Earrings, Snowflakes and Hearts

Heather has already tatted two of Jon's Quantiesque snowflakes. The first is in her hand dyed thread "Lemon Lime Freeze" and the second is in her hand dyed thread "Many Colors" and white. Very pretty Jon and Heather!



Ellen Lai won a beautiful cherry wood shuttle on Ebay and shows us pictures of both sides. She has also tatted a lovely heart and put it in a coaster.




Jeff has tatted Yarnplayer's beautiful "Dream" necklace and earring pattern in her "Purple Punch" hand dyed thread. Lucky Jeff's mom! This is motif #16 of Jeff's second 25 motifs.


Joy has finished her 50th motif! Good job. She tatted around a cute little snowman. She got this idea from a new crochet challenge she has joined. I like it!


Carol has made hats for herself and her cute little dog. They have tatted snowflakes on them and her's even has reindeer around it.
Gina has some beautiful pictures. She tatted one of Rozella Linden's snowflakes last night in red and white. She can finally show us pictures of the goodies she sent to Betsy. Betsy should be very happy!
Sherry has provided us with some good links to help starting blogs and adding links to blogs. Thanks Sherry!

Ornaments, Snowflakes, and Mermaids

Ancolie is preparing for the new year and wanted to do something funny very quickly without a pattern and she's finding that progress is slow. Wanda created her first Christmas ball ornament cover in tatting and generously shares the pattern. TattingChic comments on lots of blogs and on one of them she won a giveaway just for commenting. Her prize is a lovely tatted snowflake.Jeff's "R" rated posting shows Martha's block tatted mermaids turned into bookmarks to be used as Christmas gifts. Jon has created a lovely celtic style snowflake named Quantiesque and she shares the pattern as her gift to tatters.
Laura's other half took Oisin her leprechaun to school with him. I think Laura just wanted the boys out of the house while she fills her new tackle box with tatting supplies.
Marilee has posted pictures of her beautiful "Dream" pendant and earring set worked in her own HDT.
Pamela has a new grouping of snowflakes in Spring Blossom. It's amazing how different a snowflake looks in white compared to colour. Both are different and both have a unique place in our tatting.
Ruth presents the "Gloria Snowflake" Angels and stars surround the centre of this snowflake. The instructions are available in PDF file.
I posted a picture of my latest creation, 14 inch doily with 20 rows of continuous tatting, Good thing I know how to add in thread, as I got lots of opportunity on this one.
Sherry has posted a ceramic shuttle giveaway. Just link to her blog on your page AND leave a comment on her blog letting her know in order to be eligible.

Beautiful Snowflakes and New HDT.

Carolyn has finally had time to tat after moving and shows us motifs 9 to 11 a butterfly, star and a snowflake.

Heather has dyed 4 new batches of HDT. They are called Oddity, Rain Forest, Lemon-Lime Freeze and Stormy Skies.

Nita shows us a beautiful Celtic Snowflake designed by Lenore English and using Flora and YarnPlayer HDT.
Anne has a beautiful doily designed by Lissy Madsen
to show us.
Joy shows us motif # 49 which is a little snowflake.
Marty shows us two more ornaments that she has made to give away.
Pamela has made a few carousels and I really like the ones she has made with HDT.

An oval mat and an owl

Ancolie shows her tatting in red,white and blue. A small oval mat in DM 80 on the model basis proposed by Mick Fouriscot in her book which is difficult because of split rings. Bob shows us his accidental owl. Don't you love it when things turn out right by accident? Gina test tatted an edging from Tatting Patterns by Mary Konior called "Embryo" in size 80 star thread, but it worked out too big for what she has in mind.
Laura has more of the snowflakes she did herself and another batch of those tatted by other people starched ready to go back on her tree.
Marilee shows how she uses beads on split rings.
Marty has some of Heather's HDT and she plans pigs for the "cotton candy" pink and Karey Solomon's "Here Be Dragons" for the "blue jay" & "blue raspberry". "Licorice" is going to become fall leaves, and a frilly decoration with the size 30 cammo to "girly" up her niece's cammo pants. The Christmas red, green, gold and silver is destined for ornaments. That's a lot of tatting so you'd better get busy.
I asked, what's the worst insult you have received in regard to your tatting? Why do you suppose people like to put down fibre arts? Answers anyone?
Sherry has had someone take her new book The Exquisite Collection of Tatted Butterflies and try to sell it as their own creation. The situation seems to be resolved for the moment, but it's always important for us to remain on our guard against such thefts.

