Monday, August 16, 2010

Tatting & Crochet

Now that my Great Aunt Doodle has taught me how to make Porcelain dolls she is teaching me to tat.  I must say tatting is the hardest handwork I have ever learned!  I sat there for nearly 3 hours watching her and doing exactly what she was doing and still I could not get my stitches to work right.  If you know anything about tatting you will know that your stitches are suppose to be on the bobbin thread and not the ring thread.  Of course mine were coming out on the ring thread and therefore I could not draw up the thread to close the circle.  I finally got out my camera and recorded her doing it so when I got home I could put it on my computer and study it.  After a zillion tries and lots of cutting thread and starting over I finally got it!  At first I would get a stitch to land on the bobbin thread and did not know how I did it.  And then couldn't get it to do it again for the next few tries.  Finally after sitting there and watching this you-tube video over and over where this lady kept saying you had to pull the bobbin thread tight I figured it out!  I was so excited!  Now I get my stitches to land right every time.  I am just having trouble getting my picots to come out uniform.  But with practice I will get that right too!

Here is a picture of my tatting.  It's not great, but it is getting there!
I have also been working on some more crocheted rings.  I love crocheting these little roses out of size 20 thread and making them into rings to wear.  I love wearing them and have been making some to sell too.
I don't know if any of you saw the watch band I crocheted for my watch several posts back or not.  It was a beautiful band.  The problem with having a crocheted watch band that you wear all the time is it gets extremely dirty after a time.  So I cut that band off my watch and am now working on a new one.  I am not finished with it by a long shot, but decided to post pictures of it in process.

I will be putting some crocheted flowers on it.  I love crocheted flowers!

Porcelain Dolls & Family

In an earlier post I talked about the porcelain dolls I was making at my Great Aunt Doodle's house.  I finally finished all my dolls!  I have five of them in all. 

To the left is my doll Victoria Rose.  She is the one with the beautiful brown ringlets.  She is a sit down doll. 

Leaning against Victoria Rose is Elsbeth.  





This is the back of Victoria Roses' head.  Isn't her hair beautiful?  I just love it!


Here is close up of Victoria Rose's face.


Here is Elsbeth's close ups!



My Aunt let me copy patterns to make Elsbeth and Victoria Rose dresses.  I am going to start on those soon!


These three are My Princess and My Little Princess'.  Aren't the bodies weird on the little dolls?  They seem too big to me, but they are the patterns my Aunt gave me.  Once I get their gowns made and get them dressed they will look fine.

Close ups of My Little Princess'.  I think I did better painting the sleeping eyes then the awake eyes!  Please remember that this was my first time painting dolls!  I don't usually paint anything!  The enlargement of the picture makes them look worse then they really do.  I love all my dolls!  It was so much fun making them!                       
I crocheted an outfit for My Princess and here she is in it!





We have such a hard time getting together to take family pictures.  We finally got a few made the other day, but without my oldest daughter as she was at work!  Ugh!  Maybe one day I will be able to get a picture of the five of us!
This is my husband, Clark, my daughter, Tara, and me:

This is my son, Keith, Tara, and me:
Here is Keith and Tara.  I think this is such a sweet picture! 
And here is a picture of my Daddy and me:
School has started here and here is a picture of Keith on his first day of 11th grade.  It is so hard to believe that my baby is now a Junior in high school!  He wasn't excited about having his picture taken, but I have taken pictures of my kids on the first day of school their whole lives.  I told him he only has one more year and then there will be no more pictures on the first day of school.  How sad :(