Flowers from the garden...

Just thought I would share some pictures of flowers from the back garden...Sometimes I take my camera out to take pictures, or just my cell phone (the 8 mega pixel camera in my new phone is better than my camera...but I have needed thread and Mary Konior books more than a new camera right?)

Anyway.....flowers are something I love and taking photos of them is a long time hobby. I think I've been taking pictures of flowers since my parents got me my first camera at age 11 or 12...so some 25 years or so now. I don't have the worlds greatest camera right now...but I still think these are fun to play with and share........I enjoy all of the blooming things so much and thought you all might too.

It's been a bit cooler this week...some tolerable days or at least days that don't heat up so fast or where a storm comes in and cools things down a bit...so with the misters running we have been able to spend more time outdoors.  Rosie Posie loves this..."outside" being her favorite place.  We play in the pool, the water table, and the sandbox...we water the flowers and tomatoes and her own little toes, chase the puppies round, and well...you get the picture.  She is busy!

Sometimes I even get to tat a ring or two sitting in the shade of the tree...

Literally...a ring or two...

I barely got to start this Konior "Small Cross" pattern today...but tomorrow is another day...hopefully one with more tatting time!  Actually, I should get off of this computer and tat...the baby is asleep after all her busyness today and I might have a good hour to play with my shuttle and thread before I go to sleep myself!!!

A Gift of Hand Dyed Thread, Tatted Up...

I was the very lucky recipient of some of this beautiful hand dyed thread that Anika who blogs at Tatting It Up made...

I love the thread Anika!

It's such pretty colors...

She was going for Red, White, and Blue...I think she got it...

With a beachy vibe!  The blue is the exact shade of some beach glass I have...Gorgeous!!!

It was hard to decide what to do with this beautiful thread...and I mulled it over for quite a while before deciding on this pattern...

This is Mary Konior's Spinning Wheel Glass Mat done in size 20 HDT created by Anika...

This is absolutely my favorite piece of tatting I have completed to date...beautiful thread and an incredible pattern.  I now know why this is a favorite of Konior's to tat...the pattern is very fun to work and just gorgeous!  This will be #10 in my 25 motif challenge.

I still have a full shuttle's worth of this thread left...what to do with the rest...hmmm....more decisions to be made!  Oh...and I might have fallen in love with HDT and might have ordered some more from Lady Shuttlemaker...she had a Red, White, and Blue called Americana (for my stars) and another color that was based on rose petals that I maybe couldn't resist...

Flannel Receiving Blanket with Crochet Edging...

This is something I enjoy making...it's a simple single layer of flannel, hemmed with a quarter inch hem, with a crochet edging added.  I use about a yard of fabric.  The dimensions aren't that important, I like a nice big receiving blanket...or light blanket for summer.  This one is for my little Rosie Posie...it's been hot here and at 2 she has outgrown most of the receiving blankets we have.  This one is nicely sized for swaddling a little one or covering a toddler.  The butterfly and breast cancer awareness fabric is something my Mom gave me a yard of a couple of years ago...with the intent of a nice little blanket for the baby...it took a while to get to it though!  It was, however, worth the wait...

It turned out beautifully...

I used a size 10 variagated pink vintage J & P Coats thread, actually it took most of 2 partial (but fairly full) balls of this thread...

...making this a great way to use up all of the size 10 thread I have accumulated...

The scalloped edging is something I designed myself.

I felt it worked well with this fabric.

It's 3 rounds, the 1st is simply a single crochet foundation worked right on the blanket.

The 2nd row is 2 double crochet worked in each single crochet of the previous round.

The 3rd row is 10 triple crochet at the corner, skip one, slip stitch in the next, skip one, 5 double crochet in the next, skip one, 5 triple crochet in the next, repeat until corner. 

Sometimes you might have an odd number of stitches and the pattern doesn't quite meet up with the corner, so you can work a reduce one in when necessary by taking the first half of a slip stitch on the hook then slip stitch in the next and pull it through both loops.

This is crocheted fairly loosly to allow for some shrinkage of the thread in the wash...these will go in the washer and dryer and my experience has been that a border that is crocheted too tightly will shrink up too much and cause the blanket not too lay flat at the edges after a few washings.

At any rate...it's fun to do, and I thought I would share how I go about it.  My daughter loves this...she likes the lace I make for her and that makes me smile!

Wildflowers and Mountain Storms...

We took a drive up into the mountains today, just to get out of the heat and away from the city.  The wildflowers were spectacular...of of God's many versions of the lace I, and many of you, love to create...so I thought would share some of the beauty of the day...

My two beautiful girls went wading in a little mountain lake, and played with the lace like foam...

We enjoyed the scenery, the wind in the aspens, and a mountain storm...

...and we went home feeling cooled and refreshed, after so many hot summer days, just having spent a few hours enjoying nature's splendor and God's garden, viewing the lace found in flowers and foam and leaves and butterflies wings...

Red, White, and Blue...Stars!

I had it in my head that I really wanted to tat some pretty star ornaments in Red, White, and Blue for the 4th of July...This one is StarChic my Jon Yusoff.  It's a pretty little design, and a one shuttle pattern...nice and easy.

The difficult part is finding a varigated thread in the red, white, and blue colors I wanted.  I finally found two, an Aunt Lydia's in size 10 (used in the star shown here) and a vintage clarks's thread in about a size 70. 

I tried just this one motif with the Aunt Lydia's, it's just too soft a thread to tat nicely with...the colors don't actually run red, white, and blue either, but rather red, white, blue, white.  It was also too floppy to hang nicely until I starched it to the point of complete saturation.  You can see below that it is still not real stiff... 

I still like this little star though...and I think I'll count it as #9 in my 25 motif challenge!

The size 70 is simply too small...I want the star's to be larger than that...so I suppose I will just have to continue to look for what I want or tat sets of three stars, in white, christmas red, and maybe navy or a royal blue...I may play with that next. 

I do have a pretty bit of Anika's hand dyed thread from her giveaway in red, white, and blue to play with...it's a slightly softer red and such a pretty sea blue...reminds me of sea glass!  I'm working on a special little something with that, it's such lovely colors...and quite nice to tat with!

A Cross, Mary Konior's Mark My Words Once More...

Here is a little cross I had finished a while ago and hadn't posted.  I kept this one for myself, so still have it to post.  I love this pattern by Mary Konior, it is her Mark My Words Cross.  This is a pattern I keep coming back to...very pleasant and fun to tat...

This thread is also an absolute favorite of mine, I simply love the colors in this Lizbeth Vineyard Harvest thread...

It is quite petite, though very pretty, in this size 20 thread...

I have done this cross several times before in size 10, which I actually like better.  It's a little like Kirsti's Stumpy bookmark that way...it looks very nice in the larger thread, while most patterns are better done in something finer.

Oh...and I nearly forgot my cup of tea!  Well, one for my older daughter and one for me...