Piddling......

 Another prayer shawl on the needles

 I have the wedding sampler finished except a few details

and names and date.  The colors are more muted than this shows.

 Sock yarn waiting to be knitted into Christmas gifts

These two tatting pieces are some piddling I was doing
working with the use of buttons.  I need much more
practice.

This hummingbird feeder is on our den window.  It is so much fun to watch them fight over it.
I had not filled it and placed it on the window and I looked and there was a
hummingbird hovering at the window looking for the feeder.  It is amazing to
me how they are able to travel so far and come back to the same feeder year
after year. 

Love,

Marie

Give Away for Christmas- and the winner is...

I would love to give away six of my tatted snowflakes for you to use in your Christmas decorating. My tatting is not perfect but I enjoy doing it. If you love handmade items, just leave me a comment and I will draw a winner on November 21. I will notify you and you can then give me a mailing address. Tell your friends.

AAmber from Making a Home is the winner. If you have not visited her, I know you would enjoy her blog. Congratulations Amber and I hope that you will enjoy using them. My friend's granddaughter, Ryan, drew the number for me. Ryan is a first grader and she was delighted to choose who won.

Christmas in July

I am in between projects and had not tatted in a while so I picked up some number 10 crochet cotton and my shuttles and started making some snowflakes. I will tell you about my grandmother below. I watched her tat as I was growing up but never tried to do it. In later years, my mother gave me my grandmother's shuttles and I ordered a book to teach myself. I bought Tatting by Cathy Bryant. This is a great book with good illustrations. The snowflakes above are from the book, Tatted Snowflakes by Vida Sunderman.

Grandmother Thompson
1887-1962

The above picture was taken when my grandmother was a student at "Normal College". She met my grandfather when he went to the college to visit his sister. Grandmother was always doing some needlework. This is the grandmother who gave me the desire to learn to tat. She helped me make a quilt when I was 12 years old. It was simple--just small squares sewn together, but I have the memories of the time we spent together.
Below I want you to see the book and shuttles that belonged to my grandmother. I watched her make the most beautiful lace to be placed on handkerchiefs. She used very small thread and sometimes sewing thread. Wow! I do good to get it done with size 10.

This book is STAR BOOK No. 41 - cost-10 CENTS
AMERICAN THREAD COMPANY - Copyright-1946
This book has crochet and tatting edgings. The tatting edgings
were suggested to be used on slips.

This is the caption above the tatting patterns. It amazes me that
my grandmother went to all this trouble for something that would
not be seen. My Grandmother Thompson did handkerchief edgings
and a lot of crochet.

One of the first attempts I made at tatting was
the snowflakes I used on the tree in our bedroom.
The tree has dolls, snowflakes, antique balls, and
white lights. These are the same snowflakes
that I am doing now.