Butterflies, Dragons, Swan and Doilies

Heather created this design in Light Pink. Brown, White, Black, and Ecru as her first piece for the 25 Motif Challenge in size 10 South Maid on a size 5 needle. She has included the pattern for it on her blog. Her second piece is a doily in memory of her grandmother called "Verna Ann" and the pattern is included for this design also.
Kathy N shows us the construction of the spectacular apron on the Victorian doll she did. She was working on a doily and by the time she had done 20 motifs, she'd had enough. The doily turned out to be the perfect size for the skirt overlay on the doll’s dress, but as it doesn't cover the back of the skirt she added another piece of ‘scrap’ tatting on the back and completed it with the top front of the dress. Another piece of scrap tatting was used for the headdress with a wisp of a marabou feather. Now if she could just find the pattern again...
Tara's quest for a Christmas snowflake to tat as gifts ended with Laura's Easter Egg Snowflake. She also tatted the August Mystery Motif and notes that she's almost through her 25 so she may have to start again. (We did warn her it's addicting.) The ball ornament is "Rocking Christmas" a pattern from Debbie Arnold at DS9Designs.

Shirley shows us the Japanese tatting book that she uses that has only diagrams with letters and numbers. These motifs are both done with size 8 pearl cotton The blue beaded flowers in the first one are done ahead and then incorporated into the pattern with white thread. The second motif is tatted with 3 shuttles working one round from center to outside edge and back to center. She used light lavender #211, dark lavender #209, and dark lemon #442. Then she did Mark's swan in black.
TattingChic shows how to attach the thread and tat with a flat shuttle.

Ellen was inspired by some butterfly hair clips to design these creations. The pink one was tatted with Flora 20 threads, and the other with Manuela 20 thread. Weaving a ribbon through the body makes a quick bookmark and she has 2 more variations in mind. Her recent ebay find is an Irish bog oak tatting shuttle inlaid with Malachite.

Aileen has tatted Anne's dragons and named them Ozzy and Sharon. Sharon was done in 30 Omega and Ozzy was done in 20 DMC Babylo.
Jeff has finished the second round on the lucky clover doily and he thinks he might do the third round in a variegated thread in the same shading of Mediterranean blue(s)
Eliz has posted some butterflies she did for a greeting card a while ago complete with the stitch count so that you can make your own.
Bev has the first part of her Olympic endeavor completed. The Bobsled Bookmark has a Colcha embroidered base with Mary Konior's crooked Mile edging done in Sherry's "Pensacola Beach" HDT in silk forming the sled run. Bev's 8th motif for the challenge is a Colorado Columbine done in size 80 thread but she's not quite satisfied with it yet.
Carol has posted her Christmas in July package.
Diane finished her second Beatrice doily and she has plans to tat a doily for each tray of her shuttle display case.
Gina's lace for the bridal hanky is progressing.
Jon shows the difference between using 2 shuttles and using SLT on a motif. Brilliant!
Laura is trying to downsize gradually and selling off some of her treasures.
Marilee has "Pizzaz" back in her Etsy store.
Norma has a playing around motif finished and another from Karey's "Tatting for the Tree".
Sherry has a pair of adorable baby booties in progress and a new HDT colourway "Pear Glace".

Snow, Ornaments, Flowers and Bookmarks

Administration Note 1: It isn't possible for me, or the other folks to keep track of how many motifs you have tatted. So you can really help us out if you let us know when you have completed your 25 motifs. Some folks finish 25 and have so much fun with it that they do another 25, so you will see in the side bar some names listed - done-1. These are people who have done 1 set of 25 and are working on more. If you finish 25 and plan to keep at it, please let us know.

Administration Note 2: Don't forget to visit the individual blogs and make comments when you have the tme. What you see here is just a part of what is on the blogs, and people like to know that you have taken time to visit and make your thoughts known. (Always remember what your grandmother used to say,"if you can't say something nice, don't say anything".)

