Lace Cuff

I wanted to make a little token of love for my sister and I had the idea to make a little lace cuff!
I folded down the raw edges of the vintage lace and hand stitched it then I stitched on a vintage Mother of Pearl button, cut a buttonhole to size and whip stitched around the raw edges.
Then I added some of my tatting to the top with a pearl bead. Wah-La a cute cuff! Now I want one!

Summer Breeze DYB RR Jo's blocks: Getting started

Well I got started on Jo's blocks for the vine I couched down a green cord for the main stem along the curve then I added the gold metal flowers with pearls in the center, then started adding ribbon stitch leaves using the new edge dyed silk ribbon I got from Evening Star Designs. I like how the color of the ribbon has a gold tone in the center! Then I realized I needed branches vining off the main vine! LOL So I stem stitched some in using green Kreinik flat silk. Then added more ribbon stitch leaves and another gold/pearl flower!

I like the little gold butterfly there too, but haven't stitched it down yet. I did stitch on the cameo and I changed my plans for it a little since Jo mentioned she would like some of my SRE on her block. I'm now thinking of putting sweetheart roses around it with pearls interspersed.

Oh and the seam treatment I have so far is one strand DMC floss in a cream color in the herringbone stitch with gold silk chenille french knots at the points. I feel the seam still needs something in the open spots but I haven't figured out what yet.

White on White CQ Block

I've done a little more on this block by using the Caron Rachelette thread. I whipped the buttonhole seam with it, added straight stitches of it in-between the fuzzy spots on the lace, and couched a bow with the tails wandering in the upper left corner. One tail wanders to the little button cluster and the other tail will wander to the motif where the tatting will go.
I'm also tatting up some fern with some fine cream sewing thread. I wanted to add a bit of tatting to the block somehow! That sewing thread is really tiny though and it's hard to close the teeny-tiny rings. I have to tat very very gently with it so it will close easier. It seems like the smaller the thread the more gently and lightly you need to tat...I wonder if thats where the saying "The gentle art of tatting" comes from?

Summer Breeze DYB RR: My work on Jo's Blocks

I got Jo's blocks in the mail today and I'm excited to start working on them! I remembered Jo blogging about a piece of jewelery she got with her 6th block in mind when they are returned to her and that has been my inspiration for this block. I love elegance so I'm really excited to be working with an elegant theme using the tones of the block. I picked this block because of the radiating lines, I just love the look of blocks pieced like this. It will challenge me a bit since it's asking for seam treatments so I'm excited to push myself in that area. I plan to bead around the cameo with white pearly beads and make it a pretty focal point. I'd like to make some tatting for the block but I'm not sure exactly of what I'd want yet.

Toddler Embroidery Idea

I wanted to share with you all a wonderful idea that a member of the Hand Embroidery Group had for her toddler to play embroidery. She was so kind to write up instructions on how she made it for the Hand Embroidery Group Blog. I hope any of you who have toddlers in your lives will enjoy the idea too.

Spring Challenge Prize!!!

Today my Prize from the Spring Challenge by Carolyn Cibik of Evening Star Designs came in the mail!!!
OH WOW!!!!! When I saw the silk ribbon she sells!!! It's just exquisite!!! Shiny and the color is wonderful, the variegation is just beautiful, I'm so excited to try them out! And the Antique Buttons!!! Just stunning! They sparkle and shine!
Oh and the threads are just beautiful, and I'm already using the Caron Rachelette thread on my White on White block it goes just beautifully!
The little green leaf beads are some of my favorites! I adore the little strawberry sew-down, and check out the Battenberg Lace Leaves!
Thank you SO much Carolyn!!! I love everything and you can bet I'll be buying some more of everything! LOL

