....................Secret Santa and Celtic's Christmas Exchanges!

Hi everyone! Whew, it has been a busy last few days. Christmas celebrations with friends and family and after Christmas shopping! I can now reveal my Secret Santa recipient was Karey Solomon. I tatted her a little elf, which she has named Flannan.  I know he will be happy in his new home! Here is a photo I took of him... and you can see what she has written about him on her blog
here .

My Secret Santa was Carol Lawecki and she did spoil me! Look at what she sent!

Here is the kit and kaboodle. A lot, right? Here are the details.

First off, my FAVORITE! When I opened this I burst out laughing I loved it so much!  She had taken Jane E's bride and groom pattern and revamped it into Frankenstein and his Bride. Do you believe that? She made a little dungeon background, added a tatted bat and spider, complete with glittery web, and created a Halloween tatted scene for me. Check out the little bolts in his neck! heehee! And look at all the other beads. Just great.

ok, there is more. As you can see in the very first picture, there is a heart shaped bag. It is to fill with rice and make a little heating pad. How clever and pretty with glittery butterflies. I will have to try this soon, as it has just turned cold here recently. There is also my Avon polar bear stocking which you did see before, but 'bears' repeating. Photo buttons you fill with your own photo, or in my case, I will most likely fill with tatting! Pretty vintage Lily threads in mauve and blue.. nice...

 Here is also a yummy dark chocolate bar, Halloween confetti (little spiders and bits), a Mary Englebreit Christmas notepad and sunflower notecards. If you look closely, you will also see Halloween colored beads by Deb at DS9 Designs

 And check this out. This gorgeous dragonfly pin, which I  had to grapple away from my Mom! I told her she could wear it occasionally, though. Beautiful HDT by Heather The Tarnished Tatter in Halloween colors. I secretly yearned for this, and now I have it! There is also a little tiny shuttle made by Heather. So cute.  And, this pretty flowery tin. Last, but certainly not least, the Christmas card she sent with this lovely tatted snowflake. It is called "Kira's Star" by Birgit Phelps. It is done in a thread with icy blues and purples. I don't know the name of the thread, but it is very pretty! Thank you so much, Carol!!!! I love everything.

Now...

Sherry Townsend and I do Halloween and Christmas exchanges, and yet again, I was so spoiled!  Here is the ornament I sent her. It is Chriselda Christmas Witch! Complete with Halloweeny hair and Christmas colored hat and outfit. I hope she likes her!

Here are all the things she sent to me!

Ta da! This adorable cross stitch which she showed on her blog, and I drooled over!

 I think it is so sweet! I haven't decided yet how I am going to finish it, with a tatted edge or put into a booklet cover or what, but I love it. She also sent these great crochet hooks. So fancy! My sister was a little jealous when she saw these.

 And, since I recently started knitting, which you can see some of my stuff on my knitting blog,  she sent me a ton of knitting supplies.

I love wooden and bamboo needles, and she sent me all of these!

 She also sent more of the Lizbeth threads in colors I adore.

There is also HDT by Sherry Pence in the blue/purple shades. Lovely, my favorite colors. She also sent the cute little Halloween batty sticker cutouts.

And, oh, the yarn. Yummmm, such lovely raspberry ice creamy looking color, enough to make a shawl. Wow! I am estimating there is at least 800 yards or maybe more. So pretty, I will have to find a really great pattern to make with that. I totally love the things you sent, Sherry!!!!!!!!!!

I was truly flabbergasted at the wonderful exchanges I received this year.

 THANKS SO MUCH to Carol and Sherry, you are great DemiSantas!!

.......................Secret Santa and some Christmas tatting

Yippee! I have received my Secret Santa gift! I got it yesterday, but I was gone most of the day and didn't get it until late last night. There isn't much in the way of clues, except it is from Pennsylvania!.There were cute little labels with candlesticks on them and a handwritten Hohoho Secret Santa on the outside!

 When I got it, of course the little leps wanted to open it right away. We opened the packing paper and inside was this big shoe box... and oh ho!...look at what all was inside! There was a Christmas stocking with, one of  my favorite things, a polar bear on it and two envelopes, one saying Merry Christmas and the other, Do not open until December 25! Conor and Rory and I were so excited!! They immediately jumped into the box, and showed me that the stocking was full of wrapped presents, too!! There was also another larger present that wouldn't fit into the stocking. Oh, how they (and me too) wanted to open everything, but, since we only have to wait a few days, we will abide by the Secret Santa's wishes and wait to open them on Christmas!  I can hardly wait... but I will.

It is funny the Secret Santa put candle sticks on the package. That is the ornament I have tatted for friends and family this year. Although it is a different candlestick. I got the image from Claudia's  site, but she didn't remember where the original pattern was from. I just loved it, and made it for my annual tatted Christmas gift.  Here is a photo of 3 of them.

