Has it really been 2 weeks?

 Events:

I volunteered at a charity golf tournament. And I saw a heron.

 

Hurricane Helene hit North Carolina.

I finished tatting the carnation.

Another of my aunts died (this morning). 

I tatted an ornament for competition. 

Went to Greensboro to celebrate my Dad's birthday (belatedly). 

I volunteered to be a pirate on Talk Like a Pirate Day at the Emergency Preparedness Event (to attract attention and hand out cards with a link on emergency planning website). That's professional make up by the way, marred by wearing glasses as I ate lunch.

Progress and Plans

 Tri-Tatters met today. Only 4 of us made it, but we had some visitors stop by. I made progress on the carnation boutonniere.

 

carnation boutonniere in progress

I got my Covid and flu vaccines on Wednesday. 12 hours later my body reacted, "We've been invaded!" I went to bed with a fever. By the time I woke up, the fever was broken, but I was exhausted. I took off from work (yay, sick days) and slept for 6-7 hours (with a break in the middle to think about lunch). I skipped gaming because I was still not up to par. 

Tatting Progress and Other Matters

 I finally finished my lattice edging (except for clean up). And as I held it up, preparing to pin it to my bag before sewing it down, I learned I had made a moebius edging. I had somehow twisted it while joining the end to beginning. I had top open 2 rings, retrotat one completely, retrotat a chain (but only a few ds long), and partially retrotat the next to last ring. But I redid the join I messed up and now it's on to clean up and sewing. 

Lattice edging, needing clean up

I started the carnation brooch, but I can't remember if I meant to put beads on the rings or not. I estimate I have more the 300 beads, but that's for 3 rounds of chains. I loaded the beads last year, I think but didn't get started tatting until, well, this weekend.

Carnation boutonniere started

I made a couple more art trading cards. I used collage and mixed media (aka tatting) and used some cardstock as a base. 

art trading card

 I started drinking diet drinks when Coke had a vanilla Coca-cola. However, while I loved the flavor, it was too sweet, while the diet version dialed down the sweetness to my preference. When they stopped making diet Vanilla Coke, I turned to other diet drinks because my tastebuds had shifted and most sodas were too sweet. Mostly I drink Cheerwine Zero when I can get it. When I run out of my stash (I have to bootleg from a couple counties over because our local bottler doesn't carry the 16 or 20 oz bottles), I usually turn to diet Dr. Pepper. Except, I have observed that the diet Dr. Pepper really sparks my appetite. I feel like I'm starving. And it's just that one. Diet Pepsi, Diet Coke, Diet Mountain Dew, etc do not do this to me. 

F, one of my friends from high school is back in the area visiting family. We try to meet up at least once and we had lunch together on Saturday. Due to some very odd traffic, I was half an hour late, but we sat and talked for 3 hours. 

I was supposed to go see my parents, but there was a festival taking over the downtown area, including the train station parking lot. My dad decided he didn't want to fight with that traffic, so we postponed. I wrote Mom a letter instead.

I need to think about what I'm entering at the fair this year. I often use my Palmetto Tat Day projects, but I'm not sure about doing that this year.

 

A week after Tat Days

 As usual, Tat Days was a blast. My class Thursday night went pretty well (multiple people finished their version of Solar Flare). I repeated that I didn't care if they didn't do it the exact way I did, the pattern is flexible and as long as they were happy with it, then it's a success. 

But one tatter gave me such a compliment. She finished her Solar Flare on a jump ring, and said she's going to use it as the snowflake in her Christmas cards this year. 

Ridgecrest was nice but very confusing. We had a map of the conference center and we had maps of the individual buildings, but we didn't have maps showing us how buildings connected. For example, you could walk entirely around the dining building from the building with Tat Days to get to the building with our rooms, or you could go through a door at a dead end hall, go up half a flight of stairs, and be on the 2nd floor of the rooms. 

 

The scenery and weather were gorgeous. Saturday morning I even saw my breath (after the extreme heat this past summer, that was a blessing). 

For the first time, the webmistress of SomethingUnderTheBed was able to attend. I think she was a little surprised by her popularity. 

I wanted to take at least some of Randy's classes, but you can never take all the classes you want to take. I bought his latest book and Anitra took all of his classes, so she can help me.

I wasn't entirely certain about Bev Corder's Art Trading Card class. I was definitely intrigued but I wasn't certain how my end result was going to be, and if I would be happy with it. By the end of class, I had finished 4 cards and was thinking about more. Here are my cards.

Flower Garden Art Trading Card

Leaf Art Trading Card

Art Object Trading Card

Essence of Art Trading Card

  I also like my Posies for Nina class (Karey Solomon) and I got a second kit so I can do it again. Then I'll probably make my own 'kits' to make some more in different colors. 

Posies for Nina pendant

 I need to tat Jane Eborall's This Way and That Way Snowflake again. I'm not happy with my block tatting. She was showing another way to do it and my lines of tatting are kind of uneven.

block tatted snowflake

On the other hand, I'm very happy with my flower(s) from Heidi Nakayama's class. They're going to be earrings. I have 2 flowers done, but they don't quite match (one is dark purple and the other is Elderberry Jam, an ombre purple). 

WIP earrings

 Sharren Morgan's Lattice Edging is pretty easy. She also provided variations and a couple corner treatments in her pattern. I wasn't sure what I was going to do with it, but I realized it was perfect to trim the tote bag we got. I'm almost done, but I've said that for 2 days. 

Lattice edging

Palmetto Tat Days 2024 tote

I bought 2 stickers and put them on my journal. I should take pictures of my goodie bag and my purchases.  

Tatting advice sticker

My Superpower sticker, on my journal

The drive wasn't very long, even with the detour to get Martha, but I had to stop and get a 5-hour energy drink. Luckily, I only drink them about 4 times a year (maybe only 2), so I'm not greatly concerned with their effects. When caffeinated drinks alone are not enough, and I'm driving some distance, then I partake. Luckily, they also taste nasty, so I'm not tempted.

Have you ever heard of Yaupon Holly? It's a holly native to the SE part of North America. It's also related to yerba mate and it's a caffeine source. I bought some tea from a company in Wilmington, North Carolina. I got a variety similar to black tea, and it's tasty. To me it tastes more herbal than traditional teas.

They had muscadine grapes in the store the other day. I couldn't resist, so I bought some. I shared them with my co-workers and finished them off myself. They're tasty, but a little messy.

 

Less than a week 'til Palmetto Tat Days

 I'm trying to prep. Still need to get directions, timing. I've almost finished my 5 teacher presents.

triangle bookmarks

fallen southern sugar maple, (look for the black figure, just over 5' tall)

looking up the tree trunk, seeing southern clam shell fungus

Southern clam shell fungus

looking down tree trunk, toward broken roots, southern clam shell fungus dot the trunk