Appreciation

If you stop by this blog very often, you will probably know that a few years ago some tatters got together and decided to challenge themselves to tatting a bunch of motifs in a set period of time. We kicked around some almost impossible numbers of 100 in a month or 25 in a week and then some saner people wanted to join and we revised our crazy numbers to something more attainable for real people living in a real world with jobs and families and real lives. We settled on 25 in a year.

A challenge like this is somewhat interesting to the participants, but more fun if each person has a little show and tell of what the are working on. In fact with some interesting eye candy, it becomes fun even for those who are not participants. When you collect all the eye candy together in one place then it becomes an amazing display of the tatted laces of a whole lot of talented people.

Collecting all of that eye candy and making reference to it in a way that makes sense for people just browsing the internet takes time. A lot of time. And dedication. There are over 60 people currently involved in the 25 Motif Challenge. Each blog has to be visited, pictures have to be copied, information has to be read, details have to be recorded. Maybe it takes 5 minutes. For 60 blogs. Let's say a quarter of them have new tatting on them. Do the math. It's over an hour just to get the details. Then post the details. Spell check. Add some pictures. Wait for them to process. Add some more pictures. Wait for that batch. Add some more. Wait some more. Add a link, colour it. Add another link. All more colour. Shift some pictures around, delete some spaces. There's another hour gone. 2 hours. Minimum.

Keeping the 25 Motif Challenge page up to date so that it's fun for everyone who stops by is a lot of work. The team that keeps it running smoothly work very hard to keep things fun, just for you. Thanks go out to Clyde and Laura who have worked extremely hard at keeping things up to date and Jeff and Aileen who have done updates and are also group leaders in the round robins. My thanks and the thanks of all the tatters who visit the challenge blog for all of your hard work. We all appreciate you and your dedication.

If anyone else thinks that they have some time to spare on a regular basis you are welcome to join the update team. We can never have too much help because the more people we have helping out, the less any one person has to do.

This is Ancolie's 3rd entry, a red snowflake done in DMC 80, pretty and delicate. Wanda tatted Bob's "Coily" in size 30 pink DMC Cebelia. Ais made a yellow bookmark for her brother with embroidery floss. It's the first time she has worked with embroidery floss and it took 2 hours to make it. Then she made a pink one for herself. Aren't they adorable? Carol's William, that she received last year, is going on a road trip to visit with the other leprechauns coming over from Ireland and he's packed up lots of HDT to take with him. Bonnie has tatted Tabatha by Kersti Anear in DMC size 80 red thread for the round robin. She took a break from working with the finer thread to make Mike's snowflake. The words "I want a hippopotamus for Christmas" in a song prompted this fabric Christmas card tatted in Sherry's size 20 Coffee and Cream. Iris saw this beautiful motif on the internet and to her delight it was in the wonderful Japanese book from Teiko Fujito that she bought. She has tried working it in wool and needs to make a few adjustments to allow for the change of medium. Bhavani tatted this motif from the book "Forty Original Designs in Tatting By Nelli Hall Youngbery" that she downloaded from the Antique pattern library. Now that she is familiar with the pattern she'll try it again in one colour. Eva's double bobbin shuttles are in hiding so she worked this bookmark using 2 shuttles held together with a rubber band. With or without the right shuttle the bookmark is pretty.

