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.