Edgings, Snowflakes, Butterflies and Bookmarks

Martha tatted Jane Eborall's gecko in Valdani thread and comments that it's not as smooth and shiny as a regular perle cotton, but not as "matte finish" as Caron Wildflowers.

Wendy's family went for a picnic with friends and it looks like they had a good time. On the tatting front Wendy posts 3 yards of tatting done with vintage pink threads.Sarah is being troubled by people taking patterns from her web site and selling them as an e-book on ebay.

Joyce has completed snowflakes 23 and 24 from Lene Bjorn's book. Both of these used block tatting chain on chain components that intimidated her so she saved them for last. They look great. Now she has to decide what to do for number 25.

Sapna did a bookmark for one of her friends and now they all want one. We know what that's like, seems everyone wants our tatting.

Iris is working on a book of jewellery designs like this one. She has also posted the diagram for the Tatt off butterfly. She won't be posting again for a while since she is travelling to Edmonton, Canada and then to the Palmetto Tat Days in the US.Norma joins the challenge with a motif and edging, both done with Finca perle #16. Norma plans to use the challenge to try out some threads that are new to her.
Ruth posts the basic butterfly for her NC class. She'll be disconnect from the internet until she's set up again in Ohio.Clyde is using the Hand Dyed Threads to create colourful snowflakes for Christmas giveaways. It's hard to think of Christmas in 90F degree heat. Mark will be teaching this angel at Tracy the Lacemaker’s Fall Lace event in Ohio on Nov. 3-4 and Living Lace of Omaha on Nov 10-11. It is made of DMC Cebelia cotton size 30 with clear glass beads and teardrop crystal bead and 3 Swarvsky crystals in the dangles and features pearl tatting with wire encapsulation.Jon learned to needle tat and her first piece is this bookmark from the Dreams of Lace site. She used size 10 Manuela thread since that fit her needle. She's concerned that she might break the finer needles.

I tatted several more flowers using different threads, and I've added a teaser from the upcoming newsletter. Can you guess what it is?Marilee created another pendant using her hand dyed thread colour "Summer Trail". It does look like a summer trail doesn't it? Charlene has been tatting lots of butterflies for the Palmetto Tatters day.
Sherry has just finished firing some cups and saucers with tatted motif decoration.

Seahorse, Celtic Rose Star, Beaded Cross and more

Terry had a large number of orders to get ready and then she decided to take her bells to Palmettos and discovered that she was missing several of them and had to tat fast and furious to get them all done. Now that things have slowed down a bit she can post again. Terry has provided the pattern for this lovely bookmark which was designed for a tatter that lost her battle with cancer.

Wendy spent her time in the doctor's office with her daughter who got whiplash from falling down the stairs. Good thing, little kids bounce better than adults.

Anne has finished knitting the mystery stole and now she's working on a two winged shawl.

Sarah received a vintage Paragon book "Tatting" and after perusing the book she has decided on a motif for the doily she wants to make. She has also displayed the samples of hairpin lace she has been experimenting with.

Tami has been busy quilting, and making purses but in between she managed to tat a bright yellow seahorse. Iris has tatted a wonderful cross with beads and she says she can only work with beads when her grandchildren aren't around.

Ruth tatted this combination of a Celtic Rose and a Celtic Star which she says is a challenging to weave, but easy to tat.

This is Clyde's third time around for the 25 Motif Challenge and his second motif is an edging from Tatting Patterns and Designs by Gun Blomqvist and Elwy Persson tatted with Finca perle 16 pink, that he received in the thread exchange.

Laura tatted Jane's Lobster but she ran out of thread and she thinks maybe she didn't make the picots big enough for claws. He's destined for Isaac's animal jacket.

Sherry was delighted to find that she had won several ribbons for her tatting including Best of Show for her 5 shuttle tatted doily.

Here we go again

Wow, look at all the tatting that is going on! I think I have everybody sorted out, but if I've missed someone let me know. Also, if you have finished your first 25 motives, let me know. I'm going as fast as I can to get things updated but there might be a few bumps along the way. There was a small change to the new template and one of the newer features for adding links means that each new entry automatically appears at the top of the list, whereas I used to add them at the bottom. After hitting the wrong arrow and shifting a bunch of names out of sequence I finally just inverted the whole list, just in case anyone is wondering why the names are shifted around. I work from a spreadsheet and the links list and my spreadsheet used to be in sync and now they're not.

Eva didn't manage to complete 25 motives last year, but she's going to try to complete them this year.

Kathy has been using the thread she received in exchanges to tat her motives and she has completed her 25. She comments that since she sized all of the pictures the same, it doesn't really give a perspective of how fine or coarse the threads are. She plans to continue tatting motives and might include a scale of some kind to remedy that.

Now that Carol has finished the challenge she can do some other things like this Yellow Tattytail she did for Sherry Townsend.

