Tropical Fruit

I spent yesterday and today playing with Lizbeth #107, Tropical Fruit. My goal is to have a dozen pendants for Christmas in the Village, which I will easily achieve.

I love how the choice of beads or glass gems can change the look of an Ice Drop.

I also love playing with ribbon colors!

I have another treeful of Ice Drops ready for Christmas in the Village...

and one more pendant. I suppose I should start tatting in Christmas colors!

Just a quick post...

What a week! First I was laid low with the worst cold I've had in years... it was so bad that I stayed home from school and slept for two days! I didn't know I had it in me to sleep so much! Thankfully, I just feel like a normal person working my way out of a cold now.

Friday morning, I woke up feeling a little better, so I went on the Internet. No, I did not go on the Internet... I had no connection! I went to school, made it through the day with no problems and headed home to... no Internet access. :-(

I called our Internet service provider, and everything seemed to check out. The man I talked to suggested I have my router checked. Luckily, we had plans to go to daughter Carol's house to work on installing her new fireplace mantel that Dave made, so I was distracted from my Internet woes.

Saturday morning, I tried again... no luck! Daughter Joanne suggested rebooting my router. I did, and success! ...for about an hour. :-(

Saturday morning, I filled my time with chores... grocery shopping, laundry, a little cleaning... and then we were off to Carol's again to paint her living room and finish installing her fireplace mantel. The mantel looks beautiful. I did take pictures, but for some reason, I can't transfer the pictures from my iPhone to my computer... another puzzle for today. We arrived home around 10 p.m. and... you guessed it... no Internet access.

Well, I'm not one to sit around and wait for things to happen. I fiddled and futzed, plugged and unplugged, rebooted... everything I could think of! I have no idea what worked, but it worked, and I am grateful.

Dave turned on the weather, and they're predicting an ice storm today... great! If that happens, and I'll be surprised if it really does, I'm pretty sure I'll lose my Internet connection again. So, I figured I'd better get off a quick post, print out Jane's TIAS so that I can catch up, and do some blog reading before winter storm Luna hits. I wonder why they started naming winter storms? It seems so silly to me, especially since the the worst we've had is a half inch of snow that lasted less than a day.

Since I wasn't feeling well, I didn't get much tatting done, just these three little motifs with doodads from Hobby Lobby in the middle...

They first two are size 20 Lizbeth. The one on the left is #107 Tropical Fruit, next is #601 Snow White with beads from Michelle. The one on the right is size 20 HDT from Yarnplayer, Hydrangea Dark, with clear beads from WalMart. I was very surprised to find that WalMart had much larger containers of glass beads for half the price of the beads from Hobby Lobby. I'm sure there's a difference that a beading enthusiast would notice, but as a novice beader, I'm very pleased with my cheap beads!

Storm, storm, stay away!
Diane wants to tat today!

2, 3, 4... tell the people what she wore!

Oops! This post is not about an itsy bitsy teeny weeny yellow polka dot bikini! It's about my trials and tribulations with measuring thread...

Apparently my estimation skills are lacking. Really? What was I thinking? How could I possibly believe that two yards of thread wound on to the shuttle would be enough for one of these "Flowerpiece" fragments? Surely three yards would be enough... wrong! Okay, make that four... wrong again! I really think I must have measured incorrectly somewhere along the line.

I must have jinxed "Tropical Fruit," so I switched to "Ocean Sunset" in size 40. No measuring here. I just loaded up the shuttle and started tatting. I'm not worrying about where the color change takes place. I'm just enjoying the pattern and the thread!

Inspired by Allison

I was looking at Allison's Facebook page recently, and I thought I recognized a Mary Konior pattern. Allsion confirmed that the piece I saw was indeed a Mary Konior pattern. I felt so proud of myself! I did, however, guess the wrong color of thread. ; )

Anyway, I decided to look up the pattern, "Flowerpiece" from Tatting with Visual Patterns. My first practice piece was with some Sulky thread left on the shuttles. I probably will tat this piece in tiny thread eventually, but for right now I want to make it in size 20, so I decided to practice with the thread that was closest to me, Lizbeth #107, Tropical Fruit. The center piece was my first attempt. I realized as I was sewing in the ends that I had forgotten one section of the last chain. Can you see where the 7 ds are missing where the chain joins the flower? This one will go in my box of tatting for crazy quilting, something I plan on doing in retirement!

The fragment on the right (I love that Mary called individual elements fragments) is done correctly. My next step will be to determine how much thread to wind on the shuttle for each fragment. I'm guessing that two yards will be sufficient. I'll save that experiment for tonight. I know from when I tatted a similar piece a year or two ago, that I will want each flower fragment to start in about the same spot in the thread color. I'll have to look in my thread stash to see if I have one of the solid colors from Tropical Fruit. I know that I won't like the color changes in what Mary calls the chain trails. So, multi-color for the fragments, solid color for the chain trails, and I'll have a beautiful doily in no time!

Thanks for the inspiration, Allison! Maybe we could arrange for The Tollway Tatters to meet up your way sometime this summer. It would be great fun to meet you in person!