A Little Inspiration . . .

I've been focusing a lot on work and other things lately and . . . not much tatting.  BUT, last weekend at our Twin Cities Tatters gathering, one of our tatters shared some tatting books she found at her library.  My own library does not have many tatting books, but she was lucky to find several!

This one really caught my eye:

It's by Tomoko Morimoto, the daughter of the one and only Teiko Fujito.  This book is from 2012, but I don't recall seeing it mentioned much before.  It has really nice motifs and small items to work up quickly, plus a few beautiful doilies.  This book, and some talk of Renulek's beautiful doily tat-alongs, really inspired me to get a new tatting project started.  My T.A.T. projects are going kinda slow - not inspiring enough to hold my interest at the moment, but I was really thinking about getting back into the tatting spirit.

So, I ordered the book, and got it Friday - the same day I found out I have "Trigger Thumb".  Yep.  Tendonitis in my right thumb/hand. Dr.'s orders were "no use of the right hand"  all weekend, plus anytime outside of WORK for a minimum of 1 week. [I'm already finding it hard to hold a glass of wine in my left hand, ha!]

It's not like I've been idle since my last post (in JUNE) though.  I have picked strawberries and made jam (twice), read a couple of books, started a book club of high-school friends, and felt the sewing bug bite hard enough to visit the quilt shop and make a few aprons.  Not to mention working.  A lot.

This simple apron pattern has a dishtowel attached to the front - something I thought would be very handy, as I'm always looking for the towel to wipe my hands on.  (Usually, my butt is covered in flour and I completely miss the apron anyway.) 

 I  made one apron for each of my girls, and eventually made one for myself too :) 

And, in the latest family news, my baby is engaged.  This little cutie-patootie has turned into a beautiful young woman who is bubbling over with joy!  And who has lots of ideas and plans that Mom gets to be in on :) It's so exciting to watch.

Isn't life grand?

Can You Believe it's June?

Two months have gone by since my last blog post - life has taken over!  I'm working a new job within the same office, while still doing the old job until someone is hired.  Makes for an exhausted brain.  And now it's June (can you believe it?) - graduations, weddings and so much gardening work to fill my "spare" time.

I've been tackling my T.A.T. projects, though bit by bit and slowly as time (and well, desire) allows.  Currently I'm working on varying picots - so many ways to add dimension and intrigue to a tatted piece with a picot alone.  If I were a designer, I'd be up all night trying to figure out some clever pattern using interesting picots!  I'm a much better pattern-follower than designer ;)  I will be sharing some more of my thoughts on unique picots.

Minnesota has finally decided to have some Spring/Summer weather.  After all the wintry depression I posted about, it's time to share some of my beautiful views of late!

My birds are back, and so much fun to watch - bluebirds, pheasants, orioles and finches:

We have deck weather again!

And even when it's rainy, it's a beautiful shade of green out there. So, so much better than all that snow we had.

Pinterest, Shutterfly and Mod Podge

. . . oh my!

Sometimes I love a quick craft. Not something that looks cheap or homemade, but something quick and easy that actually looks pretty nice.  

OK, I'm too cheap to buy wall art too.  And I love many ideas I find on Pinterest.  Oh, and I love taking photos too - I just don't always know what to do with them.  Shutterfly.com has allowed me to put my photos in books, on mugs, and make cards.  So I put all that together and made a piece of wall art for the walls in my freshly painted home office with a photo I took a couple of years ago in Gamla Stan, Sweden.

I just love this picture of a door in the old historic town.  I just think it's a cool old door.  (Funny to see the Operation ID sticker on the window - I thought that was a U.S. thing.) 

I cropped the door from this original photo:

The idea on Pinterest was to mod podge a photo to a canvas.  Hhhmmm.  I received an email from Shutterfly offering a FREE 16x20 print.  JoAnn's had their canvases on sale for 50% off.  Already have the mod-podge.  Hhhhmmmm.  Ordered the print for about $6 shipping, bought an 18x24 canvas, and . . .

I painted the outer edges of the canvas black with some acrylic paint, sponged on a layer of mod-podge and adhered the print to the canvas.  (This is where you need to press and position the print, as well as make sure there are no bubbles.)  Easy peasy.  Two coats of mod-podge over the top of the whole thing, and ta da!  An 18 x 20 piece of wall art in about one hour that easily cost less than $20.

 It looks even better in person - my coworkers were impressed, and there are now several photos and ideas spinning.  I have a couple more photos of my favorite canines that could work . . .

I Love Cultural Stuff :)

I have always been interested in cultural things - all of the different traditions and crafts from around the world are amazing! I don't know where this interest really started, but I was exposed to folks from other countries periodically ever since I was a little girl. I've also always been interested in learning about my own family heritage and traditions. 

I recently asked an old friend (Helen) that is 100% Ukranian to show me how she makes her beautiful Pysanky eggs at Eastertime. An interesting process, indeed!  The egg, the designs and the dye all have very detailed, symbolic meanings.  Helen uses the wax resist method that she learned as a child, so I found out how difficult it is to 'write' a design with a line of hot wax.  Each layer of the design is 'written' in wax with a special tool (kistka), and whatever color is under the wax remains as it is placed in the next dye color.  This wax-relief method of coloring works in reverse of how you might paint layers of color.

In any case, it's very difficult to keep the wax lines nice and straight.  With some practice, there are some beautiful designs to be made!

Finding out we were using raw eggs was a little intimidating.  Some people blow the egg out, but Helen has always just used raw eggs brought to room temperature.  The egg eventually just dries up, and is, of course, sturdier to work on than a blown out egg shell.  She does not have many eggs left from over the years, because they do tend to break in storage sometimes.  Apparently dogs like to eat them as well (eeewww) so keeping them out of danger becomes a necessity.  The smell could be pretty awful, to say the least.  

Two layers of wax and dye at this point - one covering what will remain white, and one covering what will remain yellow.

Above is the egg (on the left below) after every color has been dyed.  I covered the large areas that were to remain red with wax, and it went into the black dye last.  After all the dyeing was complete, I held it over the flame on the stove to melt all the wax and wipe it off.  

I remember my mom making some very pretty Easter eggs by painting designs with melted crayon wax onto the eggs with a toothpick.  The colored wax was the design on the white eggs.  This was a process as you can imagine - the egg AND the melted wax had to be just the right temperature for everything to work properly. I'll have to ask her where she learned that and what country/culture that was from?

I accomplished making these two very basic Pysanky eggs in a few hours.  I don't think they turned out too bad for a first try :) 

Somewhere in Mexico . . .

. . . there's a Flowering Quatrain bookmark.

[Free pattern found HERE]

Very much like this one:

I was enjoying my break from this Minnesota winter on a beach in Mexico, when a vendor noticed me tatting and asked about it.  He was so interested, and wanted to see how it was done.  I showed him, and we chatted about it for a bit.  I told him if I had one finished, I would give it to him.  "You'll finish soon" he said, "I'll be back tomorrow"  [No pressure!] and off he went.

I did finish, but didn't see him the next day.  I left the bookmark with my aunt while I was off shopping for an afternoon, and sure enough, he stopped by to find me.  My aunt gave him the bookmark, and he was so thrilled by it!  He came back several times to say thanks, but I hadn't returned yet. He didn't work the following day, so I never did see him again.  

So, somewhere in Mazatlan is a Flowering Quatrain bookmark being thoroughly enjoyed by a local beach vendor.  Funny how tatting gets around!