No new pictures today

Gail has taken a break from tatting to create her first knitting pattern for sale. Congratulations Gail.

Laura shows us her coffee table with tatting under glass. An interesting way to both show off and protect her lace. A great conversation piece too!

Halloween Tatting

In time for Halloween, Carol has posted a Charming Witch, or is that a witch with charm?




Martha has done a Maltese ring bookmark with a multicoloured chain. Pretty, but I can understand why she says it was a pain in the neck to do. In addition, she's all ready for Trick or Treaters with this very skinny fellow on her blog.

Let it snow, Let it snow

Janet gets ready for Christmas with Jingly Bell earrings.


Riet has created some lovely snowflakes in metallic thread. She doesn't think it's DMC but maybe someone else who was at Palmettos last year can help her out.

Marilee has done one of Vida Sunderman's snowflakes called Ruffle-Edged Snowflake in size 40 DMC Cordonnet Special.

Laura did Mark Myer's Hyacinth Flower in Altin Basak size 50 for the bloom and DMC Cebelia size 20 for the stem and leaf.

LaRae posts a motif from "Heritage Patterns" by Norma Benporath.

Candy, Booties and Doilies

Just another reminder for people just starting the challenge. You don't need to send a message to the e-mail lists or e-mail me directly when you have a new motif on your blog. I check the blogs daily for new entries. The only way I can get you pictures to show up here is to copy them onto my computer, so by signing up you're giving me permission to show off your tatting. Some of you don't have the software to crop your pictures and you end up with lots of background that takes up room. That limits how many pictures I can include in the daily post so I will crop out excess background where necessary.

Don't forget to check out the other blogs and leave comments. People like to know that you are looking at their work and admiring it. If you like a new design someone has done, don't forget to mention it. People appreciate your comments and they like to know you admire their designs.



Candy anyone? Janet has tatted a peppermint twist. What's with this tatting food lately. Yesterday it was strawberries and today it's peppermint candy.


If you were wondering why there hasn't been anything new on Donata's blog for a while, it's because she has been working on baby booties. She started with the little heart motif done back to back with a row of ring and chain around the outside. Not quite right, it's too small. So she did it again separating the hearts with a pair of daisies. Much closer, but it may need to be made wider at the toe. I don't know, it may be all right the way it is. It sure is different, lacy and delicate. I can't wait to see the rest of the bootie. My first bootie attempt came out looking like an oddly shaped little pouch.


Sharon has added some more on the design primer.


EeKoon has now posted the pictures that she couldn't upload yesterday. A familiar wee design from Mini Tats and the beginnings of the doily from Be-Stitched done in a shade of watermelon Floretta size 10. What's with all the food colours and tatted food. You guys are making me hungry.

Scary spiders and yummy strawberries

Eva has some new pauashell shuttles from New Zealand. She's only keeping 2 of them. Tell us how they tat Eva.


Janet shares the pattern for her daisy picot snowflake created the other day.


Clyde has completed another large motif for his tablecloth. These are large 4 row motives and there's a lot of work in each one. If each motif was posted as it was done as a separate motif, you could visit Clyde's blog regularly and think that nothing new has been posted, but when you see them all together it looks spectacular. Continually tatting the same motif is difficult because it is so easy to become bored with it. Part of the challenge of such a large undertaking is just the discipline to keep at it. Clyde is wisely breaking up the monotony by tatting other things in between.


Jon has been trying to work a new design that uses the onion ring join, but so far it isn't working as planned. In the interim she's sharing a previously designed project, a large star worked all in one round. Very interesting.


EeKoon has completed 2 more motives but she has been unable to post them.

Laura has faced her fear of spiders and tatted Mark's spider and web.


Martha joins the challenge with 3 motives. The first is Donna's accidental cross. She's used size 30 Omega thread for this design. The second is Rita Cochrane's Thistle Do Pin from the Online class and the texture made her think of strawberries. What she created makes me hungry.

Pumpkins and Snowflakes, It must be Fall.

Wally has posted a fan motif which incorporates pearl tatting. Wally has cleverly used this technique to create an effect similar to hairpin lace.


Eva has done Kersti Anear's bookmark design using Flora thread in her team's colours.






Janet has done Donata's sweet heart motif. She has also created an intriguing red and white daisy picot snowflake with a button centre.




Gail was looking through her stash and found a previously created pumpkin and jack o'lantern. She's also done her first try at a goddess shape using a Scharf leaf for the bottom. It still needs a bit of tweaking.


Sharon is continuing on with the designing primer.



Snowy has posted a motif done in a scrumptious Valdani thread. She didn't identify the pattern but it looks like the same one Nivedita has on her blog from the Blomqvist and Persson book.


Carol has a tatted moonlighting bat on her blog and a GIANT spider, but it's not tatted. Carol must be trying to terrify the neighborhood kids.


LaRae has another snowflake done. She used the pattern from DMC Festive Tatting but the design called for 8 repeats and it worked better for her using only 7.

Earrings, Snowflakes and Bookmarks

Janet has been laid up with a sprained ankle and that makes for lots of time to tat. She's been doing lots of experimenting with theTurkish filament threads and beads. Star shaped earrings, silvery loops and sparkly bats. The tatting is terrific but the camera's a little out of focus.



Snowy has finally received the books she ordered 3 weeks ago and she has completed a simple snowflake and another motif in red. The red motif looks adorable although she says she's fed up with it.




Laura has posted another bookmark. This one is Tabatha, a design by Kersti Anear, worked in DMC perle size 5 in a lovely shade of purple.



LaRae shares with us a motif done in 2002 for the Dodge House Christmas tree. The colours that year were blue, white and silver, simple, yet pretty.

