Tatting and Trips

I hit the thrift shop and while I was there I found a small (crib maybe) linen sheet and a polka dot cotton in matching color. I'm seeing a blouse, probably linen body and dotted sleeves/trim.

I finished Jane Eborall's Fandango Coaster in Lizbeth 20, Purple Iris Dark and Island Breeze. I got most of it done on the trip to see my parents.

I'm only up to March 8th on the 2024 TTAL (2024 Temperature Tat A Long).

It started out raining when I went to see my parents, I was glad to take the train. This is a view from the platform.

It was pouring rain this morning, plus there was lightning and thunder. Guess it's really spring, huh?

Carolina Fiber Fest 2023

 Fiber Fest at the State Fairgrounds again (in the nice, large expo hall, yay). And once again, shared parking with 2 other events. One, if someone hadn't told me they were there, I wouldn't have known about them. OTOH, the other group has a subset of 'we have an RV, who cares about parking spaces'. 

Most of them with RVs are not like this. They park in the camping area, which admittedly is not particularly close to their event location. There's some though, that take up 2-10 (and no, that is not a mistake, I counted) parking spaces. Which again, is okay if no one else is using the lot. Like someone who parks their car over 4 spots at the far end of a lot where it's completely empty, if it's not disrupting other people, then who cares.

And that is why my friend and I arrived at 7 am for an event in which the doors open at 9. We did need to be there enough before 9 to get our tables set up, but if it weren't for the parking issues, we would have aimed for 8 am. 

 We were towards the back, near some of the classrooms. We were also near this display about flax and flax spinning (picture is only part of display).

There were 2 spinning wheels, some fabric (both recent make and vintage), sample of linsey woolsey tape, 3 linen stricks,  and flax in different stages of processing. There were also brochures for a book on homegrown flax and cotton.

I also bought a couple mini-skeins of linen yarn to try it for tatting. I bought some burgundy and black. I'll need to be careful of slubs, but it tats pretty well. The hanks are DK weight, so about size 5 for tatting, I think.

 Here's the edging sample I did.

 Pattern from New Dimensions in Tatting by To de Haan-van Beek

I saw lots of fiber friends; other members of Tri-Tatters, Sir Walter Lacers, weaving group, machine knitting, etc. I also saw Danielle, who I haven't seen since she moved to Texas. I also met her wife, Jen, who I only know from Danielle's FB posts. They've moved back to the east coast.

I also bought a nalbinding needle and then won some wool yarn! How about them odds. I only bought 1 ticket in the drawing. And funny enough, while I was up there getting my 'here's the cert for you to claim your prize', the vendor came up to see if the prize they'd offered had been claimed. I didn't have to search for their booth, they lead me right there.

I finished Jane Eborall's Tat It And See, although I used 2 different colors. I want to do this in light green and in grey, too. For reasons.

 

I've also been playing around with Mandala by Nami Art Patterns

You can't tell from the pictures, but the top one is size 20 and the lower one is size 40.

I also took some of my bits to mend a skirt. It's cotton gauze, so I stabilized the holes and then sewed tatting over them.

 And of course, glued flowers, etc to a card.

We play the Pathfinder game again this weekend (crossed fingers) and our 5e game continues. 

In the 5e game, we learned what poisoned our oldest sister (cousin for 1 player). We did some local investigating to see if there's a cure available locally and tried to get some information on who created the poison. We did learn a few things, but we had to go to another town, on the recommendation of someone we contacted, to someone who might know more. 

Cousin (PC is 16, player is my age) continues to underestimate my PC, possibly because of jealousy. My PC went to college in the capital, is beautiful, and cosmopolitan. She (PC) is the smartest and most beautiful person the room; she says so. 

Please note, the player is a good friend and it's all in fun.

I can't believe we had sleet/snow yesterday. Last year, we had snow (no accumulation) as we were leaving the Fiber Fest. And it's supposed to freeze tonight.

More Tatting

Our group demo'ed at Tri-Tatters on Saturday again. It was very cold so not many people came by, but we did get a gent whose grandmother tatted. A bit later two women stopped to talk to us. Then a group of young women visiting the US on a cultural exposure (or something) trip. Some of them talked to us, too.

And he had some of her work and her shuttles. I went through the quilt blocks for Palmetto Tat Days scholarship quilt to decide on what tatting I'll do for them. I've only done one so far. I have another three blocks and one strip. I realized the strip is much longer than I realized. Then I found an edging I'd done ages ago that's perfect for it. Yay! I added a contrasting motif on one end as 'anchor.' I need to block the edging though. Really need to block it.

I got a good start on a gecko (Jane Eborall's pattern). I finished it on Sunday. I did a flower (from be-stitched.com) for another block. I have an idea for another motif (from Jane again), but I need to clear my shuttles.

Mom fell and possibly fractured something this morning. I may end up running to see her tomorrow instead of work. I will call her facility tomorrow and see if I can find out more.

