Medallions, Ice Drops, Motifs, Pendants, Yoke, Star, Doilies, Earrings, Tablecloth, Ornaments and Butterflies

The Guidelines

1. Permission to copy. When a participant joins they are authorizing me to copy their pictures to be shown on the challenge blog.
2. The blogs are ALL checked whenever there is an update using the links list in the sidebar on the right, there is no need to advise me that you have added new content. If your new items haven't shown up, it's because I haven't had time to do an update yet.
3. I can't keep track of how many motifs each person does. You may post articles of tatting that you don't plan on including in your 25, or you may post a pair of earrings and count each earring as a separate motif. I don't read minds, so it's up to each participant to tell me when they have reached their goal of 25.
4. From past experience I know the challenge is addictive. If you finish and plan on doing it again let me know so that I continue to check your blog on a regular basis. Also let me know if once was enough so that I can move your blog to the list of past participants.
5. Whenever you get a chance don't just view the pictures here, take the time to click on the links to people's blogs and read all about what they are doing, instead of just getting the snippets of it here. People like it when you take the time to visit their blog and comment on their work. A lot of the fun of the challenge is that we get to know each other and encourage one another to try new things.
6. Tatting 25 motifs in a year typically means tatting 2 motifs per month. Tatters who do not post any tatting content for 5 or 6 months will be removed from the list of participants.

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Usha has created a star medallion which she named Fusion Elegance that incorporates tiny dots and tiny dainty dot picots. She has included instructions and the PDF pattern on her blog.

Diane was working on her Spring Garden Ice Drop and got to thinking about how she could modify it. So the Bloomin' Ice Drop pattern was born. Instructions for it are on her blog. It was so beautiful, she had to make another. She decided that patriotic red, white and blue colours for Ice Drops, were an appropriate choice for Independence Day.

Margaret tatted her own red, white and blue Ice Drop using the Ice drop pattern by Marti Miller and substituting blue beads for the blue thread.

Marie test tatted Usha's "Fusion Elegance" in size 20 Lizbeth thread. She did some embellishment tatting around a triangular pendant to make a one of a kind treasure. This motif was useful for emptying shuttles.

Martha is still working on the Phyllis Sparks yoke, and she wanted to do the small motifs around the end to make sure they would fit. Thankfully they did and you can see here motifs number 1, 2, 3, 4, 14, 15, 16, and 17 which is starting to look like the final product.

Nikki tatted the star which is based on an Anne Orr edging which someone modified into a star and Nikki used  a red thread that seemed to be 2 different colours when it was done. She enhanced it with glitter glue which camouflaged the difference. !4 cards were sent out to family with these little gems. She's  working on another doily using Artiste thread in Coal black and dawn rose.

Sue made these Ice Drop earrings in white and she had intended to add some tiny iridescent beads, but she forgot to put them on the ball thread before she started, so she pulled the ball thread through the tiny beads then slipped the shuttle through the loop, slightly snugged the bead into place and then tatted the rest of the chain. She is making progress on widening the "tail" of her tablecloth and eventually it will all be the same width. Sue figures these Christmas Ice Drops will make great ornaments for Christmas trees. Here's another Christmas Ice drop using the same pattern.

Wanda was going to make earrings, but she changed her mind and made red, white and blue butterflies. She discovered while handling them that the butterflies don't have to lie flat, they can be posed with their wings up.

Motifs, Doilies, Ice Drops, Button Motifs, Collar, Techniques, Flowers, Earrings and Butterflies

Usha got the idea of stringing dot picots on bare thread while working with single shuttle patterns and her Exotic Pollen design was born. She show how it's done and provides a PDF pattern for it on her blog. She's also looking for test tatters for another pattern called Fusion Elegance.

Mistene has run out of Marilee's size 20 Sugar Maple hand dyed thread and needs more to complete her doily. If anyone has any please get in touch with her. Failing that she's wondering if she could continue in either the orange or yellow. (I think I'd go with using both, one for rings and one for chains.)

Diane spent time on the porch tatting, keeping her husband company while he worked in the yard and the the results are 3 more Ice Drops. Cleaning and weaving took up a lot of her tatting time so she only managed one more Ice Drop.

Fox has been doing a lot of playing with fiddly patterns which she doesn't usually enjoy, but judging by the quantity of them she seems to be having fun with these button motifs and Ice Drops. She branched out from buttons and gems and tatted a Jon Yusoff pattern. Th gorgeous button in this Ice Drop is Venetian glass that Ninetta sent her a few years ago and she was saving it for something special. A mind twisting pattern takes careful attention.

Margaret has plans to refresh a dress with this Jan Stawasz pattern where she is working the split rings and the first row of the pattern together so she can get the right size.

Martha is working on the yoke from Practical Tatting by Phyllis Sparks which is old fashioned and elaborate with approximately 86 individual motifs that can be tatted in any order and she began with the oblong motif. She Photoshopped the image to show it on a black background.

Muskaan tatted Jon Yusoff's Daisy Picot Star, but she was concentrating so hard on getting the daisy picots right that she joined a picot on a ring that should have been floating and decided to cut it off and try again. Things were further complicated by her obsession with front/side, back/side tatting. The dot picot trend continues providing interesting texture to flowers and leaves in this dot picot bouquet. She did a test tat of Usha's Exotic Pollen and found the inner round a bit fiddly. Instead of joining the pollen string to base of ring, she encapsulated it within the last half stitch of the ring, and closed ring. She ran out of thread on the pale yellow one, & had chosen a brighter yellow for the outer round, but this looks cute as is. The cluster of flowers needed some greens. She started with a string of dot picots, joining back at a distance, to create the veins of a leaf as you can see in the pictorial, but this one was disproportionately large for a small leaf and it worked better as a stem.

 

Sue tatted the earrings last week, but she needs to sew in the ends and add hooks to the orange ones. The Christmas Ice Drops were done over the past 3 days.

Wanda was tatting around buttons and this design didn't seem to work, until she realized it wanted to be a butterfly although the head wasn't quite right. She did it again in white and the joins to the button holes look better, but she thinks the head still needs work.