Bookmarks, Doilies, Earrings and Teaching surprises

Brigitte tatted these bookmarks before she started the challenge, but they're just such lovely eye candy they had to be included. Hye-Soon has tatted some coasters? doilies? I'm not sure which since her blog is in Korean, but they are beautiful even if I don't speak the language.
For Tatting Tea Tuesday Wanda got started on an angel and she's hoping it won't have to wait until next Tuesday to get it's wings.

Heather has an assortment of earrings created that finishes off this round of the 25 Motif Challenge, but she's not finished, because she has plans to start over again.

Martha has a sneak peek of the treasures she will be teaching at Palmetto's. Aren't these awesome! A tatted ladybug, an adorable Bee-dy Amulet bag, a Maltese ring butterfly and a teeny tiny teapot.

Doily Delights and Hand Dyed Threads

Administration Note

Over the last little while your update team has been valiantly trying to keep the 25 Motif Challenge page up to date. All of the lovely tatting you have been posting takes us quite a while to go through, write up, copy pictures, and link back to your pages. Recently our personal lives and health issues have kept some of us from doing the updates, leaving others, namely Clyde to carry the burden of doing the updates. And now, even Clyde is dealing with health issues that don't leave him the time and energy to continue. Since many of our team find that they are no longer able to do the updates I'm putting out another request for volunteers to help with keeping the challenge blog going. When it goes a full week without an update, it can take 5 or 6 hours to complete, but if it's done every day it can take as little as 15 or 20 minutes, depending on how much tatting and blogging everyone has done. So if you think you could spare some time for the tatting community and would like to volunteer, please let me know by sending an email to sharon at gagechek dot com I know that both I, and the other team members would certainly appreciate the support.

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Alan has gone from tatting snowflakes to tatting doilies, only now that he has them completed he can't remember where they come from except that one of them is the Arches doily from Marilee's blog. I recognize Mary Konior's spinning wheel glass mat and one of the doilies looks like Whip Cream Frill from Rita Weiss but I'm not certain about that.

Sherry got to spend one day with her sweetie before he was off on his travels again and she has been consoling herself re-stocking her stores of hand dyed threads. The new colours are "Rose Petals" (shades of red, peach and yellow) and "Summer Pond" (pale blue, gold and brown).

Dragons, Butterflies and Bookmarks

Brigitte tatted a fluffy purple snowflake from the book "24 Snowflakes in Tatting" by Lene Bjorn and the little blue and white medallion is from "A New Twist on Tatting" by Catherine Austin. Both are made with Star Gem Size 30. The blue one is destined for a coaster. She used DMC Cebelia Size 20, yellow seed beads Size 11 and blue dagger beads to make Marilee's earring pattern for a colleague. Laurette tatted a maple leaf done in Lizbeth harvest orange medium. Birdwatching explains the missing ring. This butterfly came from Celtic Tatting Knots & Patterns by Rozella Linden and the thread is size 10. The dragon by Anne Bruvold is made in size 20 thread. Mica tatted "flower snowflake" from Tatted Snowflakes in Kreinik braid No. 4.
Chiara has tatted a lovely Madonna. She's also feeling a little down so I'm sure any kind words you have to share would be welcome.

Steph has purple bookmarks in both crochet and tatting. The tatted tatted fan bookmark is a design by Mary McCarthy believed to be originally published in Better Homes & Gardens magazine.
Vinnie did a slight modification to Sherry's pattern, replacing the SCMR ring with an onion ring and the ring on it with a double picot.
Wanda used Sue Hanson's 5 point Celtic motif and some wooden buttons to create these lovely patriotic pins.
Jeanne started this doily design on her flight to Charleston SC so she has named it Charleston. It ruffled badly until it was tamed by rigorous blocking, but she may have to adjust the pattern a bit for it to lay flat.
TattingChic was sent a lovely tatted heart to cheer her up.
Ellen made these 2 ATCs. The heart is Martha Ess's pattern tatted with metallic thread and mounted onto an acid-free paper cutting. Anne says dragons come in all kinds like the one that appears on her shuttle and the one that was tatted in blue. The shadow in this picture of the blue dragon doesn't seem quite right….That's because it isn't a shadow it's a black tatted dragon.
Diane was inspired to tat this beautiful little motif in Altin Basak #3003 and Lizbeth #684 Leaf Green Med. The pattern is Mixed Bouquet from A Pattern Book of Tatting by Mary Konior and the design really pops when done in color. Check out Diane's blog for some pictures from the recent LACE day. Joy had great success teaching 5 new people to tat. Sadly her 19 year-old niece Elizabeth lost her battle with cancer and in her honor, Joy is making purple butterflies maybe to make a quilt with them. The first butterfly will probably be added to a Sunbonnet Sue quilt block alternated with the large butterfly shown in yellow. She's trying to decipher the pattern for it working from her grandmother's notebook and she'll be tatting hers in purple, her niece's favourite colour.
Maria tatted this lovely angel as a surprise. I know how pretty it is for real because I was the lucky recipient. The bracelet is something she created for a charm exchange in Portuguese Ancora thread size 20. The pendant is another charm for an exchange. Martha tatted these Byzantine Chain earrings from Anitra Stone's class at Palmetto in 2008 in blue and silver to go with denim. Martha has challenged everyone to use up their stash and this Caron Wildflowers was used to make the Spring Flowers Bookmark by Julie Patterson, available on the Ring of Tatters site.

Sherry is still living out of a suitcase and having to work with limited supplies resulting in some unusual thread/bead combinations. She has been manipulating the tatted ring and came up with a way to do a double band of beads. Then she has some variations on a theme. Pray for some together time for her and her hubby after numerous setbacks he was to come home so that they could spend a couple of days together and his flight was cancelled.

Lots and Lots of Tatting

Brigitte has been busy tatting jewelery for herself and a friend which she is really enjoying. The patterns for the two pair of earrings for herself come from freetatting.com and Elizabeth Zipay as do the necklace and earrings.






Sherry's creative juices are flowing again and after 15 tries she is happy with motif #7 of her second 25 motif challenge which she is doing in HDT. It is called Bleeding Hearts.

LauraRose is suffering from that problem that we all dread. She has run out of thread to complete her doily and is looking for suggestions.

Linda has two pieces of tatting to show us the first is a tatted Easter egg cover and the second is two crazy quilt cards.

Wanda has two bookmarks to show us which are # 16 and 17 of her challenge.

Neophyte's motif #6 are a pair of earrings designed by Elizabeth and made for her daughter.




Heather has been busy and has a bunch of motifs to add to her challenge. # 15 is a Vera Anne doily done in blue, #16 and 17 are 2 butterflies, #18 is a small doily and # 19 and 20 are butterflies and #21 is a small doily and # 21 and 22 necklaces and she includes the patterns.







Alan has a snowstorm on his blog and motif #6 is Ruth Perry's Celtic Snowflake.




Kathy's Pontiac GTO is 40 and she is embellishing a jacket with tatting to celebrate.

Jeanne writes to tell us about her daughters upcoming wedding and the tatting she is going to do for it.

Ellen displays some HDT that she won from Heather, a heart that was given to her by Felicia and some ATC that she has made.

Bhavani has made motif #16 which is a beaded bookmark for her challenge.

Anne has tatted five blue poppies for the IOLI conference this year.

Diane is going to be busy this summer taking classes so it is easy tatting for her.

Joy is working on one day projects which include an ornament and a cross.

Wally made some flowers with button centers.