White on White CQ Block

I finally picked up my White on White block that I was working on for the Encrusted CQ online class I had taken late 2006. Well it got set aside for quite some time but I've finally come back to it! Here is a photo of where I left off. Here is a link to the previous blog posts for it.
Now that I have more experience under my belt I've had an easier time embellishing it. One of the things I've found out about myself is that I don't like waiting to add beads and buttons and such until the very end...it throws me off. So I now embellish with them as I go, yes I have to be careful as I continue to embroider after that but for me it really works better and I rarely get caught or tangled. Crazy Quilting is really a wonderful thing since there are no rules you have to follow so you can do it however works best for you! Isn't that great?! We can try out other's methods, keep what we like, change what we don't! Each of us has our own method of Crazy Quilting much like our Crazy Quilts themselves, unique! So I'd like to take a moment to thank Sharon B. for helping teach me that lesson. She is always so encouraging for us to relax try our own way and reminds us that there are no rules, while teaching us design principles that will help us in the long run. I'm always using what I learned in her class, I really enjoyed it! If you ever get a chance to take the Encrusted CQ with her, you won't regret it!

Here's what the block looks like tonight! In the upper left I added 7mm cream sweetheart roses, and I just love them! Next I'll be adding beading to the Silk Ribbon Embroidery motif. Also I need to add a little something to the two open spots in the upper left.

I recently bought some vintage Mother of Pearl buttons on Etsy.com and I've used a lot of them in this button/bead cluster. You can click on the photo to get a closer look at them, I just love them. The carvings, the color, and even the buttonholes! I may add some seed beads to it too.

Then I added a few of the vintage MOP buttons to that small spot, I thought it looked nice and helped bring around the buttons more. I added some ivory glass leaf beads and some ivory silk flower heads.
This block is almost finished now! Yeay!

Online Victorian Magazine

I came across a really neat link for a free online magazine called Victoriana Magazine and thought I would share it! Enjoy!

Summer Breeze DYB RR: My Work on Leslie's Block Finished

I believe the block is finished! It's always hard to know when to stop or keep going but I feel the block has reached a nice balance and if I add anything more it would be thrown off.
I had a lot of fun working on it and it was my first time incorporating tatting into a Silk Ribbon Embroidery motif. Also my first time dying my tatting for a block.

I finally finished stitching in the gold thread to the wings and I love how it's turned out. A nice delicate shimmer.
Click Here to see all the posts for the Summer Breeze RR

Summer Breeze DYB RR: My work on Leslie's block

I'm almost finished with this block, I think it's coming along nicely! As I said in the last post something was bothering me about the empty space around the print so I printed out a photo of the block and got the idea to doodle "garden" to see how it would look. I loved the way it helped add some interest so I stitched it on the block, and I added some lazy daisy leaves and a pink colonial knot around it to kind of frame "garden".

I also added in the button-bead trail. I used an earring finding that is a porcelain rose I had taken apart for CQ stash since I never wear earrings anymore they bother my ears. It looks great and adds another rose to find on the block.

Then I felt the fabric that had the dragonfly on it was weak and needed something to bring it out more. So I started adding straight stitches along the inner area of the wing in long and short stitching but leaving space between stitches using a fine gold metallic Kreinik thread. So far I only have 1 wing filled in, I think it adds a nice delicate shimmer.

Vintage Finds!!!

Today I got to go to one of my favorite antique shops and I found a jack pot of vintage lace for crazy quilting!!! Everything needs to be washed and I'm going to get some of the stuff you use for cleaning delicate and vintage textiles.

I just had to have these vintage hankies with tatting on them! They were priced just right to snatch right up! Also look at the doily too!

I just loved this vintage butterfly pin, it's a little dirty but I can clean it easily. Also I grabbed the pretty vintage buttons you see to the left, they were only 25 cents, I loved the texture of them.

I really loved the vintage ruffles they look like pieces of a collar it has stains but I think it adds appeal.

Here are some of the other bits and pieces that were in a baggie.

Lastly check out these vintage net lace gloves!!! I just love them the gloves are fingerless except for the thumb, I tried one on to make sure it fits and it does!!! They are so delicate and I'm planning on wearing them to our next formal!

Summer Breeze DYB RR: My work on Leslie's block

It's been pretty slow going for me with this block, I'm not sure why. I'm steadily making progress though so that's good. I feel like something is missing and I can't pin point it. I think the empty space of the print area is bothering me, but I'm not sure what to do about it.

