New book, new designs, new adventures

Announcing Sherry's first Tatting book!!!!! Congratulations Sherry.

Pamela has posted pictures of some of the earliest doilies she tatted all made with size 60 thread, back when she had eyes to see such fine thread. It is a far cry from what we tat now, but just as beautiful as they were decades ago.

Sylvia has been having problems with her blog going offline so she's in the process of moving things over to Blogger.

Wendy has been participating in several swaps. She highlighted a number of tutorials on her blog and she's still on the hunt for more information on Oya lace. On the quilting front, she has the blocks sewn together for a patriotic quilt top that has taken several years to collect all the bits and pieces. She also has a Fall quilt top pieced together and a notice about a stolen quilt.

Anne has completed the Icelandic shawl it used 148 grams of yarn and she has only 6 grams left. That's cutting it close! Now she can choose a project from one of the books that just arrived.

Tami has been too busy to blog, but now she's taking the time to show us what she's been doing.She stitched a lot of snowflakes for her son's wedding, tatted lots of flowers for the bouquets and made a Kleenex case for the mother of the bride. She's still working on the edging for the bride's hanky.

Connie was tagged posted her responses.

Diane has been busy helping her daughter who is directing a school play and hasn't had a lot of time to tat, but inspired by the ornaments she saw on the internet she did manage to get one done, but there are 24 balls in the package and only 41 days until Christmas.

Bob tatted Sherry's butterfly body in Crochetta size 8 to make them hairy using half the stitch count and the wings were made in DMC 80. I never would have thought of doing that, but it looks good.

Kelly finally has some pictures of her tatting.The first piece is from the Tat-along project and she's now pleased with her tension. The Albino Bat is from Mark's site. Next is one repeat from the Cecelia Doily it's made with a soft thread that won't hold it's shape. She plans on making as many repeats as she can from the ball of thread and turning it into a small doily. She's not sure where the pattern for the triangular motif came from, if anyone recognizes it, let her know so that she can credit the designer. It's also done with a soft thread so she'll have to mount it on something so that it holds it's shape. Soft thread was again used for this motif from the Tat-along project and the finished piece will have to be attached to something to hold it's shape. The last 2 pieces were just little doodles to finish up the thread on a spool.

Clyde's Christmas cactus is a mass of flowers.

The NNC group celebrated the first anniversary with an exchange of gifts. Jon received a quilted wall hanging and crocheted coasters and she gave 3 crocheted doilies and a tatted pin cushion. She was looking at The Pearl Tatting book by Riego and she thought she had an easy pattern to try out, but it wasn't constructed the way she thought it was. Instead on the rings being joined to the picot of the first ring, which leaves a big hole in the middle, the rings of the first side are tatted but NOT joined. Then they are joined as the second side is constructed, crossing over each other and filling in the centre gap. It makes an interesting difference.

I was just contacted by CBC TV about doing a segment on tatting and I'm really excited about it.

TA DA! Snowy has the pink doily finished even with all of the extra help the cats gave her.

Marilee has a new collection of earrings. She did a simple split ring design, that is beautiful and elegant. Her snowflake design done in quilting thread seems firm enough to hold it's shape without stiffening. Her weathered stone colourway seems to be very popular everything she's done in that colour has been snatched off the shelves, but now she's working on a deep green colour.

Jon's tatted doily reminded Laura of her grandmother's crocheted doily. She found the crocheted doily and filmed them side by side. You can certainly see the similarities. Laura did Jon's Daisy Picot Snowflake again just so she wouldn't forget the technique and even in such a short time she had to sit down with the instructions again. The thread used is DMC Cebelia 20.

Marty's Butterfly 3 had a re-work in Cebelia 30 and it was looking pretty good so she did it again in Coats pastel quilting thread and discovered as she was completing it that it would work better if she started it differently so she did it a fourth time in Coats jewel quilting thread and best of all NO ends to hide. I really like patterns like that!

Melissa has been reclaiming fabric from thrift store finds to use in creating a CQ purse for a friend's Christmas gift. She's also tried the vintage Block and Scallop edging and it's the first time she's done block tatting and the first time she has consistently used a picot gage in the horizontal position. This edging is looking like it wants to curve, so she may just make it into a circular motif.

It's a leaf. It's a chick. It's an eagle. It's Martha's ever evolving tatting. Doesn't Martha come up with the most engaging ideas?