Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Tatted Scrunchy

I thought I'd share the pattern for a tatted scrunchy that I designed. I started out with a more complex pattern and it took a lot longer to finish! So I came up with a better design!








Sunday, November 23, 2008

Fall Leaf Shirts

The promised "Fall Shirts" are finished and worn today!


I had to pin on all the leaves. I made all the arrangements different, so they wouldn't all look the same!






Here is a close up of the leaves pinned on.
Next, came sewing the leaves all on. It took about 45 minutes to an hour to sew 1 shirt full of leaves.
Here we are all wearing our shirts. Although not much of the tatting shows!

I had to get out the fall tablecloth and snap a "portrait" of the kids in theirs!
I don't know what I'll do to hold my "backdrops" when I don't have someone in a crib--currently I drap one end over the side of the crib and let it hang down the side and just have the kids sit on it!



Saturday, November 22, 2008

The Leaves are DONE!

I got all the leaves tatted! Can I just say, size 70/80 thread is NOT my favorite size!?! I had it break 3 times on me and it is much harder to close the little rings!

Here are the finished Oak Leaves. The first one I did is on the left and the last on the right.






As I was doing the first one, I changed the design from the way I had drawn it because it didn't fit in the space I had. But I didn't like the big empty space at the top compared to the filled in area at the bottom. So I took out 2 rings at the bottom to see if that would even it out enough--it didn't. So then I changed the top to fill it in more. The red leaf actually is a little different that the multi-colored gold one as I changed the length of the chains on the bottom lobes. I tried the shorter chains on the middle lobe, too, but didn't like it so it is only shorter on one side. So in the end, all 5 leaves are a little different than each other!!

I decided while I was tatting leaves for the kids, I might as well do a shirt for Dan and myself, so here are the leaves for all of us starting with Dan on the top, then me, Sarah, Emily, and William's on the bottom. Did I mention I don't like size 70/80 thread?? As I was finishing the last of the leaves, I remembered that I was going to make some leaves in the size 40 that I have. That would have made a little bit smaller leaves for Emily's shirt (since their shirts are smaller), but I'm NOT doing 3 more leaves!!











It's hard to be still in the fall "mood" when it looks like this:









Wednesday, November 19, 2008

William's First Birthday

William's 1st birthday was on Sunday.



Here he is opening some of his gifts.










































































I did a "Noah's Ark" theme since I had some supplies left over from my baby shower.

The "Adult" cake




William's cake
































Will liked it a lot better after I gave him a fork!


























The girls had a "camp out" on their bedroom floor that night














Friday, November 14, 2008

Fall Leaves

I thought I'd let you see how I was doing on the tatted leaves for the kids's shirts!


I was originally going to do 2 leaves for each shirt, but I think that isn't going to be enough, so I decided to design a new leaf (Oak) which is in the bottom right corner of the picture. The leaf patterns are going to be in my new tatting pattern book which will be for holidays and seasons.








The kids checking out the leaves:




















William actually headed straight for my tatting shuttles!

Saturday, November 8, 2008

I Think I Need to Take a Detour!

Sarah has been asking for a "Fall" shirt. I looked at fabric today with the thought of applique-ing some leaves on a shirt. None of the fabric was conducive to this, so I decided I would just tat some leaves and attach them to a shirt.



Wal-Mart had long sleeve henleys on clearance so I got one for each kid in "their" color (Sarah's toys are marked with blue, Emily's with red, and Will's with green!)











I looked through my threads for varigated fall colors and didn't find much, so I may do some in solid colors, too.

The top row is Oren Bayan/Altin Basak 50, the first 2 on the bottom are Pearl Cotton 8, and the last 2 are size 80. I'm not sure if the Pearl Cotton would hold up to the washing and the first one won't work anyway, since it's just red and white!





Stay tuned!!



Friday, November 7, 2008

Butterfly Round Robin is Starting!

I have joined the Butterfly Round Robin from the Round Robin website. There are 6 of us participating and we will each tat a butterfly for each of the others. I decided I want to design a new butterfly for each exchange. I have the first one done and am starting on the 2nd, but I won't post the picture or pattern until they are received so I don't ruin the surprise! It's nice to be back in the tatting/designing world!

Thursday, November 6, 2008

I Update the Kids' Websites

I updated the BabiesOnline websites I have for the kids if you want to check them out!

http://www.babiesonline.com/babies/t/tiggertwo/
http://www.babiesonline.com/babies/d/doublefun/
http://www.babiesonline.com/babies/t/three4me/

Playing With Lego

The kids were actually all playing together with the same toy! Usually the girls don't want William to play with them or else he takes what they are playing with, but I guess there was enough to go around and make everyone happy!
























I love how Will is peeking into the box!













Raking Leaves

I decided that today was a great day to get the leaves raked off our deck since it is about 70° today!













































































We lost one of Will's shoes twice! But thankfully we found them again!




















































Check out Emily's choice of shoes! She's been doing that lately. I'm not sure if it's because the match isn't nearby and she doesn't want to search for it or if she just likes the look!

















Saturday, November 1, 2008

Pansy Angel


Here is my next free pattern:

http://www.freewebs.com/blossomsandblessingsdesigns/pansyangel.htm

Who Ya Gonna Call??

Ghostbusters!

This year for our annual Costume Party, my sister Rachel decided that we should co-ordinate and all go in a Ghostbusters theme.
I was in charge of making the nametags for the guys' suits. I wrote them out with a ruler and then transferred them to the fabric with dressmaker's carbon. I used the regular zig-zag function on my sewing machine to "embroider" them.















Rachel wanted me to make two 'Orange' (their last name) nametags for later







I sewed ghost costumes for the kids. They tied for 3rd place (with each other) in the costume contest at Meijer (our local supermarket) and each got a $5 gift card!



Here my mom (complete with broken hand) is helping me take the kids Trick-or-Treating to the downtown businesses.













Here is the Ghostbuster with the ghosts he "caught". (Although, the girls kept trying to catch Daddy!)














Here are all 3 Ghostbusters.













Dan is Peter Venkman from the movie and I'm Dana Barrett.
















My sister, Rachel (a lady ghost in the movie) and her husband, Jason (Ray Stantz in the movie). Rachel opted for colorful ghosts.













My brother, Dean (Egon Spengler from the movie) and his wife Lisa (Janine Melnitz from the movie)

(their kids were miscellanious animals and etc)









The food even had a "Ghostbusters" theme.
Spaghetti - proton streams
Jell-O - Slime
Mississippi Mud Pie - Stay Puft Marshallow goo
Punch - Slime
Twinkies - they used them as a demonstration
Veggie Pizza - "No Ghost" symbol






I made the "Veggie Pizza". It took about 40 minutes to decorate! I should have used cauliflower for the ghost to be a "true" veggie pizza, but I used Mozzerella cheese. The red and black parts are both bell peppers.








Sarah and Katherine visiting