I've added sweetheart roses to the clover tatting and pistol stitches coming out the bottom of them.

I also added the gold metal bellflowers with Czech glass beads in the center. I always love how the bellflowers dangle.
I just need to add in the button/bead cluster now.

More Tatting!

Motifs # 4-8 of the 25 Motif Challenge
The flat pink flower is size 10 DMC Cebelia thread and a pattern from Lyn Morton's "Tatting Patterns" book.
The dragon fly pattern I found online Here and is done in ecru size 10 DMC Cebelia thread.
The 2 mini carnations were part of the patterns we received at the last Palmetto Tatters meeting. I think they are really cute! I used a new thread with them too it's a pink and white variegated Olympus Crochet Cotton in size 40.
Then the last flower with beads is using the same thread and is a pattern that can be found at the Palmetto Tatters website and was created by Marie Smith. In order to add the beads you have to fiddle with the pattern a tad but it's not hard to do. I really love how it turned out and the variegated thread just made a nice soft blending of color.

Summer Breeze DYB RR: My work on Leslie's block

Here's how the block is coming along so far! I stitched down the tatting and vine embellishments and I finished the floral motif. I love how the tatted fern looks so delicate, and I added some glass leaf beads. I still need to stitch down the little dragonfly beads and I'm considering adding beads to the center of the large roses too.

Then I needed a seam treatment to go under the lace dragonfly and I finally decided on the Herringbone stitch with lazy daisies at the tips in a lighter green.

Summer Breeze DYB RR: My Work On Leslie's Block

Here is some progress on the block! I've been doing ground work, by tatting the clover and the fern fronds, also dying the clover tatting and the lace dragonfly motif. I dyed both variegated green and gold. I think they turned out nicely! The fern fronds I mostly tatted using the spool of variegated thread as a shuttle. It's really tiny thread and it's the smallest I've tatted with, at first I couldn't close the rings but I quickly figured out that I was tatting too tightly for small thread. I have to tat very gently with this thread.
SO the clovers and the fern makes motifs # 2 and3 of the 25 Motif Challenge!

As you can see the silk ribbon embroidery motif is turning out a little differently than I originally doodled! I changed the vines to tatted fern, and left out the sweetheart rose from the middle of the large roses, the reason being the roses were too large and the sweetheart rose didn't look quite right this time. I will be adding filler sweetheart roses still. For the spiderweb-ribbon stitch combo rose I used 4mm ribbon for the spiderweb rose and 7mm for the ribbon stitch petals. I didn't have the shade of ribbon I needed so I took some rose colored ribbon that was almost right and over-dyed it with brown to simulate tea dying and it turned out the perfect shade!

Here's the clover edging I tatted! I used size 20 ecru DMC Cebelia and dyed it with green and gold. I love how the color is soft and it has nicely blended variegation.

Here's the little dragonfly I dyed using the same colors as the clover but I let it blend together more so it's more a goldish-green. I'm thinking of filling in his wings with beads but not sure yet. I'll see how the block progresses before deciding.

Summer Breeze DYB RR: Leslie's Blocks

I got Leslie's blocks in the mail today for the Do Your Block RR that I'm in. Here is the 6 inch block I picked out, of course the one with the pretty rose in the center! LOL
Today I held embellishment tryouts! LOL That's where I ponder the block and go through my stash and pull out different items that I think might work, the things I like stay out and the things I don't get put back. Sometimes I pull things out to consider using but I may or may not use them after all. I'll usually do several embellishment tryouts as the block progresses too.
A few things I'm planning are a button bead trail in the lower right I already pulled some buttons I think work well. Also to the left I'm planning on tatting up a 10 clover edging just for this block in size 20 ecru thread which I may add some green dye to. I'll probably fiddle with a sample to see if it would look nice, but over-dyed or not I'll embellish the tatting with some silk ribbon embroidery and beads. Then in the upper left I plan on doing a silk ribbon embroidery motif, some sort of bouquet I pulled some ribbon colors that I think would work, but I still want to go through more ribbon and see what else I have. On the upper right I like that dragonfly motif which would get dyed and I'm thinking of a seam treatment that would go well there maybe a herringbone stitch.
I want to go for a dragonfly and roses theme with this block. So I'm going to see how many dragonflies I can tuck in and how many roses I can scatter!
As I was looking at the photo in this post I got inspired for an SRE design for that upper left corner, here is what I doodled. I don't always doodle out my design ideas, but it is nice to try and see what the design idea would look like. Sometimes I doodle on the fabric with the pen that fades (after I've tested the fabric to be sure it does fade away, of coarse!) and then stitch in what I like and re-doodle as I create the motif.
In case you were wondering the warbled circles are spiderweb roses, the stars are sweetheart roses and the oval-ish with the point is a ribbon stitch. Then all the leaves would be ribbon stitch too.

