A jar of thread

My husband and I were on our way to his family's place on Friday when we stopped at a couple of antique stores. At the second place I found a half gallon jar full of thread. I wasn't sure if I should get it or not so I put it back and wandered the rest of the shop.

I put a lot of things back as I 'think about it' and never go back to buy it, but this jar of thread would not leave my mind. A quick loop back to the far corner and I had an early Christmas gift for myself.

There are 29 brand new balls of Lily brand thread, never been used and clean. Have no idea what, or if, I'll use any of it, but the jar looks pretty sitting on the coffee table.

Motif 39

This is Frosted Star doily from Traditional Tatting Patterns by Rita Weiss. The colors were inspired by one of @lakesuperior_beachglass stacked seaglass photos.

I've been wanting to do a seaglass inspired doily for a while. And this pattern with its little inset flowers reminded me of seaglass on a pebble-y beach.

When I lived on Whidbey Island, WA looking for seaglass was one of the precious few things that made me happy and peaceful to the core of my soul.  I enjoyed every cold, windy and sometimes rainy minute of it. Now I'm landlocked 2300 miles away but have my little jars of seaglass to remind me of the Pacific Northwest.

Motif 37 and 38

I had to hold off on finishing Clash of Kings until I made the bookmark for Storm of Swords. This is the Overlapping Chains bookmark by Jon Yusoff.

Motif 36

This is the 5 rounds of Rectangular Luncheon Set from Anne Orr's Classic Tatting Patterns. 

 This is another project in my resolution to make something from each tatting book I own. I have never made a single color doily. They have all been multi colored or made with variegated thread. I was doing pretty good until I got to the little trefoils in the corner and a little voice said, 'those would look nice in white'. That was a tough voice to ignore. Then the voice said the rings in the last 2 rounds needed to be white as well.

Jan Stawasz doily in progress

Completed round 12. There are 3 more rounds to go! From Tatting Theory and Patterns by Jan Stawasz. It's about 24" across at this point.

Motif 35

This is a father's day gift for my dad.

It is my variation of Fiona T/One Mad Tatter's variation of Anne Bruvold's TARDIS bookmark.

I made Fiona's version but wanted something a little longer so I added another row of rings to the filled in area.

This is the 3rd one I've made and with it I've decided that split chains aren't all that bad. A bit fiddly and I need to be in the right frame of mind to do them, but not as intimidating as I once thought. Shout out to everyone on YouTube you has made a video demo'ing this technique. I watched every one of them at least twice.

Motif 34

I have a new job! YEAH! I can buy more thread and books and food!

I have a new job. Meh. No more spending my days tatting and reading and hanging with my dog.

Where I work the time cards are kept in a little basket and each time to clock in or out you have to shuffle through to find yours. When I started I was surprised no one was doing anything to make theirs stand out. So after my 3rd week I got the idea of making a butterfly paperclip for mine.

It looks nice here but when I left for lunch it was a but rumpled. It's clipped where people usually grab the cards, so hopefully moving it to the top of the card will help it survive.

I don't know exactly where the pattern came from. I googled tatted butterflies for inspiration and the diagram came up in the image search. Maria was the only name on it.

This is my first time tatting on a paperclip. Several were chunked until I got the hang of joining to a paperclip.

Motif 33

This is Motif #18 from DMC's Tatting for Today. The thread is Lizabeth 108 Sherbert Delight and 644 Boysenberry Dk.

Thimble jar

We went to NW Ark to visit my mother-in-law last month and of course we had to check out a few local antique malls. Hubs collects double edge safety razors and shaving brushes (and actually uses them and displays them nicely in our bathroom). I collect clovers, specifically 4 leaf clovers, but anything that has clovers on it gets my attention. But just because it has clovers on it doesn't mean I buy it, I have to find it pretty. You wouldn't think so, but there's some ugly stuff out there with clovers on it. 

Anyway, I digress. 

At one booth there was this thimble jar. I've never seen anything like this before and was afraid to fall in love with it before I looked at the price. I turned the little hang tag over. $2! Yes, just $2! Let the falling in love commence! (I also found a pretty little clover tea cup and saucer a few booths over for $5 which is a very good buy as they usually go for $18 and up).

It looks big in the photo, but it's smaller than a cookie jar, about 5" tall. It's a nice little storage container for a few balls of thread. Kinda wish it was glass so you can see the thread.

Fast forward a few weekends and we're in Enid, OK at a little shop outside of town. I found the same jar. OMG! I could have a set! How cute will they look on either side of the DVD player?! $17? Um...no thank you. I may have paid that if I didn't already have one and had never seen one before. But it's just weird to have never seen anything, then see it twice in 2 weeks. 

Motif 32 Springtime Doily

This is Springtime Doily from The Tatter's Treasure Chest edited by Mary Carolyn Waldrep. This is another one of my paint color chip projects.  My tatting group loved the colors. I'm not sure if I like the silver on the outer round. I went back and forth on doing the last round with purple rings and green chains, or doing them both in the same color. 

I have two purples in my stash that I could have gone with, the one I used was a bit on the redish side, and the other one was a bit more blue. Neither one matched the color chip, and I could have used either one as they both looked good with the green. I went with the purple I did because I already had an almost full shuttle of it loaded and ready to go from a previous project.

The photo has a bit of a blueish cast to it, the colors are lavender, mid-green and silver/grey.

Motif 31 edging

This is Lace #9 from Tatted Handkerchiefs by Kirstine Nikolajsen and Inga Nikolajsen. The thread is size 80 DMC.

Motif 30 triangle motif

  
This is from Tatting, A Potpourri of Patterns. It is 5 individual triangle motifs joined together. I made it in size 100 which taxed my eyes a bit but I love the delicate lacy-ness of it.  The pattern required different lengths of bare thread depending on if you are working on a side or corner. I did the best I could considering I didn't use any kind of guage.

Here is an individual motif. I thought about pressing it before taking a photo, but with something that small I'd probably just burn myself so I flattened it against the table and hoped for the best.

This pattern is also a part of my resolution project.

Motif 29 Pretty Petal Doily

Pretty Petal Doily from Traditional Tatting Patterns by Rita Weiss. 

For the new year I've decided to tat at least one item from every tatting book I own. I have about 50 books. The books I haven't worked from (about half) will be the focus of this undertaking. I don't expect to finish in a year but I do expect to seriously bust my thread stash and maybe learn a technique or two.  

This doily is the first of resolution projects.

And keeping me company is my faithful tatting buddy, Whiskey, who turns 12 today. Happy birthday, Whiskey Dog, at least one of your hairs is (accidently) tatted in all my projects. 

Motif 27 and 28 Cobweb Doily

 

 I tagged along with The Hubs to Home Depot a few months ago. While he was doing his thing I entertained myself in the paint aisle. I love looking at the paint cards. This one caught my eye as I have thread similar to those colors. At one time I probably did hold the balls together but wasn't thrilled with the combo.

So I brought the paint card home, dug out those threads and made a pair of Cobweb Doilies from Tatting Doilies and Edgings by Rita Weiss.

I had two colors that sorta matched the lighter mauve so figured a little color play was in order. The ecru-y color on the card has a weird green tint to it but regular ecru looks just fine.

Since then I've picked up another card and as soon as I finish a few things I'll find a pattern for that.

Motif 26 Lavender & Lace

This is Lavender & Lace from "Tatting Doilies & Edgings" edited by Rita Weiss. It's 4 of the motifs joined together.

The thread is vintage Star brand in a peach varigation. It came from a bag of tatting threads and shuttles my sister-in-law picked up at a thrift store. I used up pretty much all of what was on the ball.