This is my tradition at the holidays

 No I don't lose a Kevin or go caroling. For me it's either the flu, a bad cold, or both. This year it's both. Just when I started felling better after the flu, the head cold hit. On tv I saw a report about holiday allergies getting bad due to all the decorations. I figured that out long ago when I realized my allergies got really bad when getting all the decorations up from the basement. We have a damp one and run a dehumidifier but it can only help so much. After that I moved everything but the outdoor dec and the tree to a closet upstairs. The tree would get a shower every year before setting it up. Now I have a 2 foot tree that can be stored in the closet so no more explaining why there is a tree in the shower drip drying.

This was a pretty bad year with so much needing fixed but so was 2023. Guess that's what happens when stuff gets old. The main TV broke right after Thanksgiving and it was bought in 2018. That's not really old is it?

I keep wondering what brought on 2 years of bad luck? Did I break a mirror or do some other thing to attract it? In the past month we lost 4 of our ducks and the one rooster we ended up with. Ru was a small bantam and he became a pet. He was named for Ru Paul because when he was a peep the other ones pecked his head till he was bald. In this photo you can see he was still growing his head feathers.

I do have new free designs for 2025 but it will take me a few weeks to get the first up.

Let's all hope for a better year!

Free pattern at Patreon site

 

I'm starting to get my old free patterns up at my Patreon site so here's  the link to the pattern. This angel pattern is one of the first I ever put on my web site back in 1995. It's pretty simple to make and there's wood beads with faces painted on them if you search. 

This is not a pdf since the original was written on a computer with win 3.1 (Yikes!) So I just copied and pasted the directions from the old tripod site where I had it. The original pattern is saved on a small floppy disk! I still have an old win 98 that can open them but it's in storage so I was lucky to have saved all the files from tripod. 

Look for more to come.

Yet another AI scam, on tatting this time

I just came across another mess of an AI design. This youtube video shows the cover of a book on tatting with bobbin lace on the cover. Is this crazy? This is worth watching if you worry about buying junk AI generated patterns.

 Karen Bovard-Sayre

I was on Etsy and came across an embroidery pattern I really liked and it was 60% off for black Friday so I thought for $2 why not get it. ( Yes I do buy patterns. It's a great way to learn and see how others do their pattern directions) I'm so glad I looked at all the photos they posted because I could see that the finished design was a little different from the pattern. Odd that they'd put the actual line drawn pattern in a photo to look at. That made me wonder about it so I enlarged the photo of the finished piece and guess what was obvious then. The embroidery floated on the fabric. The french knots were almost identical and the tiny stars had no stitch lines. WOW! If you knew how to embroider it was stitchable so I'm not going to out them.

I spend months designing and stitching my embroideries along with my tatting, crochet, and doll patterns. I don't even use AI for ideas because I have so many of my own. I work with pencils, rulers, curves, and paper for my designs. I use my old win xp computer with an old version of Paint Shop Pro to edit and clean up drawings. Then I do all the patterns in n old MS Publisher. Why this old computer and programs? I like them! I do have a newer laptop for online stuff so I use a lot of flash drive to move files from one computer to the other. I'm thinking I should update my info at Etsy with this.

I'll keep posting whenever I find any more info on AI patterns.

Last of the Bee embroideries

 

Here it is, the last free embroidery pattern of the year. Bee Good seemed just right for the holiday season.

I used the same stitches and the same DMC thread colors as I used for the last one. Something I should say is that these flowers have 4 petals and all the others I've done have 5. Do what makes you happy!

Here's the pattern:

Right click the pattern to save it to your hard drive so you can print it.

©Billie Jo Heisler 2024

All rights reserved

 Disclaimer:

I drew this entire pattern by hand. It is not a copy of anyone else's work. Please consider the drawing copyrighted. You have my permission to print copies of the drawing in any size for your own use but not to share or sell. If you want to share the pattern please link to the blog pages.