New Year 2011

Christmas Cracker

Many thanks Hideko for the Christmas Cracker goodies. Beautiful silk and other material, lots of gorgeous lace, beads, buttons and textured yarns. Love the girl print. A very nice gift from a special Crazy Quilter!

Merry Christmas

Winter Snow on the Mesa in New Mexico. Wishing Happy Holidays to All!

CQ Post Cards

Birthday cards for special people!

Tatted Angels

The tatted angel in purple is a free pattern from Martha Ess', Tats Amore.
http://my.att.net/p/s/community.dll?ep=87&subpageid=259211&ck=
It is easy to work up if you know split chains!
I watched Linda Davis's video and it helped. Thank goodness there was only one SC.


The white tatted angel is from mark Myers book, "Tatted Gathering of Angels". I wanted a larger angel so it was tatted with DMC size 10 thread. The head and body are SCMR (self closing mock ring) I added some gold thread for the halo and a red star. This works up very quickly!






These angels are made with felt with tatting added for the halo, edging around skirt and the heart in the center.

A special card for a special friend

Christmas Cracker

Christmas Crackers is an English Custom. It is a tube filled with goodies and then wrapped. The Crazy Quilting International group has been doing this for the past few years and this is my first time. Oh what fun it is to find threads, needles, material, candy and on and on till it is packed and overflows with gifts wrapped on the side! The wrapper is a crazy quilt patch and it is up to you to add the stitches. I stitched a lot of stitches with silk ribbon embroidery and added 2 pieces of tatting, however, I do not know the person who designed the heart. I usually make a bunch of hearts and put them in a box to send or add to CQ later.

On the left upper corner, the tatting is 1/2 of the pattern "Angels in the Snow" by Miranda. A charm was attached in the center and reads "DREAM BIG"!!

Miranda's blog-- http://tattingfool.blogspot.com had a contest last year to name the pattern she designed and I won. There were over 40 entries and all had good names. For me it just looked like "Angels" we made in the snow when we were children. My prize from Miranda was a beautiful tatting book by Catherine Austin, "A New Twist on Tatting", thread, the pattern and the best of all was a tatted "Angels in the Snow"! Just gorgeous and will treasure it always. Miranda is very generous in giving. The pattern can be found on her website and she is selling it for $3.00. All the proceeds will go to the Brain Injury Assoc of New Mexico. Please go to her website for more information and lots of "Eye Candy"!! I am waiting for my cracker to arrive.

Happy Thanksgiving!

This big tom is made out of felt. His frilly tail feathers are tatted with Lizbeth's Falling Leaves size #20. The pattern is from Mary Konior's "Tatting with Visual Patterns". It is Curds and Whey but only used one side of the pattern.

Here are the snowflakes used in the Christmas Tree Skirt. All of the snowflakes are tatted with #20 Lizbeth white thread.

These 2 are from "Festive Snowflakes & Ornaments" edited by Barbara Foster.

The top one is Snowflake 4 and

the bottom is Snowflake 6.

These 4 are the main ones because they tat up very quickly.

The top left is Randy Houtz Motif 2 in his book, "Tatting the Self-Closing Mock Ring for GR-8 Design". This motif is rings and chains.

The top right is from the Needle tatting group, Roger aka Freedman. Rings and chains with lots of picots. I like this one because it is small and frilly like a snowflake and easy.

The bottom left is a split ring clover snowflake. Also works up quickly if you know the split ring. This design is from Wendy Durell.

Bottom right is a quick and easy with lots of Picots.

The pattern is by Carol Winandy.

The finished tree skirt. I had 5 ladies critique it and was going to add ribbon to separate the red and green. They all said NO! So I just bound the edges with the ribbon. I will tat a few more snowflakes and put over the seams. Right now it has 32 snowflakes. It is on display at the local library.

Houston Quilt Show

HOUSTON QUILT SHOW

Here are my favorite two but there are so many beautiful quilts. I met one of the judges a month ago and she said they were all stunning and hard to judge. Being at the show would be just awesome and pictures to not show all the detail.

In the Hoffman Challenge, Ann Faustino of NJ won first place in "Butterfly Dance".













