Last week me and mine traveled to the great state of Maine for a summer holiday with Big Daddy's family. We left precisely as the heat wave hit and so missed the 7 to 10 days of over-100-degree F (37C) heat and power outages.
Thank goodness the hounds were boarded. They "enjoyed" (because they hate boarding) cool, generator-powered AC and light during the worst of the power outages.
It was cool up north, but there was precious little to do for a biting fly and mosquito magnet (such as I am) while "da boyz" bonded with family. So, I tatted.
The long drive was perfect for making "strings of rings" that Georgia Seitz needs for her Palmetto Tat Days scholarship quilt project. Here is my first string in progress. The photo was taken in the Danbury, CT, hotel where we stopped overnight after the first day's travel.
Travel day 2 saw the completion of the first string of Josephine rings and the start of a second. For those who like to know, these rings are tatted in Lizbeth
® 40 #167 Jungle Greens.
Two UFOs were completed in Maine: Maus' Old Fashioned Heart © 2000
Etha Schuette (January, 2000) and Regal Snowflake © 2011 La Cossette.
Round 1 of Old Fashioned Heart was done before the trip. Undecided as to what color beads to use for (what I will call) the pin-stripe joins, I went on a bead-buying spree. After several trials and much tribulation, I used size 11 light green seed beads.
Just had to share this point of progress. It reminds me of a ballerina's tutu.
Et
voilà -- all finished (unblocked). My mother-in-law asked if she could keep this, she liked it so much. She agreed to let me enter it in the county fair and mail her the heart after judging.
Thank you again, Maus, for sharing this pattern. No matter how many times or ways I tat this heart, it steals my heart with it's old-fashioned charm and perfect shape. It's a keeper!
I also tatted a few Washington, DC Cherry Blossoms © 2012 Anita Barry. My mother-in-law asked if she could keep these too. Tatting was the only home art she never taught herself from a book. Recently she learned that her mother tatted and shared this photo with me.
It is her mother, Jenny (Hall) Young, who died at the age of 39 from spinal meningitis. This photo was taken around 1911 or so when she was in her 20s. Her collar edging is tatted. I love the fabric-covered buttons and other hand-made details in her dress!
But I digress.
A second, elegant (as yet unblocked) Regal Snowflake © 2011 La Cossette was completed as I lounged in an overstuffed chair (my MIL referred to it as the "fat boy" chair) watching a charm of hummingbirds zip and flit around two hummingbird feeders.
Tatting while hummingbird watching is as enjoyable as taking tea while tatting. You can bet your sweet bippy I will be hanging a hummingbird feeder outside my window for future Tatting Tea Tuesdays!
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