Tatting: Heart Pendent

I had an order on my Etsy Shop for one of my tatted pendents so I shuttle tatting this one up! It was my first time doing the Sweetheart pattern with the shuttle.
This will be motif #1 of my next 25 Motif Challenge!

Tatting: Tatting like Crazy!

The last few days I've been tatting away since I got a request at my Etsy Shop for some small tatting motifs to use in Crazy Quilting! I was more than happy to create some mini tats! The request was for hearts, flowers, and butterflies ranging from the half inch to 3 inch size. This is the results all ready to hand dye and/or embellish!
I believe this also completes my 25 Motif Challenge!!! I only needed to do 3 motifs for it to be complete! Now the question is should I go for 25 more?

Tatting: Palmetto Tatters Guild

Today Gerard and I went up to the big monthly Palmetto Tatters Guild Meeting and we had a blast!!! It was SO fun! We both tatted up butterflies last night to turn in for our membership which we did too!
I got to meet several ladies who are in Yahoo Groups with me including Charlene who is a very sweet lady! I was so thrilled to meet her! It is always wonderful to put a face with a name and it was a real treat to meet someone I've known over the past year! You can see Charlene's tatting blog Here.
I also got to meet the youngest member of the Palmetto Tatters, Violet, who is 6 years old! Full of energy, amazingly smart and can tat very well! It was a real treat to meet her too. She is Marie Smith's granddaughter!

I got to learn so many new things!!! I sat by Pam Freck, who showed me all sorts of things, and made sure I learned many new things! Take a look at these "heart" rings! One is the normal method for dimpled rings (right) and the other is the "cheaters way" (left) but I think it is it's own creation and should be called the heart ring! LOL It's so much easier and I think prettier than the old version of dimpled rings!
How you do it is when you get to the spot where the dimple would be you work 4 first halves of the double stitch then you work 4 second halves of the double stitch and then you continue on with the rest of your double stitches. Then when you close the ring it will pucker, you might have to help it get into place a tad but it's so simple!

I had this motif all ready to learn how to do the folded join, so I asked Pam about it.
Pam and Marie Smith taught me how to do the folded join! What a relief to finally understand it! I learned Marie's way which she called a front fold folded join.

Pam also made sure that Marie taught me how to do split chains the method that Marie created that is so much easier! Marie taught me how to do it in both directions, meaning to give it the look of traditional tatting and for Front Side Back Side tatting.

See this adorable tatted ribbon hair pin? Pam made that and gave it to me to give to Alece! What started it all was thread colors she had seen the pink and purple thread combo that Alece had chosen for her bracelet and then she whipped this out for me! I never really considered tatting with ribbon...I'm going to have to give that a try!

And check out this lovely flower! I was admiring it in Marie's box of tatting and asked to see it and then when I was looking it over, Marie said I could keep it! What a treasure! She is so sweet! She is just as sweet in person as she is chatting online! So giving and so sharing!

She also gave Gerard this cute caterpillar bookmark! Isn't it just the cutest?! Gerard says he's going to use it in his daily Bible!

