Merry Christmas!!!!!!!

 Merry Christmas Everyone!!!

Beautiful Birds

We have always enjoyed feeding and watching our native birds around our bird feeders so I thought I'd share some with you. Be sure to look at the last one! He's a real treasure!

Chick-a-Dee  My personal favorite!

Winter goldfinches

Summer Goldfinches

Junco

Winter blue jay

common barn sparrow

Typical Canadian geese

Sandhill cranes

more Sandhill cranes

Cooper's Hawk

Grosbeak

Grosbeak

Junco

White Crowned Sparrow

Male Cardinal. We have a pair that stays near us year-round.

female cardinal

Our Lovely chickens!!! These gals count too!

HUMMINGBIRD!

Northern Flicker

Snowy Owl

Here is the grand finale!!! My mom was driving home from WalMart and spotted this guy in the grass next to the road. He flew off (as you can see in the next picture) so he wasn't hurt, just hunting. She came back and got us and my sister got some great pictures. This is a Snowy Owl and just looking at him is quite magnificent!!! God's design is so beautiful!

He was pretty big too! With a wingspan of 4-5 feet!

Just a little something for your day! I'll be posting about the hankie soon! It's going splendid!

Allison

Luke 1:30-33
"Then the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name JESUS. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David. And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end.”

A Hankie for a friend....

The Hankie, the color, and the pattern! So excited!!

"Something old, something new, Something borrowed, 

Something BLUE." 

Yes, that is the theme for this hankie. I am so honored and excited to be tatting a blue hankie edging for a lovely gal at school whose daughter is getting married!!! She's picked out the pattern (which just happens to be called 'Bride's Maids!!!) by Mary Konior and I suggested the Lizbeth 'Wedgewood Lt.' for a color. What do ya think? Has anyone worked with that specific color? I'm super excited about it and will get the final OK from her on Wednesday and then I'll be working on it during my month-long winter break. That's another reason to celebrate, but I'll hold off on a post for that one! A whole month off of school deserves a post all it's own! Toodles for now!
Allison

 

Updated...

 I've almost finished the hexagon doily that I started over Thanksgiving break. I used a 20 Flora thread in a variegated white and light green so it wasn't all one color. I really love this color! My mom and sister where in Florida this week for my sister's farrier class so it was just dad and I on the farm. Be sure to check out our farm blog, where my mom posted all about their trip! Here's the LINK for you! We had a great time (and all the animals stayed healthy) with lots of movies and good food. I had time to work on it, especially during the intense parts of the movies I was tatting at light-speed!! Hope you are all having a lovely end of the week!
Allison

Thankful...

Here are some of our Thanksgiving Day moments I thought I'd share with you all : )

 Lea and Diesel take a walk!                                                            Scout the wonder-pony!

 Our Eddie-boy was feelin' spunky!!

 Decorations by Lea

A Tatted ornament

Looking into our lovely kitchen!

 The Table Setting

My Mom and Sister are going on a trip to Florida so we put up the Christmas decorations a week early this year : )

We always use my Great Aunt's silver for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners

 This is the penny that is kept in the silver box. My great Aunt bought the silver at Marshall Fields in 1944. She was notorious for putting little trinkets away that meant something special. What a cool thought!

Thanksgiving Blessings to you all! December is right around the corner!

Allison

Thanksgiving Break Tattings....

With four days of no school and the most lovely time at home, I've had plenty of time for tatting. Our Thanksgiving Day was wonderful; it was just the four of us this year and we enjoyed being home together. Here is what I've been working on....

 This is going to be a hexagon mat. I'm half done with the center, then I'll put a simple edging around it, just like the picture from the book. I'm leaning toward the style of the one on the left. Just for fun, my mom was curious about how many stitches are in this doily so far, so we added them up. There are 20 stitches per petal, and six petals per flower, so there are 120 stitches per flower. The doily has a total of 22 flowers at the moment so there are 2,640 whole stitches or 5280 half stitches. : ) Kind of a fun way to look at things

Little flower motif. I bought the Lizbeth PINK PARADE, number 145,and love how it looks. I think I might have to make a whole doily in it.

A new TV series that my family has been enjoying is called Lark Rise to Candleford. We have rented all the seasons from the library for our Thanksgiving holiday weekend. It's a cute, British mini-series that has some of our favorite BBC actors and actresses in it. If you like Cranford, you will for sure like this series!

Have a lovely Sunday!
Allison

HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL!

I hope that you are blessed on this day of thanks! 

Psalm 100:4 - "Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, And into His courts with praise. Be thankful to Him, and bless His name."

"Lord, help to make thanksgiving a lifestyle..and not a only a holiday. Amen."

Blessings!

Allison

Presentation!

Thank you ladies for all the lovely comments about my color presentation! It went very well! My teacher loved it and so did my class! They were very interested and had a bunch of questions. Tatting is so fun to share! Here are some pictures of my poster board! Have a Marvelous Monday!

My completed poster board :)

A fun part of my presentation was that the two doilies at the bottom of this picture are the same patter! I've just moved the colors around and look what a different effect is has on the eyes! Where do you look first when you look at the pink one? How about the red one? See how important color is to tatting! ; )

My color wheel

Tatting pieces - butterflies, motifs and clunies

I passed the shuttle around so everyone could see it. This is the largest doily I've done and will continue to work on. I only started it about 2 years ago. I pick it up and put it down a lot!

Ornaments and a hankie edging...

Love from the Midwest!
Allison

Color Presentation!!!

My poster board. I've changed a few things, but this is close

My color project for school is due this Thursday so I'll be doing a 5-10 minute presentation on the colors in tatting.  

I. AM. SOOO. EXCITED!! 

This is one of those presentations that has come together so well and gosh, it's my favorite hobby so I could talk about it all day! I seriously just gave my mom a 2 minute run-down of what I'm going to say and I got all energized and now Thursday can't come soon enough! To add to the evidence of my delight, I just wrote a 700 word essay in about an hour and a half. Can you sense the thrill in these exclamation points!!!!!!!!!
Have a terrific Tuesday!
Allison

Looking for an edging for a bookmark???

Hello Friends! My semester projects are drawing near, but thankfully one of them is about tatting so I have a good reason to spend some time with my shuttles. I'm trying to find a small edging pattern to make into bookmarks for a handout when I do my presentation. Any thoughts? any favorites? be sure to comment and I'll see what you all have in mind : ) The combines are out in full force here in northern Illinois as well as the beautiful fall tree colors. My sister just took this photo today

Fall color in the woods behind the corn field East of us

Believe it or not we are actually forecasted for light flurries tomorrow! I think it's a little early for snow, even for me. I hope it at least waits until Thanksgiving!
Cheerio!
Allison

The color wheel...in thread

Hello everyone! Hope you are all having a splendid weekend! The weather here is back to being sunny and warm, but the trees are still turning and boy it's just gorgeous outside! I have to tell you though, it's been really fun to have a school assignments that involves tatting! My floral design project has to be about color so 'TA-DA!" What do you think???

TATTED COLOR WHEEL!

This will be part of my display! I'm also working on doilies and motifs that follow color certain color schemes we are studying. This has been such a fun project! I just finished a landscape design for another class and am really proud of it...I'll get my grade on Monday so I'm keeping my fingers crossed : )

Other then school projects and Plant Identification competitions life is as normal around here. God is good, isn't He? Oh how He loves us and Blesses us! Be sure to stop by my mom's blog to see what our family is up too! (www.spendthethymefarm.blogspot.com)
Have a safe weekend everyone and I'll be in touch : )
~Allison