Another frigid day

Because of the frigid weather, there's no school again today. Although the house is nice and warm, I can feel the cold in my head, and I'm really glad that I don't have to go out in this bitter cold!

My Jan Stawasz doily is not 8" in diameter after round 4. I'm amazed at how quickly this is growing!

I finished this blue scarf today. I think it may be my favorite!

My scarf stash is growing! If I keep this up, I may have to open a shop! ;-)

TIAS Day 1

TIAS

Are you ready for Jane's TIAS? I've had my shuttles loaded and button ready for days. I love the anticipation, but I've only ever completed one TIAS. Hopefully, I'll stick with it again this year!

I’m sitting here with my first cup of coffee for the day. I didn’t think I’d be able to try today’s pattern segment until school was out for the day, but there is no school today because of the expected severe cold. Whatever will I do with myself? ;-)

This is my first time joining a button to my tatting, and thanks to Jane's very clear directions, I was able to connect on the third try. I guess I hadn’t had enough caffeine yet, because I was not pulling the correct thread through the hole.

Split rings terrorize me, but I decided to soldier on as if I knew what I was doing, and guess what? I successfully completed my split ring on the first try. I’m feeling quite pleased with myself right now. 

It’s just after 6 a.m. and I have the whole day ahead of me. I think I’ll go see what mischief I can get up to!

3/4

I can't believe I'm already 3/4 of the way around! Now, if only all the other rounds would go this quickly. ;-)

Back at school

I was so happy to get back to school and see the kids today! Our biggest surprise was that over the break our PTO transformed our staff lounge into a beautiful, relaxing bistro! The kids had just as much fun looking at the newly decorated space as the staff did!

Round 4 of the Monster Doily is super simple, and I'm pleasantly surprised at how much I've been able to accomplish in a short amount of time.

We're expect snow tonight, so I think I'll just kick back, relax, and tat!

Round 3 finished!

Dave and I worked on taking down Christmas decorations today. We didn't finish, but that's to be expected. After all, it took us three weeks to put it all up!

I did find time to finish round 3 of the Jan Stawasz doily. It's no 7" in size 20 thread. Yes, indeed... this will be a monster doily!

The shuttles for the kids are finished. They just need to dry for 24 hours. I won't be taking them to school tomorrow, because I put the last coat of gloss acrylic on about 3 this afternoon. If I don't let them dry for a full 24 hours, they'll stick together in the can. I really don't expect anyone to be asking me about shuttles tomorrow, but if they do, I can tell them that they're almost ready!

No tatting today

Before Christmas break, the kids at school were asking me for decorated tatting shuttles. Of course I didn't have time to decorate shuttles because of all the Christmas presents I chose to make, but I did promise them that I'd work on shuttles over the break.

As always, time flies when I'm having fun, and I realized yesterday that I hadn't started the shuttles. While I was meeting with the Tollway Tatters, Dave sanded the shuttles for me. So today was shuttle day!

The first step was preparing my work space. Trust me, it didn't stay this neat!

I painted both sides of the shuttles with white acrylic paint.

Next, I used ModPodge to adhere paper napkins to the shuttles.

Trimming the excess paper took quite a while.

I've put one coat of glitter ModPodge on each side of the shuttles. Tomorrow I'll put two coats of  matte ModPodge on each side, and then I'll seal each side with spray on acrylic. I think the kids will like them!

Tatting on the tollway

Today was the perfect day to be tatting on the tollway!

Marilee brought along some of her beautiful hand-dyed threads. They're so much prettier in person, and very hard to resist!

Sue Anna and I did our share of shopping!

Marilee seemed very happy to bag our purchases! ;-)

I brought along the snowflakes I started tatting before Christmas. No, I didn't reach my goal of tatting all of the snowflakes in Jon Yusoff's Elegant Tatting Gems, but the ones I did finish sure do look nice!

Marilee spent the day working on this beautiful necklace. It's amazing to sit and watch her tat and design as she goes.

Sue Anna brought along this beautiful doily that she recently purchased. It was fun to look at it closely and try to determine how it was made.

Our big thrill of the day was talking to Jane via FaceTime! Isn't technology grand?

After chatting with Jane, Marilee and Sue Anna played with FaceTime.

I was the monkey in the middle taking pictures!

I made pretty good progress on the Monster Doily today.

Barbara was working on her snowflake. She plans on hanging this one in her car.

All in all, it was a great day! We're hoping to get together again in February, so if you're planning on being in the Chicago area, keep Presidents Day open!