Santa

Santa was designed by Jane Eborell. He was used in the card for the Christmas card swap and is now standing by the Christmas tree from my previous blog entry.

I haven't figured out whether we were meant to glue the tatting onto the card or whether we were meant to just place it inside the card...............

'tis the season to be jolly

What a sweet Christmas tree design by Nancy Tracy . It was tatted in Altin Basak and will form part of the design in the Christmas card swap that I involved in this year.

Robin

Isn't this robin pattern cute? As soon as I saw it on Jane Eborall's webpage I knew that I wanted to tat it.

Unfortunately it did not cure my crave, because I now want to tat it again :)

Bracelet

This bracelet was tatted in Altin Basak size 10 at the request of a friend who has a passion for black jewellery. Hopefully her passion will steer towards finer thread next time, as I prefer size 20 or 30.

The ends of the bracelet attach to each other through a small magnetic clip.

Network

This square was based upon a design by Mary Konior in Tatting with Visual Basics. The repetition in the pattern made it a great one to tat whilst watching television.

My square was tatted in Coats Mercer 20 and is slightly larger thatn Mary's design. This is because the television show that I was watching was interesting and distracted me when I was meant to be 'decreasing' the number of stitches. Ahh, don't we just love 'pattern re-designs' :)

Flowery bookmark

This is my favourite bookmark :)

It was designed by Jane Eborall and tatted in Altin Basak 50.

I like it so much that I have started a second one.

Celtic flutterby

Can there be enough flutterbies in the world?

Rozella Linden is doing her best to bring beauty into the world by creating gorgeous designs like Fred Flutterby.

He has flown out of the Celtic Tatting:Knots and Patterns book and is tatted in Altin Basak 50.

Prince the Parrot

What a joy this cheeky fellow was to tat. And such a perfect use of those left-over threads that we all find on our shuttles.

This little fellow took several months to tat, because he was my 'stand-in chap' for when I didn't have a larger project to work on. I guess he got worked on each time I needed to free a new shuttle up from left-over threads.

Prince Parrot was designed by Mary Parrott and was tatted in many shades of Altin Basak size 50.

Needlelace - take 2

Ughh! That is the most descriptive word that can explain how I feel about my second attempt at needlelace.

The uplifting feeling that I experienced when looking at the beautiful pictures of other people's needlelace was followed by disappointment when I realised that I did not possess their skill :(

I enjoyed doing the Single Corded Brussels stitch, but found that I had ten thumbs when trying to do the other stitches.

It's back to tatting for me :)

Handkerchief edging

Another item on my 'to-do' list was to edge a handkerchief. Mission now accomplished.

This edging was from the book Tatted Fashion by Teiko Fujito and used DMC size 80.

A woman who is experienced in edging handkerchiefs advised me to do a row of double crochet around the edge of the material prior to attaching the edging. How happy I am for her advice, because it worked out well :)

Needlelace - Take 1

One of my tatting WIPs requires a more 'dense' area, and tatting just doesn't do justice to it. So I thought that it might be possible to incorporate needlelace into the design.

Well, that's the long term goal. The short term goal is to actually learn how to do needlelace :)

So this is my first attempt at needlelace. At the suggestion from Liz (a needlelacer from Victoria, Australia), I purchased some beginner's books from the Guild of Needlelaces in the UK and gave it my best attempt. The books made the process reasonable easy (thank you whoever wrote the instructions).

This first picture shows the needlelace leaf design still on the backing fabric. The directions stated to 'stitch the outer cord down to the fabric with very small stitches'. Well, that was a distasteful thought to me, so I got the old faithful sewing machine out and stitched the cord to the backing fabric with a very large zig-zag stitch. Seemed to work OK....



This second picture shows the completed article - TA-DA! Next time around I will 'snip' the blasted zig-zag stitches better instead of merely yanking the poor needle lace off the backing fabric in a rough and disrespectful way. The poor little leaf lost a little bit of shape in the process.

Long awaited doily

It was definitely time to tackle a larger tatting task than I had previously undertaken, so a doily pattern was chosen.