Thanks Secret Santa... I will be talking to you in about 5 days!!!

Oh and as of Monday, I got my Christmas exchange box from Sherry Townsend! Yeah!

Here it is under the tree.. only 4 days to go!!

...................Rory Arrives!!!

The mystery gift has been opened! Conor just couldn't wait and ripped into the package like a monkey on a banana!! And, lo and behold... there was a leprechaun inside bearing a gift! Conor was so excited he didn't know what to do first! (He has been a little sad lately, having gone thru a little upset of his own, but we will blog about that later.)  He grabbed the thread to get a closer look... ooh such lovely colors. He wants me to use it very soon to make something lovely.

Well, then, being mischievious leps, they got into a tug o' war! But, it was all in fun, and soon were hugging it out!

Then, Rory showed us the letter from his Mum, explaining his real name is Ruari, but that we could call him Rory. And how he has come to live with Conor and me to be Conor's BFF!

Well now, Conor is so happy! He got out his new toys he got for Christmas (of course, Mom let him open early because of the special circumstances) and  he and Rory had a great old time playing on the Christmas rubber duckies!

I can see this is going to be a wonderful friendship. Conor and I are also very curious to see who else was on Fergeal's list of leprechaun recipients!

 Conor and I want to thank Pamela and Fergeal for thinking of us, and sending us such a great little friend for Christmas.
                                             

Hurray!

........................Mystery Gift!

Oh my gosh!

I just got back from the post office. I was mailing my Secret Santa, and Exchange and 'stuff' (some of you know what I mean), and guess what was in the mailbox! Oh, a mystery gift from Ireland!  Here is a photo of what I found inside.

I am so excited! The Christmas card has a LOVELY tatted snowflake on the front, (maybe I got a pattern? or the snowflake? just guessing here) and inside it says it is from none other than Pamela, the leprechaun creator/Mom extraordinaire! The little card says "not to be opened until Christmas". Wow... do you know how hard that is for me? Well, I will be a good girl and wait. Unnnnnn, it is so hard, I want to see what is in there!  Well, thank you in advance Pamela! Conor really wants me to open it.. but I keep telling him.. we can wait for 11 days!

...................whooooo

...likes tatting? Well, I do! But, I don't have any photos to show of it now. I just finished one of my Christmas Exchange 'things' and have another to do, plus my own, so, no photo of that yet. BUT, I can show you this little guy! Isn't he adorable!? As far as I can make out, he is an Eastern Screech Owl. My neighbor came over today, and said she had seen me taking photos in the yard this summer, and wondered if I would like to take a photo of the owl in her tree. I JUMPED at the chance! I ran and got my camera, and here is the result. I have more photos of him, too. My neighbor said he lived in the tree, she had just noticed him recently, and I could come over and take pictures whenever I wanted. I told her, oh, yes, you can expect me!

.................Ravelry exchange, what I made

Hi everyone,

Well, I can finally show what I made for my Ravelry exchange. It was "Favorite Animal" and my partner liked Tree Frogs! Well, since I am not experienced enough to knit her one, I thought I would try to crochet her one. I planned on tatting one too, but, I thought a tatted one would be too small, as the price limit and such was higher than most exchanges I have been it. So, I went to crocheting one. Now, I only know how to single crochet. That is all I could ever remember from what my sister tried to teach me. So, I just started crocheting, and oddly enough, with all the 3D tatting I do, it was pretty easy to make this GIANT tree frog! He is about 2ft long, and boy, it was hard to give him up!

Then, I made this little 3D tatted frog, and put magnets in him, so he could be put on the fridge, or hold her stitch markers, as he is doing in the photo.  I love the big eyes!  I really enjoyed the exchange, and am going to join in more next year! Hope you enjoy the photos!

.....................oh scary!

Halloween has come and gone, but I just got my pictures back, so I am posting them. I had my sister take some photos of my costume with Rebel.(an annual thing). I am wearing a blouse I got from Holyclothing, it has bat like pointed sleeves and around the bottom, and lots of embroidery. The hat was from the Halloween store, I think it was $4, very cheap and with bats! I put Sherry's pin on the hat, which looked very neat. I am wearing a necklace I tatted with a little bat hanging from it, my tatted gloves, and of course, tatted bat mask. Rebel wanted to be a skeleton for Halloween this year, and I painted around his eyes and made little extra teeth beside his mouth. 

Hope you all had a great Halloween!

