Tattingchic is celebrating her 100th post and her blogaversary

Tattingchic is having a celebration. Go on over to her blog and register. She's having a great giveaway. She's giving away the book, Learn to Tat. This is the book I followed along on and it really helped me learn to tat again. It has a DVD along with it. She's got other giveaways too, even some tatting! Click here and it will take you to her blog to register and tell her congratulations.

Tyler Texas Quilt show and another tatted Heart

Saturday, I went with my sister to the Tyler Quilt show. Very nice show. They used to have alot more hand quilted quilts but like everywhere else, they are showing more and more machine quilted quilts. The quilts were lovely. I took lots of pictures but did not get a chance yet to upload them. I will try to do that tonight. I'll just give you a sampling of the quilts. I haven't been to this show in about 4 years and I wasn't disappointed. It is a small show but well worth the drive to see it. The town of Tyler too, is well worth the drive to see the lovely azaleas all in bloom. We toured the town a little bit after the show and had a lovely time.

There are some other small shows coming up soon:
Terrell, Tx
The Terrell Jubilee is in April and they have a small show and craft show to go along with the town celebration. It is in April and I'll give more details later.

There's the Bluebird Fesival coming up and it's Wills Point, Tx. More info to follow. I have the info at home and I'll post some dates later tonight.

I also finished tatting another heart. The pattern was called 34 hearts by Emma Crew. This was a fun pattern to tat and didn't take very long either. I will post a pic of it tonight too. I want to make this one again with a smaller thread. I used size 10 thread on this. I just bought some Lizbeth thread I want to try out on this pattern....I bought this thread from Hobby Lobby! They are now carrying Lizbeth thread and I am very excited about that.

more to follow tonight.

Tatting Tuesday and miscellaneous

Tuesday night we worked on some little bluebonnet pins and we practiced the Self closing mock ring. Very interesting technigue, not the easiest thing to do but with practice, it will get easier, I hope. I had to start over a few times, I couldn't get my loop to close. I was using two colors of thread and I kept getting too far away from my knot. It would not allow me to close the ring. I'm going to try a simple pattern with it and see if I can do it. I'll update you later in the week.

This tatting group is so much fun. We laughed and cut up all night. We even got some things done while having a good time.

This group of ladies is a very talented group. We have ladies that do all kinds of crafts. One of these lovely ladies, Mary Jo, is a knitter and she showed me how to cast on the Moebius scarf. I'm working on this during my lunch breaks this week. I've wanted to make one of these for a long time now so when it's finished I can scratch this off my list of things to do in my lifetime...(I have a very simple bucket list! )

Last night was my last official employee meeting at the quilt shop. I will miss working there but I will not miss having more time to dedicate to my projects and my off time. I will still be teaching a few classes now and again but no more working on the weekends! Woo hoo, I get to sleep late on Saturdays again. This Saturday is my last day at the shop. It feels kind of strange to be leaving but I know it's going to be better for me. I'll get to spend some more time with my quilt buddies and my grandkids on the weekends.

Tonight is our small group quilt meeting. I haven't been home one night this week and I haven't sewed all week. It will be nice to get back to my sewing machine and make sure it still works. til next time.....

New Church Home

Well, we finally found a new church home. We have been just dangling for years. We've visited several different churches and nothing ever fit or should I say, we didn't fit with it. We found this one and we both knew and felt that this was it. I was so excited and happy to finally get back into a church that I can be useful at. Anyway, I just had to share this happy news. Here are two of my favorite verses. I thought as long as I was sharing about finding a new church home, I might as well share these too. Have a wonderful day. Til next time....

Philippians 4:8 (New International Version)
8Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

Matthew 7:7-8 (New International Version)

Ask, Seek, Knock
7"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 8For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.

(Galatians 5:22-23)
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.”

New tatting motifs and some more hearts

Ok, here's some pictures of some little motifs I've made this past week. Last week I blogged about being frustrated with my tatting. Several ladies commented about it and I got some good advice. One thing that helped me was to stop what I was tatting that I was so aggravated about and just go back to some easy things. I did just that. Here's some nice easy tatting that I did this week. I'll go back and look at that pattern again later. Not enough time right now with the quilt show coming up,next week will be less stressful.


Here's the little snowflake that we worked on at the tatting meeting the other night. This was the beadwork tatting we did...I still have to hide my threads.









The little hearts are not right. I'm going to go back and re tat the pattern again. I really think there is an error in the pattern and I'll look at it again.






What do you do with your mistakes? Do you save them or toss tham? I think Ill save them and put them on some crazy quilting later.

E-Tatters

Etatters has moved,or should we say is in the process of moving. The new site will be intatters and here's the website: http://www.intatters.com/. or just click on the link below and come see us. I don't think they have any new buttons yet but when they do, I'll change them for you. The site is a work in progress, so please give it a few days, months and should be up and running smoothly shortly. Come check us out...

Please join me at the Referral Link for LindaKay at:
http://www.intatters.com/index.php?referrerid=110

Raining, the Dallas Quilt Show and tatting group

Yeah, it's raining! I am so glad to see the rain. I don't like to drive in it but we sure needed it. I wish I could stay home and enjoy it more but I'll suffer and stay at work and listen to it and look at it fall outside the window at my office. It's turned a little cool too and that's refreshing. I guess this will be our last cool off before hot weather gets here. I had to pull my jacket out again this morning. I'm glad I didn't pack them away yet. Keep on raining!
I heard it was going to stay like this for at least 2-3 days. I just don't want it to flash flood. I remember 2 or 3 years ago (I don't remember when it was but it is the same weekend we had the Dallas Quilt show) and it rained so hard that part of the building flooded. Several cars were flooded too. One of them belonged to a friend of mine and she had to have all new interior put in her car. She made out pretty good. They had to re-do something with her motor and it's like having a new car. Anyway, there were no quilts ruined and no one hurt in the flood and that was the important thing. Attendance at the show will probably be down because of the rain though and that will be a shame...We'll see what happens.