And now to brag on my wonderful Hubby! Look at this!!! He made a Tatted Fern frond from the patterns that were given out today! It's not blocked yet but when it is it's totally pretty! Now I'll have a nice piece of lace to use in my CQ bouquets from my Hubby!

Spring Challenge: Guess What??!?!

Remember my Spring Challenge Block I was working on and finished? Well the challenge has come to an end and today I found out that I Won!!! I'm SO thrilled!!! I won a $50 gift certificate to Evening Star Designs! If you have never shopped there do hop over and take a look around, she has lots of stuff for embroidery and crazy quilting, even tatters would love the prices on the threads she sells!
You can see everyone's lovely projects from the challenge in the Spring Challenge Gallery! So much creativity and hard work has gone into everyone's spring challenge projects, I hope you'll go take a look at them!

I want to say a big Thank You to Carolyn Cibik who has created, hostessed and presented us with her Spring Challenge!

Tatting Card

I got my first inquisitive onlooker yesterday which was really exciting! But I didn't have a card to give her to remind and refer to find out more about tatting...so I decided to create one!
Just to be safe I e-mailed the owners of the sites to ask permission to use them. I could only choose so many, it was hard but I felt that these sites could help and direct someone interested in tatting.
Oh and I scanned some of my tatting to use on the card! I just love the clover edging, and it's what I like to take with me in my purse to work on.
If you'd like to use this card you have my permission to save it to your computer and print it out to give away too. I print it onto professional quality business cards that I've bought at WalMart. They are 28877 Avery Templates Matte White Clean Edge Business Cards.

Tatting: Tudor Rose

Motif #22 of the 25 Motif Challenge

I made this motif called "Tudor Rose" in Lyn Morton's book "Tatting Patterns". I just love this book, I just got it last week and I love the designs, the photos are great and the instructions are good too. They are in the written out style but also have diagrams. Funny tip...just do what the instructions say even if it sounds odd! LOL I changed some things because I didn't quite understand why it said to do certain things and as a result the flower puckers, and I now understand why the directions said what they did! LOL I guess sometimes you have to learn by trial and error!
Anyway back to this flower, I made it for my jean purse for the Tatting Treasures from Trash Challenge, in pink size 10 DMC Cebellia thread. It's first draft quality but that's what the challenge is about using up all those bits you have that would otherwise go unused...and if I made a better one just for the purse this one would go unused! LOL
Now I'm off to make more flowers from this book...it really is great! Tons of patterns I want to do out of it!

Pincushion Swap

Once I decided on a pincushion pattern to do, I got to work on it! I had been tatting up a clover edging at the time and thought it would be perfect as a circular motif on the pincushion so I finished tatting it up and then sewed it onto the fabric. Then I embellished my tatting with alternating glass pearls and Silk Ribbon embroidery. Then I added tiny pink size 15 seed beads to the picots at the tips of each clover. The Silk Ribbon Embroidery I did was sweetheart roses in 4mm YLI silk ribbon and in the center I added 3 ribbon stitch leaves in 4mm silk ribbon.

My swap partner loves Victorian things and I hope I succeeded in a vintage Victorian feel. I want her to be able to use it so I left open space at the top and the fabric I used doesn't show holes when needles or pins are removed.
The pincushion is made with CD's as a base and is about 5 inches wide and 1 1/4 inches tall. No glue was used making this pincushion it is all hand stitched together!

Tatting

Motif # 21 of the 25 Motif Challenge

I made this circular clover motif out of a clover edging I've been working on. I made it in ecru size 20 DMC Cebelia thread. The edging is really fun to tat and I think it's really pretty. I got the pattern of the back of a DMC shuttle packaging.
On this motif I tried to do the folded join found here in order to avoid having a twisted picot but everything I tried didn't work! I had such a time of it, once I got it but then the ring was around the motif so it couldn't close right. Then when I thought I finally had gotten it...it ended up being twisted. Since I had unpicked it several times I figured it didn't matter too much and just left it. I still want to learn how to do the folded join so if any of you experienced tatters out there could maybe whip up a home video or offer any other help that would be much appreciated! All the drawing instructions out there just don't make any sense to me.