Martha has added some bookmarks to her blog.The first is from Jane Eborall's page and the second is a Maltese ring bookmark she will be teaching at Palmettos.

Eliz started college this summer and didn't have a lot of time for tatting. She's squeezing in the online tatting class and plans to tat more motives this year. She did manage to launch another tatter off into her own tatting adventure this year. We all do our bit to addict more people, don't we?

Wendy has been enjoying some camping and some glorious scenery. Her photo album is sporting a length of variegated pink edging along with a number of other creations. Her 8th motif is almost 2 yards of variegated yellow edging. The "salesman's samples" of tatting shows an assortment of laces and prices for each circa 1900. Wendy's 9th edging deciphered from the salesman's sampler is included on her blog and was done with vintage thread, but she finds it to floppy. Can you imagine tatting this for 55 cents a yard?

Anne is tatting Pam Palmer's Dragon and she's leaving the thread ends on to give her something to attach the dragon to the background when it's completed. Some projects do look like a pile of knotted threads until they are finished.

Sarah has received her invitation to Ravelry and has been having fun with it and she has made a search engine for free knitting patterns.

Joyce has posted a picture of a sampler of machine quilting she did when she took a Quilt University class.

Tami joins the challenge and shows some of the tatting she has completed. See the tiny Snippet, he's small enough to sit on a coin.

Connie has jumped into the challenge with both feet. Her first motif was made on Monday, but not only is she stretching her wings tatting, she's also tackled web design in addition to setting up her blog. I'd be on brain overload with all of that going on, but Connie seems to be thriving on it. Today she did one of Lyn Morton's designs in size 80 Majestic thread which included beads.

Sapna has been working on tatting motives lately, so joining the challenge was a good fit. She has been working on 2 colour tatting and experimenting with colours for terrific results. Take the time to check out Sapna's page and look at the 9 meters of tatting she has been doing for her saree.That's a lot of lace.

Iris is an amazing designer and she has decided to join the challenge too. Just look at these clever earrings.

Ruth has moved again and that makes 3 moves in the same year. If I moved that often I'd still have unpacked boxes from the first move! Ruth's great grandfather wrote out a brief autobiography and Ruth wants to know if anyone can add any information to it.

Clyde's son is spending a few weeks with him and requested a tatted bookmark. Clyde made the bookmark from Monica Hahn's Christmas Angels and Other Tatting Patterns using the Hand Dyed Hues.

Snowy has been busy with several projects on the go including a new design she is working on.The printer/scanner broke and when it was opened up to see what was wrong with it, this lovely piece she was working on was found inside. I guess we know what broke the machine.

Brigitte Henneberger shared a charming design on the Tatting Pattern Calendar and Laura has tatted it using variegated Flora and a DMC green both size 20.

Dawn posted a picture of the tatted edging she did for her daughter's blouse. It's very pretty.The Forever Young doily she made using size 10 South Maid in green was given to her aunt. Dawn also tatted Martha Ess' Butterfly in variegated yellow and purple pearl cotton size 8 and then did it again in 3 strands of DMC and both are roughly the same size. Eva Shock's Butterfly with needle lace was tatted in (Ne 10/2 100% Algodao Mercerizado Rubi Brilhante) which is equivalent to a size 10 crochet cotton. Marty has had surgery on her left hand and won't be tatting for a while. She has posted a picture of the labels on the Signature thread which she uses for tatting. It's a very fine sewing thread and called a trilobal polyester and Marty comments that it stretches if you tat tightly.

Melissa has continued to coach her friend Wendy in the art of CQ and now Wendy has her own blog. The embroidered chihuahuas on her mother in law's T-shirt have been finished and the shirt given and now Melissa is busy working on another CQ block.

Sherry pulled out some tatted pieces that she made years ago. It's nice to look back every once in a while and remember that pieces we have created. The oval doily platter Sherry created is looking wonderful and it will look even better with another firing, if it survives.Sherry used some of Marilee's hand dyed thread in size 80 and tatted over some heavy duty nylon coated stainless steel wire to create this beautiful grapes/lilacs necklace.

ONE YEAR LATER

WOW! We have hit 2 milestones at once. This is the 200th post in the 25 Motif Challenge blog and it also marks the anniversary of starting the challenge. We have had over half of the people who signed up a year ago successfully complete their 25 motives. A few people have had to drop out because, as we all know, stuff happens, whether it's work, family, health, or technology. Some folks started later and they are still working toward their goal. I will continue to blog about people's entries until we're all done. In fact, I'm going to suggest that if you didn't join the challenge last year, now's your chance, we're going to start a whole new round. This time, I'm going to see if I can do something about the technological problems and try and get our less geeky members work posted.

Janet has been away from tatting for a while at got back into it with snowflakes, so hopefully we'll see some snow soon.

