Taking liberties

For those of you who have been following my progress, I'm guessing you might be wondering what is going on with my Jan Stawasz Masterpiece. Well...

I was getting frustrated with trying to keep track of which chains had picots and which did not, so I decided to put picots on all the chains. I like picots, so I think it will look just fine. Mr. Stawasz, if you are looking down from tatting heaven, I sure hope you can forgive me for tampering with your design!

The shawl is finished, and I love the way it turned out!

Here, it's folded in half...

and then half again. I think I may crochet one of these for myself!

I took a bold step a few weeks ago, well bold for me. I have long admired the Easter eggs on Renulek's blog, so I emailed Renata and asked her if her eggs were for sale. She said yes! They arrived today, and I am thrilled with them!

I asked for two of each color so that I could share a set with my friend Denise. They're so pretty!

I have no idea why one picture shows up in landscape mode and one in portrait. They were both taken with the same orientation. Sometimes technology baffles me!

I have a few more buttons for Rita. I love the colorful buttons she gave to me to use for her button flowers. I wonder why I can never find buttons like these?

Too tired to post

Yup, I was too tired to post last night. Maybe that's because I've been busy!

The kids at school were asking for new shuttles, so I spent some time blinging shuttles starting on Friday.

Since I decorated both sides and took a quick trip to Minnesota, they weren't finished drying until this morning. As expected, the kids loved them!

Rita asked me to crochet some more button flowers for her, and I really didn't think I'd have time for a couple of weeks. However, since I keep the supplies right by my chair, it's easy to work on them whenever I have a phone call, which seems to be a lot lately!

I finished crocheting the shawl last night. I washed and blocked it after school today, but pictures of the blocked shawl will have to wait. It's stretched out on a white background, so the one photo I took doesn't show up well.

All of my headbands and hair clips are at ReChic Unique Boutique in Demotte, Indiana. Wouldn't you know, I have little girls at school asking for headbands and hair clips.

I promised them I'd have some ready next week.

My personal stash is growing, so I think I'll be able to give the girls a variety of goodies. I have an idea for a stretchy bracelet. We'll see if that works out.

I spent a lot of time on the phone after school today, so more button flowers for Rita are ready to go!

Tomorrow, I'm taking time to tat!

Quick trip

I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend. I know we did, although it was incredibly busy. We drove Joanne and Sophia back to Minnesota on Saturday and headed home on Sunday. That's a lot of driving! We spent Saturday night at daughter Andrea's, and we were able to experience the fun of watching granddaughters Lily and Elly hunt for Easter eggs before we headed home.

There are days when tatting in the car just doesn't work for me, so I took along the crocheted shawl I was commissioned to complete for a June wedding. It should be finished, but I kept finding mistakes in one of the rows... one of the longest, of course! I finally got smart and checked the whole row, but I know I spent hours pulling out stitches and crocheting the row over and over again. I hope to have it finished this week. It's really a very simple pattern to follow, and I hope the lady who requested it loves the pattern as much as I do. If you're interested, the pattern can be found on Etsy.

The little bit of tatting I did accomplish was on round 9 of Renulek's Spring Doily. I think the pattern repeat is very pretty, but I can tell this round will be time consuming!

I'm rebuilding my crocheted button flower stash, five buttons at a time!

I'm also working on buttons for Elaine.

My newest shuttles from Grizzly Mountain Arts arrived today! I love these shuttles!

To make my day even better, I finally managed to get my hands on two of the new Astro-Knot shuttles! When I first learned about 3D printers, I did some investigating because I thought it would be really cool to print my own tatting shuttles. However, the price of the printers and the knowledge it would take to design and print a tatting shuttle seemed way beyond my means! I decided to sit back and wait for someone else to come up with the same idea, and I have not been disappointed.

I'll let you know how I like them once I've put them to use. In the meantime, you'll need to keep your eyes on eBay, because that's the only place they're available right now!