The Dallas Quilt show is this weekend, March 13-15 at Dallas Market Hall. If you get a chance come to the show. I will be working at the show for the quilt shop, so come see me. I'll be at the Quilters Connection booth....come say hi and tell me you read it on my blog. I would love to meet you.

Last night, I went to my tatting group and as usual, we had a great time. We worked on beading last night. I went home and finished what we did at the group and I will take a picture and post it this afternoon. We worked out of a book by Nina Liben? I'll correct the spelling later. We made a snow flake. I didn't know it was a snow flake. I made mine using navy blue thread and blue beads so it will classify as a night time snowflake. This was fun to do this one. Beads are very pretty but they are cumbersome to work with. It's like tatting a little bit....at first, it's hard to do and you feel awkward then after a while, you kind of get used to it. You become more comfortable, I guess that's what I should say. Anyway, there were 6 of us doing it and one of us finished it in class. Of course, the one that finished it is the teacher's pet. Yes, Mickey, I am talking about you! All of them are turning out very pretty and next week, I'll ask everyone to bring them and I'll post them for all to see. Ok, I have to go look out the window again and watch the rain before I go back to work, til next time.....

Happy Birthday Barbie!

I can't believe it, Barbie turning 50! You know what they say? 50 is the new 30, well she's definitely made a believer out of me. I still have some of my Barbie dolls and I wish I had all of them. My favorite was the Barbie with the wigs. I'm sure I can get that one again somewhere online for a substantial increase in price from what my Mom paid for it, but I'll stick to my memories. Happy Birthday B.

Texas Tech Pillowcases and bindings

I came home and attached another binding to one of my quilts. I will do the hand finishing later tonight and tomorrow night. Here are some pictures of what I have put the bindings on yesterday and today...



This is an antique quilt that I bought last year and I put it aside to bind at a later time. The later time has come. I put the binding on and started on the hand work but wanted to get the pillowcases done tonight too so I will finish this tomorrow. Don't you think this is a lovely quilt? I have covered up with it a few times without it being finished, but I was very careful with it. I think it will look great finished. I'm so excited!!











Here is the charity quilt I sewed together yesterday. I put the borders on it this afternoon. I dug around in my stash and came up with this orange fabric for the backing. I think they'll have to dim the lights for this one. Wow, this is bright but I hope some little person will like it...I had forgotten about this orange fabric(it's hard to forget this one!) It was just sitting there waiting for the right quilt to be put with and I think this one is it....What do you think? I'll have to wait til tomorrow or Saturday to pin baste it for machine quilting. I have run out of time tonight.









Last, but not least, I made these pillowcases for a friend at work. They are made out of Texas Tech fabric. She wanted the Texas Tech logo to go the right way and the fabric wasn't wide enough so I had to make the casing wider than I wanted. I think she'll like them anyway, at least, I hope so.






I have been busy tonight but it was alot of fun. Now, I'm going to eat something and watch TV. I DVR'd Grey's and Private Practice so now I get to enjoy those. Til next time....

Confused and frustrated about my tatting

I haven't posted anything about tatting this week as I'm kind of frustrated. I have gotten so confused and can't seem to work off the frustrations. When I'm trying to read a tatting pattern I get really aggravated. Some designers are very good and tell you when to turn your work, or reverse your work, some tell you exactly where to join and some do not. Some tell you to work clockwise or counter-clockwise but others do not. Some of the visual patterns are good and some are not.

I know tatting has been around for a long time and people just write up and publish their own patterns nowadays but I sure wish I was smart enough to look at them and tell where everything is supposed to go. I have stopped tatting two different patterns because I got about half way done on them and couldn't follow them to see how to finish. Talk about frustration! I will keep at it and work through this, I just needed to vent...

Working on some finishes

Last night I got home and got busy. I had my MIL's quilt to bind but had no binding fabric. I looked at the quilt and decided there was enough fabric to trim off (after machine quilting was done) to use for the binding. I trimmed it and cut the binding from that. Just enough! I sewed the binding on her quilt and will do the handwork tonight. Thursday is my TV night....can't miss Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice!

After I sewed that binding on, I pulled out another little quilt and cut the binding for it and sewed in on. Hopefully, I'll have time to finish that one tonight too. Lastly, I finished sewing all the blocks together for another charity quilt. Now all I have to do is put the borders on it. I'm going to just machine quilt it quickly. I'll get home today and work on it. Maybe I can finish the top and get it ready to be quilted before my shows come on... I felt so good getting these to this point. I felt like I really got some things done. I'll be able to check these off my list soon. I am so ready to start some new things but really do want to finish these first. I get such a thrill out of seeing a project through to completion.

I know I'll be able to get more of my quilts and projects done soon as I have decided after 10 years to quit working in a quilt shop. I turned my notice in but will be helping out through the end of March. I can't leave them in the lurch since March is quilt show month. I'll be working at the show for the shop and I'm looking forward to that. I'll get to see all the quilts and my friends too. It is alot of fun. I have one more class to teach then I'm taking a break from teaching too. I'm looking forward to sleeping late on Saturdays and sewing on my own stuff more...

Til next time....

Quilt Genie

I found this website a long time ago and I love it. It is a good tool and very helpful. It is called My Quilt Genie. It has calculators for bias binding, set in triangle calculators, shows quilt backings cut on the diagonal to fit your quilts, and lots of patterns. Check it out...here's the link.

Be sure and check out her blog too....You can get to her blog off of her website or here's a link for that. Quilt Genie.