Heather has decided to join the fun of the 25 Motif Challenge. Like many of us she can't seem to work on a pattern without giving it her own unique twist. Check out her blog to see her earlier entries and her book "Tat-A-Minis. Her latest projects are a tatted lady in black and white holding red flowers made with a size 5 tatting needle, a snowflake done in lavender thread and an ornament design done with a 5 needle and pink and white size 10 thread.
Alan likes to tat a lot of crosses but this is the first time he has designed one. It's a simple and effective design.
Jeanne has posted her second attempt at a motif with clunies, #11 for the 25 motif challenge. BJ commented that the mistake on the first one looked like a bunny hopping, so Jeanne changed the stitch arrangement in the small rings to create ears and left out the picots on the tail ring and the large body ring. It almost looks right, but Jeanne wants to tweak it a little.
Tara has tatted Jane Eborall's pattern "Pamela's Gecko" which she thought was cute. This is her 14th motif.
Nita has tatted a bouquet of three variegated pink Stargazer Lilies designed by Linda Davies using #20 Flora thread. She added hand made stamens, and designed the leaves herself.
Ellen's latest tatting project is a doily for an exchange. She couldn't resist doing something from Iris Niebach's books and she's wondering if her tension is tight because the doily is just shy of the 5-inch requirement. She added her own outer round to Iris' design, and here's a peak at it.
Bonnie has made 3 snowflakes from Jon's Snowflake Collection. Sunburst, made from Marilee's, size 50 "Snowflake" HDT. The Twirly, made from Marilee's, size 30 "Peace" HDT and Aladdian, made from Sherry's size 20 "Spring Poppy" HDT
Tami is working on the Beaded Tea Candle Holder by Sabina Carden-Madden. She has a little boo boo in it that she needs to fix.
Sylvia's first attempt at a gold medal is two half done hankie edgings finished.
Elizabeth's final motif is based on the "Yorkie Dimple". Obviously, when you first look at a dimpled ring, it looks like a heart. So she just added a few picots, Swarovski crystals, and voila, it looks like a little heart with wings for adorable earrings
Terry began some snowflakes to do during the Olympics. The first is by Jan Stawasz that she figured out from his picture. It has tiny almost pink beads. After Snowflake #2 she plans to tackle some UFO's and maybe the bookmark bobsled after that. Her next entry in the Snowflake division is by Claire (lostinthread) using Swarovski crystals.
Joy is tatting 20 ornaments during the 16 days of the Olympics and so far she's on schedule. We have to wait for the closing ceremonies to see the pictures.
Laura received a lovely packet of purple treasures from Diane on her visit. She is still looking for the origins of the pretty little snowflake There is a similar flake in one of Lyn Morton's books. Does anyone have more of Lyn's books to see if there is an exact match somewhere?
Martha's Maltese Teapot is done in size 100 thread. Don't sneeze or you'll blow it away.
Marty's back from Alaska and getting ready to travel again so she just had time to post pictures of the Christmas in July treasures given and received.
Pamela has just finished Cornelia and it's beautiful.
Sherry has more "Sue Hanson" HDT ready.

Tell us what you think

It looks like we will have some volunteers to help doing the updates so hopefully there won't be any long dry patches where there's nothing new on the blog. More volunteers are welcome because it means that the amount of work involved gets less, the more people there are to share it. When we started this challenge the blog was just a central location for participants to check on how each person was progressing, but in a very short time word got out and other tatters started hitting the blog to see what was happening.

It seemed to me that after following someone's tatting adventures for a year as they tatted their 25 motifs, not getting a regular dose of info on them was like quitting cold turkey, so even after they finished their 25, I kept including them in the updates. Strictly speaking when someone hits 25 motifs they ought to be removed from the challenge page but that seems a little abrupt and besides, these are friends we've come to look forward to reading about.

Volume-wise I just couldn't handle copying and posting the pictures of those who had finished the challenge along with those who were doing it for the first time, so I included the links, but not the pictures and I found so many times that I wished I could ignore my own self imposed rules when someone presented something really note worthy like Carol and her gingerbread house.

The more often a page gets linked to, the easier it becomes for search engines to find it. So this page becomes the hub linking tatter to tatter and making them easier to find. Each blog that links to the 25 Motif Challenge links to others, bringing in people from a wide variety of interests. People that know nothing about tatting suddenly see tatted lace in all it's glory and it piques their interest in learning how to tat. So the links are important.

I'm not getting a lot of feedback from people other than occasional comments about checking out the blog and what you get to see here is filtered through my eyes. It is possible that most of the people who get their regular dose of tatting eye candy through this blog don't care if people who have finished the challenge show up here or not. I doubt that that's the case, but if it is, then I have been wasting my time including them. If, on the other hand, tatters are as eager to see tatting as they are to eat chocolate, then maybe the pictures of what people have done even after the challenge is finished, should be included.

So, tell me what YOU think because it looks like the 25 Motif Challenge blog is going to become a somewhat permanent part of the tatting world and it might as well be structured to suit the people who visit it. Add your comments to this post rather than emailing me so that everyone can see what people think.

