 of the way around from the picot gauge at the top to the two shuttles at the bottom right. Not bad!
Tollway Tatters met via Zoom yesterday, and during our meeting I managed to tat more than half of round 11. Today I finished round 11!
I'm making all sorts of progress. Today I managed to tat a bookmark and a button ornament, something I haven't managed to do in several days!
I also finished round 9 of Renulek's Spring 2021 doily. I took the time to pin this round before giving it a shot of steam. I wanted to make sure I had everything just right for starting round 10!
Not much went on in the way of tatting this weekend. Dave worked on our closet, and I slowly worked on doing some reorganization around the house. There's not a whole lot of difference yet, but I know I'll have a feeling of satisfaction once I've finished!
I did manage to tat a few rings and chains for round 9 of Renulek's Spring 2021 doily. My plan was to finish the round this weekend, but every time I sat down to tat I felt the urge to organize one more little thing.
One of the things I need to do is go through the bins of projects and supplies I have upstairs and find a new home for all of the things I know I'll never use. I started cutting up some of Dad's old shirts for a quilt I'd like to make. The rumpled pile is the shirts that have already had the buttons snipped off. I plan on using those for button ornaments.
When I opened the bin with Dad's shirts, I found Drama Club t-shirts that I had saved to make a t-shirt quilt for daughter Carol. She has since decided that she'd like to have the t-shirts made into curtains for her classroom. We discovered that we were missing t-shirts from several of her plays. Most of the ones we were missing are in this pile!
It takes a while to cut away all of the unusable pieces of the shirts. These two stacks are ready for pressing.
I have a project basket started for the pressed pieces. Once everything is pressed, I plan on cutting out as many 8" squares as I can. Then, I'll take any good sized scraps and piece them together for additional blocks. It's good to have a plan!
I finished round 8 of Renulek's Spring 2021 doily! As you can see, it's now wider than my laptop. On to round 9!
I received a lovely surprise in the mail today. Sheila had contacted me a while back to ask for my address. I never expected anything like this! Thank you, Sheila!
I now have 14 bookmarks, and my shuttle is wound for another one tomorrow!
I forgot to blog again last night. As I was snuggling down for the night, I suddenly realized that I hadn't blogged. Too late! There was no way I was leaving the coziness of my bed!
I didn't blog on Friday, because I didn't do anything other than read. I finished the murder mystery trilogy that I was reading. As I mentioned before, it was enough to hold my interest, but the foul language and detailed "love" scenes were not to my liking. When I finished the trilogy, all I could think of was the implausible plot twists that made the story confusing at times. I can't believe that the characters would make some of the choices they did, especially the ones that led to the final major scene.
On to better things!
Yesterday we had a Tollway Tatters Zoom meeting! I think there were eight of us this time, including my new tatting friend Ines from Germany. Bernice joined us from Canada. We had a great time showing off what we were tatting. Like any group of ladies that gets together, the conversation flitted from one topic to another. For once, I managed to truly accomplish during our meeting.
I finished round 7 of Renulek's Spring 2021 doily!
Last night I was motivated to work on Renulek's Spring 2021 doily. This round is super simple, but it is also very time consuming!
Early this morning I chose to work on my latest Granny Rectangle. I really like the mix of blue and grey!
I promised Jon (daughter Carol's significant other) a loaf of homemade bread. This one is onion and parmesan. It smells so wonderful!
My tatting at school today was another bookmark and a donut ornament. Little projects give me such a feeling of accomplishment!
As soon as I finished round 6 of Renulek's Spring 2021 doily, I set up round 7. Getting set up is half the battle!
I finished up a bookmark and an Ice Drop that I had in my tatting bag. I know how much thread I need on a shuttle to be able to complete a bookmark, but somehow I managed to measure incorrectly. I had to add thread twice! I really thought I'd get a button ornament made today, but I made the mistake of starting a book, and I can't put it down!