......................Happy Halloween everyone!

yep, today is Halloween. My favorited holiday. Don't get me wrong, I love Christmas, but there isn't the stress of 'what do I get so and so"  and the tons of people running around looking for gifts. It is just a dress up, and have fun kinda day! I am posting some pictures of some of my decor this year.

This is the scene you see as you walk into my hallway. I painted the dancing witches, which are from an vintage Halloween card, on some cardboard, made the gigantic frame, (4ft!) and hung it up. The small pictures are Halloween re-dos of old family photos. The red bat is filet tatted, and the faux fire place is plastic. I am thinking of actually painting one onto the wall, as there isn't room for a real one.

.

This is my couch with one of my witch's hats on it. Also, my Halloween quilt, and pillows. I found the owl pillow at the good will! There is also knitting on the couch, which became my brain hat.

This is my front door. I put bat napkins in the background of the window, and hung this great wire and glass witch in it. Got her on sale after Halloween last year at Hobby Lobby!

Hope you liked my small tour, of course there is lots more, but don't want to bore anyone! Have a great Halloween everybody!!!

....................Halloween Exchange has arrived!!

Hail and wellmet everyone! I have received my Halloween Exchange items from Sherry Townsend today! And me being me.. I openned it of course! Check out these photos (Sherry took them)...

First you see the fantabulous pin Sherry made for me. Just look at all the little details, you know I love it, especially the little bat charm and button.  The wickedly neat black tatted flowers add a bit of spook to it. It is so Halloweeny, I am going to put it on my witch hat on Halloween!

And speaking of bats.. check out the purse she made me! Whoa! The outside is purple, and surrounding the purple is a really cool bat encrusted tule! I love how she made the fluff at the top with the tule. And, hmmm it is a drawstring bag, and when I openned it.. wow.. it had a bunch of Lizbeth threads in it. Oh, so many lovely colors, what am I going to make with it all? I don't know yet, but I will have fun thinking things up. And.. the purse is lined in this beautfully scary red bat fabric with lightning bolts on it. Very cool.  I am going to use the purse as my witch purse on Halloween also, to keep my witchy, twitchy, stitchy, itchy items in!

We will have to wait to see if Sherry likes what I sent her. Her being her, she will not open it until Halloween day, although she has had it for a while now. She is very strict about this, but dang her, I want to see if she likes it. Oh, Sherry, live dangerously! heehee

Thanks again Sherry!!!

Tomorrow or the next day, I will post some pictures of my Halloween decor around the house. Stay tuned...

.................. Owl sighting on my knitting blog

if you want to see some owl knitting... check out my knitting blog!
dog-gone knit

oh, and I will be posting a photo of the 'thing' I made for Sherry in our Halloween exchange, soon. I am mailing it tomorrow, so she should get it in a very few days. After that, I will post.

'Til then... here are a couple of photos I re-created of  old photos of my Mom, her sister, and my sister (the baby)... and the 4 men in the family, at the time, it was left to right, my brother, his son, my Grandpa, and my Dad.  I did the whole family as witches and warlocks and put them in frames for Halloween!

.....................new stuff on my knitting blog

yeah, just that..though one is crocheted...

.................... Halloween and Animal exchanges

I am currently in two exchanges. One, a Halloween exchange with Sherry Townsend, as we both LOVE Halloween! I have just finished making her a ............oh, I can't say, she may be watching!  heehee.
The other exchange is a Favorite Animal exchange on Ravelry. I can't knit well enough to make her what I really want to make her, so, I am sending her the pattern. I am making other forms, not knitted, of her animal. So, I have no pictures to show of my work lately. I am also currently selling my Halloween and Christmas collections of patterns on ebay. Just type in Halloween tatting and you should find it.  Here is my Wicked Witch of West Barner.... just to show you a photo on this post.

........................moving the knitting

Hi all!
Well, I started a separate blog for my knitting. It is called dog-gone knit! You can find a link to it on the sidebar thingy. I HAVE to start doing some tatting for Halloween, and promised myself to start October 1.. well, that is today. So, I am off to go tat! Bye for now, but please check out my knit blog for a new post.
Carol

....................... more Knitting,plus..

Hi

Wow, it has been a while. Sorry there is no tatting, yet. I am working on something(s) right now, but can't show them. But, if you know me and you know what month it is.. you know it has something to do with Halloween! I have been working on my knitting, too. So here is a photo. I finished this dishcloth, it is a Dalek from Dr. Who. I learned to make bobbles doing this one! I have to make another one for a friend for Christmas. He won't be expecting this, so it will be fun. I also had the "bright" idea of making an afghan from several dishcloths. There is one problem though... every one I have done so far is a different size! They don't usually tell you the size when you make them. Here is one, it is a bat and moon...it is 8x8! Pretty large compared to others I have done. I used the same needles and yarn, so it isn't my "gauge". Hmmm I will have to think this over. Anyway, stay tuned for some Halloween tatting in the future.