Debbie Arnold made this opportunity possible by kindly sharing her Purple and teal square doily pattern on the Web.

This pattern was interesting and enjoyable to tat. It gave me the opportunity to polish up on my 'unpicking' skills. It even gave me the opportunity to learn how to 'cut out' mistakes that were too large to unpick (twice!).

Debbie warns that rows 8 to 10 are 'count carefully rows'. And I'd like to confirm that she wasn't joking:)

I hope to come across other patterns that she has designed because her doily pattern keeps its shape nicely when completed.

Jacobean Flower Spray

This Jacobean Flower Spray was designed by Mark Myers.

The pattern mentioned using Oliver Twist Thread. In the absense of that thread, I decided to do the design twice for comparative purposes. The first one was tatted in size 80 DMC and the second one was in size 50 Altin Basak.

The size 50 thread was more enjoyable and seems to look nicer. Plus...it hides the threads better :)

The design specified that the flowers were to have the threads cut and tied at the end of each row. However, my lazy side kicked in a bit and I changed the flowers slightly so that I could complete each flower without stopping at each round.

I really like the way that Mark has designed the leaf part of it. It keeps its shape really well. And best of all - the large frond can be tatted in one go without having to cut and tie the ends! Very important to me :)

Winner of the knot maker giveaway

And the winner is...Dale Marie!

Dale Marie, would you please e-mail me to advise of the address you would like this knot maker to be sent to?

Thanks everyone for entering.

No more UFOs

At last my UFO list has reached zero! NB - I've been told that works in progress are not counted as UFOs :)

Last year I completed this rose that was designed by Toni Storer. And that is how it stayed for many months until I got around to putting all of the pieces together.

It then stayed at 'stage 2' for several more months until I worked up the motivation to stiffen the petals.

It was a really nice and relaxing pattern to tat. Note to self - don't choose patterns that need to be pieced together or sewn together :)

Giveaway

To celebrate the completion of my first 25 Motif Challenge, I'm offering my first 'Give Away'.

Please make a comment to this blog if you are interested in going in the draw to win the Asian Knot maker from the following picture. Entries will close on Mother's Day, which is Sunday the 9th of May from my recollection.

Ah, and one small technicality, I don't know how people who do these giveaways actually know the winner's address to post it to. So I would be most obliged if anyone could tell me the 'usual' way that addresses are exchanged.

Motif 25

My 25th Motif consists of two smaller motifs combined to make a necklace.

The larger flower is from Teiko Fujito's book Tatted Fashion, whilst the smaller flowers are from Rebecca Jone's book The Complete Book of Tatting.

The chain was made from repeating a half stitch in the same way that a Josephone knot is made (without the knot aspect of course).

Motif 24

This flower was derived from a pattern by Ruth Scharf.

It was a pleasure to tat, particularly as the flower uses continuous thread. No cutting and sewing/tying in ends at the end of each row, hooray!

A great pattern to tat whilst watching television.

Magnificant mail

More happy dancing today!

The postman left two seperate parcels today, both for me :)

The first parcel contained Mark Myers' Jacobean Flower Spray pattern and the second contained new thread :):):):)

What a treat to have the thread and the pattern arrive at the same time so that I can start the project straight away.

I plan on doing the pattern in DMC 80 and then repeating it in Altin Basak 50 to see which I prefer.

Hmmm....this, combined with my other UFOs, should keep me occupied for quite some time....

Motif 23

Almost forgot to put this little cutie up online. It is an Easter bunny inside of an Easter egg and it was my contribution to a group entry in the Canberra Show.

I wish I could give credit to the designer, but the pattern didn't have a name attached to it :(

Motif 22

These daffodils were my entry for the Canberra Show. They are made from the same pattern as was Motif 10 (from Toni Storer's book Tatting down the garden path), but used size 30 Altin Basak instead of size 10.

They look much nicer in the finer thread and are a much more realistic size.

Motif 21

Maple leaf - Take 2

I enjoyed doing Tammy Rodgers' maple leaf so much (mainly because there were no joins....) that I chose this same pattern to be my practice piece for finer thread. Yes, that's right, I've reached the stage of using size 80 thread!