Compare old vs new and plain vs variegated

Meme has posted a design that uses block tatting. It's a pretty motif from the Burda magazine.






Laura is showing us some tatting done when she had just begun to tat. It just shows how much we can improve. Also posted today is a bookmark designed by Kim Miller that includes crochet as well as tatting.


LaRae has done Mary Konior's Windmills pattern in plain white with much smaller picots. The design is more easily visible than it is in the samples done by Donna in the variegated thread and normal size picots.

A Thistle and a Celtic Motif

Riet has done a thistle motif from the on line class. It may be a weed to some, but to others it's a wildflower and as Riet points out, the birds like the wildflowers in her garden.













Marilee has done a celtic motif that she will be adding to a handwoven jacket. Very intricate and very dramatic in black.

Two months into the Challenge

Has it been 2 months since we started this challenge? It doesn't seem that long, but we have certainly seen an amazing amount of lace. So many different motives and so many different reasons for making them.

What's really terrific is the number of people who have made their first attempts at designing their own patterns. I am so impressed with the people who have just started tatting and took on the challenge. It's a sizable undertaking for an experienced tatter, but it takes real effort and dedication for beginners. We all remember the struggles we had learning. It's hard enough just getting the flip, and then trying to read a pattern when there isn't a lot of consistency in how patterns are written, and learning new techniques just to be able to complete a motif, and all while trying to develop consistent stitches and picots. Bravo! Keep up the good work.

Janet has created a heart with a silver centre in memory of her aunt. Very lacy and delicate looking, and just the sort of thing for a lady.


Barbara has been busy. She has completed Kersti Anear's sweetheart bookmark, just for a change of pace, and a medallion from Ann Orr's Classic Tatting Patterns. After all f of the lavender, lilac and ecru motives, I thought I was in the wrong blog with these 2 latest motives in blue and variegated yellow/orange.


LaRae joins the challenge and posts this first snowflake that is a pattern out of "Tatting" by Myra Piper. The Shuttlebugs of Omaha are decorating a Christmas tree at the historic Dodge House and LaRae has been doing snowflakes for the tree, so she thought she might as well join in the fun of the challenge while she's at it.

Motif, Snowflake and Windmills

Gail has done a motif from Mark's newest book. This rings only motif has been done in two colours in which Gail used up a lot of smaller pieces of thread. Sooner or later we all do that, searching through the stash for just a little more of one particular thread to complete a project.


After a wee break, Clyde has done 4 more motives for his tablecloth. Sometimes you just have to break up larger projects into smaller chunks and take a break from them. Otherwise the pattern gets boring and the joy of working on it becomes drudgery.


Riet has done another daisy picot snowstar. This one sparkles with tiny green beads. These beaded motives are really sweet and they don't look like they'd take a lot of time to make.


Sharon had posted more designing info along with the pattern for snowflake #3. It's amazing the possibilities in a few snowflakes.


Donna has done several more of the windmill motives to see how they look together but the overall pattern isn't emerging yet.

Lots of Daisy Picots

Keeping up with all of the blogs is keeping me up way past my bed time and my thought processes aren't the best at 2:00 in the morning so tonight I promised myself I'd get this done before midnight. I might make it.


Gail has taken a pause from tatting to do some knitting for Christmas. A felted bag is the results.


Lynda has been working on her Christmons. She began with a pattern from Mary Konior's book, Tatting with Visual Patterns in gold and white but didn't like the effect of the gold thread in the inner part of the pattern, so she re-did it using the gold thread only as an external outline. Both are pretty in different ways.


Jon used Riet's daisy picot instructions to create this red and green delight. She thinks it needs some tweaking, but it looks good from where I'm sitting.


Riet has done a daisy picot earring with beads and a snowflake with beads. They're both adorable.


EeKoon has been doing some creative beadwork.

Flowers and Leaves and Creepy Crawlies

Mark was busy while he was away and his blog looks very autumnal with lots of tatted leaves. He's also showing some interesting little motives and a spider web complete with a little spider.

Riet has re-done her daisy picot edging and given it a corner. I agree with Jane that an edging without a corner is incomplete.

Sharon has added more information on designing and answered some of the questions that have been posed.

Azie has posted her second motif, a design by Darlene Polachic from a crochet magazine.


Laura has posted her first original design, a nosegay of flowers done in Sulky thread.

A doily in progress

Meme has posted an unfinished doily. It's the first three rounds of the Arachne Round Robin Doily from LaRae's page.

Tatting Galore!

Ruth is looking for the source of a snowflake she received n an exchange. Does anyone recognize it?

Sharol has another sun motif completed, but she thinks this one looks more like a snowflake. Maybe it's because it's the season for snowflakes. Points are hard to create in tatting. Rings and chains just naturally curve so creating points for a sun isn't easy. I think you're doing really well to have come up with the designs you have.


Clyde is starting the challenge again and has already posted 3 heart motives.

Mark is back from his holiday and would appreciate our prayers for his wife's aunt who collapsed with a ruptured aneurysm while they were away.


Kathy has posted a pattern from the April 1972 Workbasket done in Tennessee Orange.


Riet shares her instructions for making the daisy picot and a picture of Roesje the cat, a pattern from Martha Ess.


Sharon has more of the design primer posted with the instructions for row 2 of the doily.


Maria is having computer problems and will post again as soon as she can.


EeKoon has done another design from the Blomqvist & Persson book. This one is a gift for a co-worker.

Laura has done Jon's heart again, this time in size 10 so that she could see it clearly if she had to take it out. The thread is South
Maid colour 995, Ocean. Very pretty.