Heather Johnston from the Tarnished Tatter, http://thetarnishedtatter.blogspot.com , has requested to send tatted hearts for her friend, Tracy. Tracy is a young lady of 33 going through stage 4 breast cancer and will be having a double mastectomy. I belong to The Vintage Quilting Society and taught these lady how to tat in March. We all agreed to tat a heart, designed by Heather and posted on her blog, for Tracy. It is a way for all of us to say "we care"! The top 3 hearts will be for sale on Heather's Etsy. This is one of our community world wide projects. Our community project for New Mexico is sending hand embroidered, postcards to the Men and Women in the military.

Crazy Quilt Christmas Stocking

Crazy Quilt Christmas Stocking was made for my niece, Debra. It is worked up with a combination of Crazy Quilt stitches, Hand dyed silk ribbon embroidery, bead work and tatting. This is the front side of the stocking

Debra's Crazy Quilt Stocking

Debra's back side of Crazy Quilt Christmas Stocking.

Heather's Exchange

Heather Johnston from Hastings, PA was my Needle Tatting Exchange partner. Heather hand dyes her yarn and it is for sale at Heather's Designs. The pumpkin is size 10 hand dyed orange. I have made the same pumpkin in sizes 20 and 80 and it is interesting what size they are when finished. The beautiful earrings are her own design tatted in size 30. The hand dyed thread is called Harvest Time. I really like these because they are dainty. The hand dyed thread is size 20, Bali. She gave me instructions on how to work with it. So this will be a first experiment! Thank you Heather, I love it all and what a nice tatter you are.

Lizbeth Variegated Threads

Beginning at the top left the first red edging is done in Red Burst #142 and the second edging is Desert Bloom #110. The edgings are sewed on to a collar of a jacket. The third edging is jelly Bean #119 and it will go on a t-shirt.

The next color is Springtime #115. This is a very delicate color, one of my favorites.

In the middle are the new variegated threads
that just came on the market. Christmas Green Mix #152 has more white than I like but still a nice color. Angel Love #151 also has more white. The design is a generic pattern
ring and chain. The first one is all white with jingle bells on the outside. The second one has gold beads. Both have red beads in the center. One can compare how the looks with the plain verses variegated. The last picture is Caribbean #122. It is a very bold color. When working with small motifs as the butterfly not all the color will be use. You will have to play around with the starting points to get the variegated look you want. Some patterns are better suited for variegation thread and other patterns are not. I like the threads without the white.

Halloween is fast approaching! My cards are finished and in the mail. The bat and ghost are tatted with Lizbeth 20 and the patterns are Mark Myers. The pumpkin is tatted in Majestic 80 and the pattern is by Sherry Matthews. There are lots of pumpkin patterns, it is finding the time to tat them! The post card started out with tulle on muslin and free motion down. I use stiff drapery underlining and iron on stitch witchery on both sides. The front and back are then ironed on. Trim up the edges and sew the border. My Halloween partner is Heather from the Needle tatting group.

Tatted pumpkins and Ghost

Pumpkins by Sherry Matthew works up quick with Lizbeth #20 Bright Orange. She uses the first ds of the JK for the stem. I asked the Here to Be Tatters Group if it made a difference which half you use working with the Josephine Knot. Most of the tatters use the second half because it is faster. The first pumpkin I did the first half of the ds and the second pumpkin I worked the second half. I found that the second half had more twist to it. Polly Womack replied that there is a difference and suggested making a sample of each with different size threads.

The "Scary Ghost" is a pattern by Mark Myers. Another easy pattern, however, you must follow closely and not be distracted! We had 2 sheep wander in the front yard while working on this. It is not an easy pattern to set down and pick back up. The diagram really helped. The thread is Lizbeth #20 white, of course!

Many thanks to Sherry Matthew and Mark Myers for designing these free patterns.