The second one I really liked is "Sunset and Sandhill Cranes" by Joanne Baeth of Oregon. This was sponsored by Accu Quilt.

Click on the URL and enjoy the quilt show!!

http://www.quilts.org/winners.html

Christmas Tree Skrit

One tree skirt is almost completed. Need to sew one more panel with snowflakes and then sew them all together. I will put a lining on the back and attached it with ribbons separating each panel. I need an exhibit for the Library, so I am working extra long to finish this skirt for the weekend.

Christmas Tree Skirt

My niece and daughter both want a tree skirt for Christmas. All the gingerbread people on the red are completed. It takes about 30 tatted snowflakes for each.

Pumpkin & Crow Embroidery/tatting

Bird Brain Designs http://www.birdbraindesigns.net
has a free embroidered design for Halloween.
All done in back stitch.
Then I tatted the pumpkin edging below the crow. Pattern by Heidi Sunday.

Happy Halloween everyone!!!

Alice Wilhoit

The Sisters Quilt Shop in Amarillo, Tx had a Lecture and trunk show by Alice Wilhoit. Alice published the book "Crazy Patchwork" in 2009 and the quilt shop will be teaching CQ from that book. It has clear and easy instructions to follow and very helpful for a beginner starting out in crazy quilting. Even people who have been CQing for a time can always learn something new!! Alice likes to combine applique with her CQ. The sample on the left shows this combination and this is what she teaches on her cruises and workshops. Beautiful applique and CQ stitching.


Meet Alice Wilhoit















This CQ hangs on her mantle.
Nice design and stitches. The bead edging adds to the design.

This quilt has some awesome embroidery on it. Click on it so you can see it up close. She did say the white lace around it was spendie but it makes the CQ stand out. The Roses in each corner were made with wire ribbon. Alice likes to use medium weight yarns and couches them down. Because this quilt has traveled so much and people love to feel the texture it started to sag from the lining. She had a Machine Quilter look at it and she quilted on the long arm. It was not noticeable on the front because she pretty much stayed in the seams. This one was my favorite because of the embroidery.

The Birthday Quilt! Each block on the inside has all the birthdays of the family. Lots of bling, bling on this one. The inside is separated with a strip of black cotton material with stencil embroidery around and odd pieces of jewelry on the corners. The outside border has the birthdays of the grandchildren. This quilt is made entirely of batik fabrics and is tied on the back.

It was an enjoyable day and a nice group of ladies.

Alice mentioned a new magazine will be launched in January for $12. I believe it is an online subscription from what I have read.

http://www.quiltpatternmagazine.com/

If you see Alice Wilhoit's classes, I recommend you attend.

Halloween postcards and teapot

The first postcard has a wheel barrow full of pumpkins. The wheel is from Patty Duff's Motif Book, pumpkins from Sherry Matthew, and the bat and pumpkin edging are from Mark Myers.

The second postcard is crazy quilt with Mark Myer's ghost and Sherry Matthew's pumpkin. The pumpkin edging is from Heidi Sunday. The pumpkin edgings are very similar. Sherry has added one more round to the pumpkin and her leaves are different

The Pumpkin teapot is an easy pattern from Martha Ess. This makes a nice tea cup coaster.

Halloween

Tis the Month for goblins and ghosts and OH MY!!! The postcard has Mark Myers tatted bat and ghost. The pumpkin is from Sherry Matthews. Halloween cards are from Dover and Patty Duff's angel with a bead attached.

Shirt Edging

Gapsosis!! Oh My!! I just started the chain and trefoils when Jon posted "tatting Peek-Boo-Boo". (http://tatsaway.blogspot.com) A great tutorial on gaps between rings and chains. My first 2 trefoils and chains are on the shoulder seam where it is not too noticeable. However, the rest of the edging has no Gapsosis!! Thank you Jon!!!!

The edging is in the book, "Contemporary Tatting" by Judith Connors.