The finer thread does not photograph as nicely as the thicker thread, but it looks so much nicer in the flesh. Must admit though, unpicking it and opening the ring was not an enjoyable task.

Happy dance

Woo-hoo, today the postman delivered the books that were sent by Georgia Sietz!

Some of people celebrate Christmas in July, but I'm experiencing Christmas in February :)

I am now the proud owner of:

• Advanced tatting patterns by Judi Banashek
• Tattaed fashion by Teiko Fujito (translated)
• Tea is for tatting, by Martha Ess, and
• Tree of life by Karey Solomon

Now to finish some UFOs to free up a few shuttles......

Workbasket magazine

Crazy Mum Tats is very generously giving away Workbasket magazines.

See the following blog for details.

http://psychotatter.blogspot.com/

Max, the mauve breasted rooster

Now here is something to crow about. Meet Max, the mauve breasted rooster.

He hatched yesterday and already has a proud comb.

This TIAS was really enjoyable, thanks Jane! It was the first TIAS that I have been involved in and I'm a bit sad that the title was 'TIAS 2010', because this infers that there is only one per year :(

I really appreciated all of the experienced tatters putting their TIAS online each day because I checked them out before proceeding with my own each time.

TIAS day 10

I too have a rooster by day 10 of the TIAS.

However, my rooster is mauve breasted, whereas other peoples' roosters are uniform in colour. Hmmm.....perhaps I may have unwittingly swapped shuttles at some point in the project. Ah, the non-conformist in me is coming out.

Motif 20

This motif was designed by Jon Yusoff and has been tatted in Lizbeth 20. Her design shows the colours in the thread beautifully.

Lizbeth thread comes in some gorgeous colours, but I think that I prefer the feel of Altin Basak. Shall have to compare the two a bit more.

Motif 19

Hoorah! I remembered to scan the tatting at last. Doing the actual tatting is always the fun part. It's the follow up work that throws me, such as scanning the motif so that the picture can be posted to the blog.

The following two motifs, 'the square and diamond motifs', were from Jane Eborall's site - . Quite appropriately named really.

The pattern suggests making several of these motifs and then joining them together to create a larger product. I didn't do this because I'm still at the stage of tatting smaller objects so that I can see what different patterns look like when they are finished.

These two patterns look really sweet. I also did the triangular pattern from the series, but did not scan it. My completed triangle could definitely not be considered 'sweet'. Poor Jane might reconsider sharing her patterns if she saw how badly I botched it :(

TIAS day 4

This part of the TIAS looks a bit like a hat that has a tail. A bit like the one that Daniel Boone used to wear in the show that was on TV during my childhood.

Motif 18

These little treasures were a delight to tat! Aren't they cheery and happy. They are just the right size to stick on to a card.

I saw something similar on someone else's blog, but can't remember whose it was to give them the credit :(

I doubt that my stitch count would be the same as the original though, because their petals were a bit longer.

So...if you are the lovely tatter who put the original flowers online, thanks!

TIAS

Confession time...... I had stopped doing the TIAS (before I had even begun) because I wasn't sure how to proceed. But then I saw all of the other tatters' photos and realised what was expected of me.

Ta-da, now I have completed day 1 of TIAS too!

Motif 17

This little number was from Ruth Scharf's book Occhi and was tatted in.......Altin Basak of course!

The book contains some really nice designs. It is not written in English though, so hopefully I haven't strayed too far from the original design.

I really like the texture of the motif. Next time that I do this pattern it will be in green, because it looks like a leaf.

Motif 16

Another addition to my flower collection! This pretty pink flower is based upon one from Ondori's Tatting lace book. It has been tatted in my new favourite thread...Altin Basak size 30.

The flower was made from a long (longish) strip of tatted lace that was then coiled around into a rozette. The book indicates that a bead is to be placed in the centre, but I prefer the mauve tatted alternative (not to mention the fact that I don't possess any suitable beads....)

The pattern was fun and easy to do, but it remained as a UFO until I could be bothered to coil it. It would still be a UFO if it was waiting for a centre bead!