New Round Robin

Well, I signed up for another Round Robin. This one is "Extreme Tatters" and I'm the group leader for this one. There are only 4 of us in this exchange, so we each have to tat 3 items (one for each of the other participants). The goal of this Round Robin is to design new items or work a technique that is new/difficult/always wanted to try. I am planning on working on designs for my 2nd tatting instruction pattern book. Because we are designing new things, we have 3 weeks for each stage instead of the usual 2 weeks to mail. I have to mail the first item by March 22nd.

Warm Weather

We had been having really cold weather for a lot of the winter with the temperatures being below normal. Finally, it warmed up this last week! We had temperatures in the 40's and even up to 60° on Tuesday!! Needless to say, most of the snow has melted!

In the front yard, the only snow left is where it had gotten piled up from clearing the driveway and road.

There is no snow in the backyard!

They are saying we are supposed to be getting 4-8" of snow next Wednesday, though.

Dryer Balls

I decided I wanted to make some wool dryer balls. I had heard that they help cut down on static and drying time. I decided to use acrylic yarn for the center and not "waste" the wool yarn!

I had 3 skeins of this coral-ish, rust acrylic yarn, so I decided to use it as the centers.

The wool is some of the scratchy mystery wool that we tried to dye with natural things.

I started winding centers until they looked about right and went on to the next. I was aiming for 4, and ended up with a little 5th one.

The majority of the centers are 7"

Here is one wound with the wool next to a center.

I got 2 out of each of the lighter colored wools and used the entire red-ish yarn on the smallest center.

I put the dryer balls into these socks to felt them. But it didn't seem to work very well as the yarn wasn't sticking to itself. So I stuck them into mesh bags for a second try

I didn't tie the bags well enough and they all came out! One had its end come loose, but this one was a mess!

This is what they look like after the 2nd washing and drying. The yarn is still not stuck to itself, but they did shrink some.

Reading Time

The kids love books and here are the 3 of them reading together.

Sweater Longies Number 3

I have had a couple of sweaters that I got at Goodwill that I'd never used and I decided to go ahead and make a pair of longies out of the arms of them and then save the body parts for the new baby.

Here is the sweater

I added a gussett to add width in the crotch.

The gussett pinned in

.

The gussett sewn in.

Ready to sew the front and back seams.

Zig-zag the edges.

I sewed a casing on the top and added elastic.

William modeling the finished longies.

Smiling Faces

Just some pictures of the kids I took the other day.



























































Emily wanted me to take pictures of these rubber/plastic turtles she was playing with...

Butterfly Round Robin is Finished

I tatted all 5 of my butterflies to send out and received all 5 of the butterflies from my partners. I designed all the butterflies that I tatted, which was a goal of mine for this round robin.

Tatted for Sharol

Tatted for Meme

Tatted for Dyan

Tatted for Melissa

Tatted for Aileen

Received from Aileen

Received from Dyan

Received from Melissa

Received from Meme

Received from Sharol