And for those of you who love giveaways, and who doesn't, Aileen's Wickedtats is having a Halloween themed one! YEAH, sign me up!!

http://wickedtats.blogspot.com/

..........................Gaaaaarrrr

Remember when I told you I was learning to knit? Well, other than a few dishcloths this is my first BIG project. It is called the Dwarven Battle Bonnet, and I think it is neater than neat! It was my first time using double pointed needles, or dpns as knitters call them, and I actually had to buy some to make it. I got these beautiful wooden ones really cheap online. You have to use 5 needles to make the helmet part, which, I had to look up on the internet how to do that. Then, the beard is done secondly and separately. For some reason, I all of a sudden learned how to hold my yarn correctly when I started the beard, so it came out looking pretty nice, the helmet was a little loosey goosey. It is being modelled here by my sister. When she first saw it, I was wearing it, she said, now I know what you would look like if you were a man... kinda cute! Hahaha! I must say I am kind of proud of myself making this. I have savedtons of patterns from the Ravelry site, http://www.ravelry.com/

and now I am thinking maybe I will be able to make some of them!

................... Mandrake!

I have always wanted to make myself a baby mandrake, like the ones in Harry Potter, so here is my first! He is made from a real (sweet annie) root, and sculpey clay. I really like him. He is only about 5" tall. I have another root (holly) that I am going to make another one from. It is much larger, so I am going to have to figure out what to sculpt the face from, as sculpey would be too pricey for that large of a project. Anyway, hope you enjoy him, and wear your earmuffs!!

...................another bat shuttle

Here is the other bat shuttle I was trying. I made it out of a biscuit. (It is a piece of wood, for those who don't know, not really a biscuit you eat.) I was trying out the wood burner, and I had these 2" biscuits, so...

I wonder if they have larger biscuits, as he is pretty small. A 3 or even 4"(could be sanded down smaller) would be nicer to try to burn. I put some rosewood stain on him, too.

....................crafting

Ok, lately I have been doing some crafting. Here are a couple of pictures of what I have been doing. Besides, the knitting, which I don't have pictures of...

I made this Battatter shuttle for myself. I had a picture of a black fruit bat hanging from a tree, and thought it sort of formed a shuttle shape, so, here he is. His wings are sort of wrapped around him and the thread attaches to the wings underneath. He is made from some air dry clay I got at Michael's and though it is very light like foam when dry, it is pretty sturdy. I could actually sand it. I made another little shuttle, which isn't quite finished yet. It is very small, only about 2", and wood burned, but cute. I will show that soon.

Have I mentioned I am in the Harry Potter Crafts group? Well, I started making a wand last week, and need to add something to it before showing it, but, it will be worth the wait. I also entered a crafty contest, and I made these little Pygmy puffs. They are little creatures from Harry Potter and The Half Blood Prince, and they are sort of like tribbles, for all you Star Trek fans out there, except they have faces. I haven't named mine yet, but I think they are CUTE!

.................Workbasket whirlwind

Wow, who knew these would go over so well!? I have had many people email me about them, and they are almost gone. I am waiting for a couple of people to email me back about their choices. When they do, I will post what is left here.
Thanks everyone!

.................Workbasket magazine extravaganza!

I just aquired a BUNCH of the old Workbasket magazines... three big boxes full! I have taken out the ones I wanted, and so, dear friends.. I am going to sell the extra ones for .10 each plus actual postage.
I will sell the year/set for $1.00 per set as some sets are 12 and some are only 10. (Some years, Workbasket combined June/July and Nov/Dec. these are marked by an * below)
So, here are the whole sets that I have:
1953
1968
1969 x2
1971 x2
1972 x2
1973 x2
1974 x2
1975 x2
1976 x3
1977 x4
1980*
1982*
1983*x3
1984*
1986*
1987*
I also have a box of just extras, so if you don't want a set, just a few to complete your set, email me your list and maybe I have them. They are all, as far as I have seen, in really good shape, I think, not all ripped up or written in.
If anyone is interested, email me. First come, first served. I will wait for a month, then put them on ebay. I just thought I would give my peeps a chance at them first.

.....................Heart from JB

Hi there!

Remember the round robin, and how I didn't initially receive anything, and then received hearts from Sharon? Well, I received this lovely heart from JB Locke, one of my RR partners in the mail! She ever so kindly wrote me and asked me the colors I prefered, and then re-tatted the heart she had originally made for me! Wasn't that sweet? And, I guess she knows me well, she put it in a notecard with puppies on it. Awwww! One of them is even a Jack Russell, like Rebel. Thank you so much JB, I love it.