Second Anniversary

Administration Note We started this challenge 2 years ago with a handful of people. Some of them finished their first 25 and started all over again, some finished and went on to other things, some got busy with life and weren't able to finish. Over the duration of the challenge we have had 98 people sign up and share with us their tatting. It has been so much fun watching the progress, that even when people were finished the challenge, it was hard not to continue following their adventures. We currently have 43 people actively engaged in the challenge and keeping up with them all is increasingly difficult.

I know a lot of people have come to rely on this blog for their regular tatting fix so I was wondering if several people have a couple of hours to help doing updates to keep things current. If you are willing to help out could you email me please? sharon at gagechek dot com

Jeff has some neat things to show; a matched tatting bag and shuttle case from Jane Eborall. Jane calls the bags roly poly bags. It's modeled with one of Sherry's ceramic shuttles and Jeff is wondering if Jane could make specialized padded shuttle cases just for the purpose of protecting the ceramic shuttles. Jeff bought a mouse pad and mug from Herrschners designed for holding cross stitch but Jeff shows the mouse pad with his doily in progress in it.
Aileen has joined the HBT Olympic celebrations with 4 motifs from Jon's "Snowflake Collection" done in size 20 Coats and DMC threads.
Shirley has posted the front and back of Abby's Celtic thnail tatted in size 10 thread because she didn't have the colours she wanted to use in 20 or 30.
This cluny motif is Jeanne's first attempt at cluny tatting and she plans on several more as part of the HBT Olympic event.
Bev tatted Gil Fischer's Alphabet "S" using a pink, lavender and blue variegated Rubi thread and Joy Reno's icicle adapted as ear rings for S. Fuller, her x-change recipient. The Plain Rosary done in Marilee's HDT in lavender is Jeanne's design and Bev plans to give this to the young, Catholic woman who comes and checks on her oxygen concentrator. The little thank you card is from a Cross pattern in Lindsay Rodger's book, "Tatting Collage" made in Flora gold size 50. The Flute Player, a Kokopelli figure designed by Jane Eborall was tatted in lavender size 20 Flora and the whole head, not just the eye, is a magnetic hematite bead. She's working on some mixed media projects intended as presents, so they're not being shown yet.
Diane and Laura got together for a visit and shared tatting over lunch. After seeing the earrings Laura made, Diane is doing some for her Mom.
Mark shows some of his IOLI finds and pictures of his bobbin lace doily which is finally off the pillow.
Jon has a new bookmark with a lot of "8's" in it.
Marilee is showing us another tease from her upcoming book.
Laura had a lovely time visiting Diane, but no tatting pictures yet.
Sherry is getting another niece or nephew so she's tatting baby bootees and she has some custom dyed thread colours to show.
Martha shows her Christmas in July package and a lovely tatted motif from the "Big Book of Tatting" by Darlene Polachic.
Gina has tatted Anne's dragon and it's currently hiding in her mousepad.

There are dragons on the loose.

Anne says the dragons are multiplying. No wonder, she's made the pattern available in PDF form on her web site here.
Jeff won in Gina's drawing and received a lovely batch of goodies including a number of tatted sea creatures.
TattingChic won the Lady Hoare style shuttle from Noreen's blog draw.
Shirley likes to tat from the Japanese tatting book even though she doesn't understand the language, the diagrams are clear enough to follow without any text. The motif is done in a variegated purple size 70 thread. The cat and the earrings are from Rebecca Jones book "The Complete Book of Tatting". The cat was tatted in ecru size 70 thread, while the earrings were made in white size 70 with pearlized beads.The green tree is from the DMC "Festive Tatting" tatted in size 30 DMC Cordinnet Special. The turtle is of course from Mark Myers' pattern, tatted with size 30 Cordinnet Special for a friend to add to her collection for her 70th birthday.
Jeanne received an envelope from her family which contained her Great Aunt Hazel's shuttle. What a lovely surprise. Jeanne joins the growing ranks of HDT addicts. These angels needed for a gift are Nancy Tracy's pattern done in some unknown rayon thread and an HDT in size 10 that she bought on ebay from klmattox.
Diane has tatted 2 more gift bookmarks and explains why they may become obsolete.
Joyce has her round robin doily back and it's gorgeous.
Mark had a great time at the IOLI convention and met up with a lot of familiar faces.
Marilee had a delightful time at the IOLI convention and had a chance to photograph Kate Henry's collection of laces.