The tatted edging was washed and sewn by machine with invisible thread to the shirt. Only the chain was stitched down. This makes it easy to throw in the washer and dryer and edging will not come off nor does it have to be ironed. Also the edging can be taken off and used again. I used glass pink beads and the color remained the same after washing. Gina from "A Tatting Goddess" had pink beads on a cross and when washed the pink also washed away from the bead..

Chicken Quilt

I have a UFO quilt almost finished. The outside sunflower and leaves were finished in 2002! The leaves and sunflower are hand appliqued and the tulips are machine with invisible thread. A month ago I finished machine appliqueing the chickens. Now I am working on the border. The pattern did not have a border so I had to design one to make it fit on a queen bed. This pattern was from Quiltmaker, Spring of 2002. I will machine quilt it on my sewing machine. It will be a gift to my Mom, "The Chicken Lady", for Christmas!

Hummingbird

It must be critter day here at the ranch! This morning I almost stepped on a Black Chin Hummingbird. I thought it was a mouse! It was cold here (45) and he probably was trying to get warm by borrowing into the warm gravel. I picked him up and put it onto the ledge of the birdhouse. Went out to check on him and he fell into the flowers. So I put him into the geranium pot. After 2 hours he was gone. We feed about a dozen hummers and have 3 feeders which have to be filled every 2 days. Yesterday, my DH left the kitchen door opened and a baby Whip Tail Lizard came on in! Found him this morning and shooed it in a box and took him out to the garden. He must be hungry and thirsty. Still working on apples, froze 20 pts and today I made 2 qts of apple cider. That is one of the things I miss from New York.

County Fair 2010

Here are my tatted entries for the County Fair. Also entered flowers, jams and other crafts. Received 9 blues, 7 reds and 2 whites. Happy with the results and the reds and whites makes you try harder next time. But how do you tell a flower you must be beautiful and be on your best behavior!!! This lady went out to the Juniper Tree and just snapped off a branch and got a blue! Never cleaned up the raw edge of the branch....

In another post I wrote about the doily losing its pattern because of the variegated threads. However, using the white then the red to outline it shows off the tatting pattern. There is still one more round to go and it will be in white.

Each motif of the white were individually tatted and joined to the variegated only. When joining the last round with the red thread you had to be careful not to twist the white motif. If it did get twisted you will have the red showing through the picot that you joined with.

garden

The Finches and Orioles are having a good lunch on my peach and apple trees. I have picked the top half and have a pie tin flashing and making noise but it does not bother the birds one bit! I just saw one fly off so I will have to pick the bottom peaches and freeze them when they become ripe. These are the nicest Gala apples we have in a long time and they are crisp and juicy. Just like the birds like also! The Delicious will not be ready till Sept. The last picture are the tomatoes, corn, asparagus and the apple trees. We have already frozen 14 qt of corn and this is the last planting. We have been eating fresh tomatoes and only canned 3 pts. They seem to be slow ripening this year.

Tatting Book

Handy Hands had a 15% off and I took advantage of it. Some of the new beautiful Lizbeth threads I purchased and Mark Myers "Tatted Gathering of Angels". Lots of nice angels to tat with good instructions. Through another company, I purchased the Embroidery Book by Country Bumpkin Publications for half price. This has excellent instructions with lots of illustrations.

Red and white Doily

This is a doily from Nancy Tracy's site, www.be-stitched.com, "Mom's Pink Doily". It is tatted with size 20 Lizbeth #151-Angels Love.The pattern is beginning to get lost in the infusion of colors. As you can see on the last round I tatted 2 white medallions and 2 variegated medallions. The variegated were cut out and I continued all the way around with only the white. It looks much better. While in New York in June I finished all 16 white medallions. It is repeating the same pattern and after the second one, you could do it in your sleep! So while you are visiting you can tat. I am waiting for my order from Handy Hands and start the next round in solid Christmas Red-#671.

Pop a Bobbin Tatting Shuttle

My daughter sent me a Pop-A-Bobbin Tatting Shuttle for Mother's Day gift. I did a little tatting with it and I love it. Works great. It is solid wood and does not give like the plastic ones. However, it is thicker and if you have very small hands it might present a problem.

It took me some time to get use to the thickness of it and I like the hook. Very precise. I am very happy and pleased with my gift!