Anne shows both sides of the motif September Serenade, designed by Leonore English. Connie posts both the crochet doily and the tatted version that Wanda did so that you can see them side by side. I like the tatted one better. Jeff has tatted a snowflake is called "October Enchantment" by Lenore English using DMC Cordonnet size 30 thread for the round robin. The next snowflake is one designed by Nancy Tracy done in DMC Cordonnet thread size 30 and it came out 4.5 inches which was too big for the round robin so it will become a Christmas gift. The third snowflake is Ruth's Celtic Snowflake 2008, this time done in Marilee's "Winter Blend" HDT in size 50. Finally we have another of Teri's turtles done in C-lon Micro thread. Martha received Danny, one of Pamela's leprechauns completed with his bit of tatting. He came with a skein of Rainbow Bright HDT. Martha has been hard at work making lots of Jane Eborall's Sequin Snowflakes to give the girls at work. She prefers the heavily beaded version of the pattern, but needed the simpler version to get it done in time. We can all appreciate that. Mike Meloy's snowflake in size 20 thread is a quite nice one round snowflake that works up fairly quickly, but has plenty of visual interest. Martha thinks that showing us lots of snowflakes now might cover up that fact that she missed the deadline. Shhh! , no one's counting.
Clyde is busy tatting, but away from home nursing his partner's father as he recuperates from knee surgery.
Diane just HAD to use the Country Christmas HDT Sherry sent her to tat 2 sweet Mini Tats.
Cormac arrived at Gina's place from Pamela in Ireland along with a rainbow bright snowflake.
Joyce has been doing lots of beaded snowflakes. I told you tha pattern was addictive.
Laura has all of her colourful snowflakes laid out for stiffening they looks simply scrumptious. Go look! It's worth it just for the visual feast of colour. Oisin has arrived from Ireland and he's quite at home among all of these pretties. He came with a beautiful handmade card and one of Pamela's Rainbow Bright tumbling snowflakes on the front and a skein of Coral Reef hand dyed thread.
Marilee looks like she's having a great time at Discovery World 2008, where her booth sports lots of HDT and her gorgeous jewellery. She sold an assortment of things and had a couple of people sign up for tatting classes.
Mark shares a couple of half ring braid patterns, (one is a candy cane) and his newest treasure - a spinning wheel.
Marty has added tatting to some satin covered Christmas balls and turned ordinary into spectacular. She used gold pins pushed through red beads to hold the tatting in place. What a clever idea!
Pamela shows us how she stiffens her snowflakes, complete with product pictures.
Sherry has tatted a Peach tree with size 20 silk HDT "Harvest Moon" and "Rainforest" and cotton HDT "Dark Chocolate". She used the "dimpled yorkie" technique for the leaves and split encapsulation; a technique that she will be teaching at Shuttlebirds in April of 2009.

Snowflakes, Prizes, Doilies and a Bear

Heather is almost finished the patterns for her third book this year. This one will be motifs and some will contain split chains as she tried this technique for the first time and really enjoyed it.




Tattingchic posts a picture of a silk snowflake that she vows to have finished by Christmas and she shows us her recent winnings from a Sandra Evertson blog giveaway




Ais has finished the Pretty Doily Tat Along and it also counts as # 16 for her 25 Motif Challenge. She learned a few new skills while making this doily which you can find out about by reading her blog. Ais you have good reason to be proud.


Aileen has been busy tatting the lace for her bridesmaids dress for her sisters wedding this month and is getting behind on Christmas gifts. She did manage to tat a butterfly that counts as motif #3.


Ellen has been busy and has mailed of her Secret Santa package, tatted two more of her trees, designed two more items but she can't show us pictures yet and shows us a picture of a bracelet that she macrame. Very pretty.

Anne tells us of a knitting crisis she had involving 1,000 stitches and a circular needle that came apart.
Martha has taken a short vacation from tatting and has crocheted a really cute Polar Bear. The pattern is on her blog.


Diane has been very busy over the past two weeks. She has had grandchildren visiting, received a gift package from Laura, finished her gift boxes and she shows us her snowflake tree.
Gina has been busy tatting a Christmas Tree and bell and has been a bit frustrated with her blog this year as she has not been able to show things as soon as they were done, they have had to wait.
Marty shows an ornament that she made that is a must see. She used a unique way of attaching the tatting and I love the effect.
Pamela no longer fears the SCMR after making all the snowflakes she needed to mail out. She made leprechauns for individuals who really needed some good luck in there lives and she has bought a silver tree and is going to cover it in snow flakes of many colours.I think Laura has started a new Christmas trend.
Riet tells of the story of Sint Nicolaas and the celebration of his birthday in the Netherlands and she shows the gift she received.
Sharon has written a thought provoking piece on Doilies: Love Them or Hate Them.
Sherry was the winner of Wendy's November Giveaway and she also shows us the last painting she has painted.
Zarina has taken some lessons in Free Motion Quilting (FMQ). I had seen it before but did not know the name for it. You did a good job of learning fast Zarina your samples look very good.