Carol has the basket finished for her poinsettias and all she has to do is make the rest of the flowers to go in it. She completes her challenge with a tatted cat. Scaredy Cats just right for Halloween.

Wendy has made some hats, well actually she made a lot of hats. In keeping the the butterfly theme she took 4 napkins with a butterfly in the corner and sewed them together so that all 4 butterflies meet in the centre. Then she added pillow stuffing and some yo-yos in the centre as a button. really sweet and her daughter seems to love it.Now she's into crocheting more hexagons to turn into another afghan.

Anne has posted a series of pictures of gorgeous sunsets.

Joyce wanted to join the challenge a while ago, but she had trouble getting the whole blog thing to work for her. In the interim she was busy tatting away at the designs in Lene Bjorn's 24 Snowflakes in Tatting. Now she has her pictures posted and she's already, almost finished so you get to see what she has been working on all at once. These were done with #12 perle cotton and measure 3" - 3.5"across.

As are these with the exception of the last one that has spiral chains made from #30 variegated

More snowflakes made from patterns in Lene Bjorn's book. These are all done with #12 perle cotton.

Joyce found that she became more proficient at working continuously rather than cutting and tying as she completed these snowflakes. You know what they say, practice makes perfect.

These haven't been blocked yet, but they will be when they are all completed. I'm not sure I'd want to block 25 snowflakes all at once.

Ruth has posted a picture of a vintage tatting design and she's wondering what publication the pattern came from.

Clyde has received some more of the hand dyed threads that he loves to use. Now he just has to decide what to turn it into.

Mark took a ton of pictures while he was on vacation and he's begun uploading the pictures to his blog. Looks like he had a lot of fun.

Jon received a number of threads from her exchange partners that she had never tried before. She tatted them up using a motif from Tatting Pattern and Designs by Blomqvist and Persson, this is the same motif Laura used for her Pyramid Mat. It sure gives you a great perspective of the threads to see them lined up like this.

Laura finished a wedding hanky. It's so delicate looking and such a lot of Mignonette work. Well done Laura! She has also posted a picture of her coffee table with all of the tatting protected under glass where she can see it every day.

Melissa has moved across country and finished her hens and chicks edging for her shirt. She has already shown a friend how to do CQ and gotten her totally addicted to it. It's wonderful to be able to share our fibre arts with others.

Sherry created a lovely little cluny flower motif, and she has re-tatted her butterflies giving them a new little twist. she's also been busy with her pottery and working on a book or 3 of new tatting designs.

Awesome Tatting

Whew! There are so many awesome things being done it takes me a while to update things.

Ruth has been creating more beautiful butterflies and producing an intriguing motif with bead centred rings and beaded twisted cord picots. Interesting.

Here's Clyde's doily with the dragon sitting on it. It's a perfect match.

Mark did well with his fair entries winning a number of ribbons including several first and second prizes. A local art teacher gave him a lace book with some pictures of incredible lace samples and the pet cat gave him an interesting morning retrieving the end of an unwound ball of thread that was attached to a tatting project. Nice kitty. NOT!

Jon has designed some wonderful earrings that are a take off on her hanging ornaments. They're just lovely.

Kathy used King Tut thread to make this maple leaf. The solar active thread she received in an exchange was supposed to turn yellow, but she thinks the colour only goes from white to ecru without getting all the way to yellow. It doesn't seem to tat very well either, but it's always fun trying out new threads just to see what they are like. Riet has been busy preparing for the Palmetto Tat Days and working on these marvelous daisy picot stars. Carol has created a 3D tatted version of her dog, Rebel using DMC size 8 thread. Doesn't he look just adorable?
Laura just keeps on tatting. She made the Clover Heart from Nancy's Be-Stitched newsletter in size 20 Flora thread. Then she tatted Ruth's snail from the Tatting Pattern Calendar in size 10 thread. Then she paused for a moment to celebrate her daughter's graduation from nursing school before. Marty combined one strand of Signature machine embroidery thread and one strand of Gütermann cotton sewing thread wound together on the shuttles and 5/8 inch four-hole buttons with the Baby Lace she created for the challenge to make these unique decorations for T-shirts. They certainly do perk up a plain T. Sherry has posted pictures of the butterflies she created and added a link to her free patterns. She also shows a picture of some lace she is trying to identify. Wendy has worked a length of tatted edging using a lovely variegated yellow thread. She's doing the ABC's meme that is currently popular on a lot of blogs and she has received the Nice Matters Award. Her daughter is delighted with the butterflies they are accumulating as her room gets decorated.Anne has most of the mystery stole done, just one more clue left. While waiting on the last clue she has pulled out a shawl she was working on earlier this year.

Sarah has been doing lots of suffolk puffs/yo-yos. This one she added some tatting to. When taking a break from sewing yo-yos Sarah has been experimenting with more hairpin lace. And some crocheted butterflies. Lots of creative ideas are floating around these days.