Deadlands on Thursday is off. GM has to take care of some personal stuff.

My date night with Carry is canceled, she has the flu.

It's been a long day and I'm off to bed.

TV: Watched After the People on History Channel. It was okay. I did learn some neat stuff, at least.

books: Finished reading Circle of Magic: Sandra's book for the nth time & finished vol 1 of Zombie Fairy.

tatting: finished Stars & Stripes. Started day 8 of Jane's TI&S.

scarf: It's now long enough to cover my hand from wrist to fingertip.

clothes: black jeans, black/brown polo, emerald pendant & earrings, black striped trouser socks, black ~slippers, black stone ring, hematite ring, moss agate bead bracelet, ponytail/bun with black/brown hair sticks.

Poem for today
Crunch of frozen ground,
Frost-limned grass snap
Under trudging feet.
Monday workward bound,
Half-moon rising
Shares the sky
With the dawning sun.
Wintry air bites
At open skin
Nipping me awake.


Gaming most of the weekend. We did the next 2 parts of Greyhawk Ruins on Saturday. Then we took Diana out to supper for her birthday. The t-shirt was too small so I'm going to have to return it & order a size larger. Sunday it was Rosemary's home game. We had a short fight & Mike's character really pissed mine off. Note: Mike did not piss me off. Amber is mad at Dratsab.

tatting: I finally started Jane's Tat It & See. I got through Day 7. I don't think that it's an elephant because she's already done one, but it's distinctly elephant-shaped at this point.

I took a load of books to the Used Book Store. I picked up 4 with the store credit plus I bought Season 1 of Lois & Clark (since I didn't get it for Christmas). Now I need to get rid of the books that they didn't buy.

My copy of Witch Hunter still hasn't arrived. It looks like it won't ship until the company puts out their next product, which is supposed to be sometime this month.

books: I finished Accidental Vampire, read The River Knows and re-read Wait Until Midnight. The latter 2 are from the Used Bookstore.

I did a few more rows of the ribbon yard lattice scarf. It's starting to look like something. I'm still not 100% certain it's like a scarf.

clothes: t-shirts, jeans, tennis shoes & sweatshirts this weekend. Today it's white turtleneck, new dark red corduroy vest, black jeans, black suede shoes, black tatted earrings (the ones that I made), black stone ring, hematite ring, & black plastic bangle bracelet.

Ahhh, Friday. What a wonderful thing. I have two days off. Tomorrow, Chris has asked me to go the mall with him (I'm not sure why, unless it's to take notes for his upcoming birthday). Sunday we'll be playtesting an LG adventure. My bard will sing again.

It's going to be a high APL playtest of the Mace BI - GRM7-IN4 By Right of Conquest, part 5 of the Shattered Reflections Series. My knight is very concerned (her stepmom & siblings live in Shiboleth, site of the BI).

TV: Last night the president made a speech. Since I didn't feel like wading through the rhetoric, but then I rarely do, I skipped it. I'll catch the summation later. However, as expected, his speech preempted regular tv programming. It's a good thing we watched that CSI rerun, that we'd missed, when it showed on Spike (cable channel) an hour earlier.

I also watched most of the History channel's program on the American highway system. Wow, it's changed in the past 100 years. The first, continent spanning highway was planned about 1900. However, when the celebratory convoy attempted to actually use the Lincoln Highway after WWI, it was less than laudatory. It did publicize the very poor condition of the road systems though.

We also caught part of the Barbarian special on Saxons and then we watched Burn Notice. I stayed up too late to watch it; again.

tatting: I worked on the wheelbarrow & found out this morning, as I was working on ring 30, that I had made a mistake on ring 11. Arrrrrgh! So I started it again. Or tried. It took two attempts that I just cut off and then another 2 or 3 attempts before I finally got started again. I just keep reminding myself; I do this for fun & relaxation, I do this for fun & relaxation, really. I mean that.

Mail/letter/etc: I have a little something to send to Mitra; I just need to get it into the mail. And I just realized that I left the stationery that I use for her, at home. Guess I'll try to send it Monday, then.

Saturday Evening At Palmetto Tat Days 2007 (& Sunday)
I went by the Vendor's room to pick up some thread. I took all those neat beads that I picked up at Panopoly to match them. I got Karey's help; since, as I've mentioned, she has such a good eye for color. Matching the faceted jasper drops was a little difficult. I think we finally succeeded though. I did do one stupid thing; I forgot to pick up a beading needle. I got the bead spinner, a small one, but no needle. None of the vendor's had size 16 crochet hooks either; and that's nigh onto vital for Jane's beaded picot technique.

After supper, it was time for more fun & games. My group's card set did not win, alas. But there were some very nice cards made. Palmetto's will sell them for $2 each to fund their activities & supplies.

