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!

Another milestone

I finished round 8 of Renulek's Spring Doily today, and I'm ready to start round 9!

Over the last three days I've managed to finish ten more crocheted button flowers for Rita. I love the new batch of buttons she gave to me to use!

Sophia and Joanne head home to Minnesota tomorrow. Aunt Carol came over for dinner, and she and Sophia had fun playing with Jon's sun glasses. I sure will miss having them all around. It's been a wonderful spring break!

Almost there!

Joanne, Sophia, and I went to visit daughter Carol today. She made a delicious macaroni and cheese lunch for us. It's a crock pot recipe that's absolutely wonderful! It's not something I'll be making, though. Dave can't stand anything with macaroni... very strange for an Italian, if you ask me.

After lunch we did a little shopping, and then we headed home so that I could have some tatting time. With any luck, I'll have this round finished tomorrow.

Pink button flowers started my day.

Over the past two days, I crocheted flowers around Elaine's buttons.

Then, while dinner was cooking, I finished some more buttons for me. I know it seems that buttons have taken over my life, but it's not true. I still find loads of time to tat. The time I spend crocheting button flowers is just keeping me from playing computer games... a plus in my book!

Road trip!

Today I took a road trip to Demotte, Indiana, with two of my daughters. We just had to check out ReChic Unique Boutique, the shop where some of my things are for sale. Typical for me, I forgot to take pictures...

except for this one! Joanne wanted to see what one of Rita's hair clips looked like in her hair, so I took a picture. I think she wound up buying this one plus two others. Rita explained her process for making her clips to me. It sounds very involved, and I'm glad she wants to make these. I'll just continue crocheting button flowers and leave all the fiddly stuff to Rita! ;-)

While Sophia played in the back yard this afternoon, I tatted. I was kind of surprised at how much I was able to finish!

My button flower garden continues to grow. I've set a goal for myself to crochet five with each color thread before deciding how they will be used.

I kind of like this goal. I choose buttons randomly from my button dish, which results in combining button and thread colors that I might not have used if I put any thought into my choices. Although some of the combos might be a little unorthodox, I like they way they've all turned out!

Takin' care of business!

Yesterday was super busy with three of my four daughters visiting. Still, I managed to take care of a little business.

I finished ten more crocheted button flowers for Rita. I'll be delivering 100 to her today... I'm pretty impressed with myself! ;-)

I decided to use tattrldy's suggestion of keeping my blog name and using a sub-title to explain what I do. Thanks for the input, Wanda! My initial business card looks kind of blah, but it's a start and I can tweak it as I go.

I did make a little progress with Renulek's Spring Doily, although not as much as I had hoped.

I'm still trying to catch Sophia smiling. She'll say "cheese" when the camera is not pointing at her, but she's very shy when posing. I have a couple of more days to catch that sweet smile!