The first game we played was a Bingo variant. Everyone was given a list of tatting terms & a page with 4 daisies printed on it. Each daisy had a sticker dot of a different color, red, blue, yellow or green. On the daisies there were 9 spaces to write those terms, you could choose wherever to write them. Then Janice went through & called out terms. There were 4 rounds, one per color of daisy. You used stickers of the matching color to fill in the flower. If you got all 9, you had 'full bloom' & won the round. If I had gotten 6 again in the last round, I was going to ask for a consolation prize for getting the exact same number every time. But I got 7 instead of 6.

The next game had us in teams of 8. There was one team that didn't have enough people, so Janice pulled people from other teams; I volunteered to leave Anitra & Stephanie. Poor me. The group that I joined had only 6 people; two of whom had already packed their stuff for their flights out 0n Sunday. Since it was a scavenger hunt-style game - do you have the item from the list in the possession of a group member? - that was vital.

Nonetheless, my team was only 3 points behind the winning team; guess which team that was. You guessed it - Anitra & Stephanie's team! The funny thing was, the items that I had, I had bought that day & had thought to take back to the room so I wasn't hauling it around. It's a good thing that I got lazy, or something, and didn't do so. It was a great game even though we lost & I hope that they do it again next year.

I spent the rest of the evening chatting. I talked to Tonya & her husband; they're from Georgia. She's a teacher (on Sunday I told her about Mali's oration on Youtube about what teachers make) and he's in animal control. He had some great stories. Jane's a former teacher so she & Tonya swapped stories about that. Martha didn't talk much but I think she enjoyed the conversation anyway. I think she's shy.

Anitra & Stephanie had gone to sleep by the time I got to the room. I slept like the dead but still woke up in plenty of time to be starving by the time breakfast was served. I saw Jane & Martha looking for a table as I entered, so I was faux-huffy about them not sitting with us and invited them to sit at our table. We had great convo over breakfast & Jane showed me where to find the hot water for my tea. It had been there all the time; I'd just missed it. Bleah.

After breakfast, we packed the car, turned in our room keys and badge holders, said a last goodbye to everyone & was on the road by 10 am. We stopped for lunch at a Cracker Barrel (I have no idea what town we were in), my cold had returned and I was a bit dazed. Reading was helping because I was not up to anything requiring concentration.

I found a string of Christmas bead garland that may work very well for Karey's baubles, just lighter than marbles. We'll see. I also found a book on raising chickens for Liz. It's safe to mention because she never reads my blog.

Once at Anitra's, we admired the work that Steve had done on her craft room (clearing it out - his birthday present to her). I realized, after I had unloaded my stuff from Stephanie's car, that she lived near me and could just drop me off at home with only a slight detour on her part.

Chris wasn't home when I got there so I just vegged. I got my stuff in the door and that was all I was good for. I was so tired.

I felt bad enough that I called in sick on Monday. I slept most of the day (as I mentioned on Tuesday) & I think that made a huge difference in my recovery.

clothes: black ~slippers & jeans, Vorkosigan black/brown polo, clip watch, dragon band, hematite band, amber cabochon bracelet, amber drop earrings, amber 'poison' ring, fem/dancer ring, & (hidden by my color because it doesn't match the rest of my jewelry) moonstone cabochon pendant on heavy silver chain. My hair is loose because it's drying.

I'm feeling better - of course I slept most of yesterday, whether due to illness or the medicine I don't know.

sight of the day: a very bad accident involving 2 cars & a transit bus. At least one car's airbag deployed & in the second car I saw a passenger supporting the driver's neck. I sincerely pray that it's only a precaution that she is not that badly hurt. My prayers to them and all those involved.

I sort of read yesterday, they were re-reads that didn't take much attention. I did not try to tat, I didn't trust my concentration. Cold medicine makes me so foggy. I watched tv when I wasn't napping.

Gaming: Chris's game was last night. We finally rescued the dwarf commander, getting through one more fight while exiting the city. In the first fight, in the tunnels, the trolls transformed back to duergar when they died. This time, the trolls remained trolls but the dead duergar transformed to dark elves. We grabbed their corpses and ran. Maybe we'll get some information; if not at least we'll get loot.

Tat Days extra: I took the extra Workbaskets from Leigh, and gave them away at Tat Days. We ended up putting them out on Saturday & everyone loved them. The Palmetto Tatting Guild filled some blank spaces in their library & a woman who had lost the issue with the Barbie wedding gown to flood damage replaced it.

tatting: I worked on Jane's fantasy flower this morning on the way into work; it's from one of the classes this weekend. But I screwed up a ring again. I'll have to take it out & try again.

clothes: yesterday I wore sleepshirt & robe most of the day. Then I pulled on a t-shirt & leggings for the game. Today it's black jeans (despite the 97F heat), thin cotton blouse (texture check), Celtic knot ring, triskele earrings, knot pendant, ~rope band, braid, hematite band & black ~slippers.