Doilies, Ornaments, Snowflakes, Motifs, Birdies, Edgings, and Necklace

Ginny has the fair results for some of her entries. The amazing large doily only got an honourable mention! Are these judges blind AND stupid? Her imaginative spider got a blue ribbon for first place in the original design section, and this snowflake also got a first place blue ribbon!

Michelle is working on her table runner and has the 5th row done, but lots of the same motif tatted over and over again can be boring to blog about.

Anika is glad that the hanky edging is finally complete. The edging pattern is "Svea" from Tatting Patterns and Designs and it's 2 inches wide, so it's a lot of tatting. She might might find a square motif to put in the corners, or she might not. Once you finish with a big project it's hard to pick it up and start again.

Jessica has the first connector piece done for her test section and it's worked out so far. The real trial will come in adding on the other pieces.

Marta has created necklace of tatted baubles in violet.

Isabel is making a gypsy dress for her niece and is making a long insertion to go with it.

Fox has noticed that after several washings all of the tatted edgings added to kids socks look the same. So this time she was pleased just to tat a simple edging without even adding beads.

Gina has found tatting little birds very addictive and she did these birds in some sample Kimono Threads that Val sent her.

This is Orsi's 5th motif and she has plans to modify it to make it larger and a square shape.

Bookmarks, Ornaments, Motifs, and Edgings

Joy has an assortment of bookmarks done and a few she isn't happy with. She may be able to salvage some of these finishing them off and re-doing the parts the cat ate.

Nancy has more covered ornaments and a candy cane hung from a stand where they make a pretty display. The brown one is Lizbeth Rootbeer Float.

Fox tatted Jon's Adiratna using Tatskool's HDT and promised herself that she's use fewer beads until she had improved her tatting. At one point she had forgotten to add a bead and tried a different method to add the bead in progress. Another edging bites the dust because is was taking too much thread, she has enjoyed working with the size 80 thread, and now the size 20 HDT feels like rope. This size 80 sent to her by Ladytats is going to make a wonderful sock edging.

Motifs, Heart, Bunny, Bird, Edging, Doily, Ornaments and Snowflakes

Ginny has taken another of Karey's bag patterns and substituted strings of beads for chains and she liked the effect on this one better.

Anika picked up a tatting needle and this is her first bit of needle tatted lace. She continued on with the needle and the heart on the left is needle tatted, the one on the right shuttle tatted. To round out her experimentation she did a couple more small motifs.

Marta is continuing to cover baubles and this one in green is called Amelii.

IsDihara shows the results from the Prince William County Fair. Sw4nkyL4c3r entered the most fetching Venetian mask, tatted in black with Swarovski crystals and decorated with feathers, but it only won a red. The blue ribbon went to a delicate, ecru tatting bag filled with tatting tools and a new tatter entered a wee tatted bunny and won a white ribbon.

Diane has continued her exploration of Tatting Techniques by Elgiva Nicholls with Diamonds. She was surprised that no information was given on how to avoid the twisted picot on the last join and the instructions to join the motifs together on the 2nd and 4th picot leaving the middle picot dangling. She decided to join all 3 which made a firm join but then she did it again and just omitted the middle picot. There didn't seem to be much difference in appearance, but there was in firmness, so if she does more of these, which she might to make a mat, she'll join all 3 picots. The cream color thread is size 20 Lizbeth, the blue is size 50 Oren Bayen and there's a significant size difference.

Fox tatted another of Jon's designs from Elegant Tatting Gems using an HDT thread by Tatskool, #40 Rainbow Bright. She gives us another look at her constantly changing lamp where she displays her current tatting pieces before relegating them to a drawer. She auditioned an edging from Karey Solomon's Tatting Times, but it was too deep for the cuff of the sock in the Lizbeth thread, so she'll use a Mary Konior pattern instead.

Gina tatted a birdie pattern from Anna, May 2001; one of several variations and the tails on all were very long picots with a bead here and there.

Kelly has been busy with appointments, physio and playing chauffeur and that's left her with little tatting time. She did manage to tat this little doily from The Tatters Treasure Chest called Sonata in Lizbeth size 40 called Wild flower Garden.

Marty created this green design by lacing 2 halves together and she didn't really like the effect, but when it came time to take her fair entries in she added it to all the others and it took a blue ribbon. All the butterflies she tatted, along with some smaller ones were added to a white satin egg with little gold applique pins stuck through powder blue seed beads. It's won a first place blue ribbon, a high blue (considered for Sweepstakes) and a Judge's Choice ribbon.

Sue was determined when they moved here, that the couch wouldn't become a place to store tatting supplies and projects. Good luck with that.

Wanda has made an early start on snowflakes for Christmas, but this time she's adding beads.

Motifs, Baby Bonnet, Bookmarks, Doilies, Necklace, Bracelet and Earrings

Ginny has two motifs from Karey Solomon's Tatting Y2K calendar. It's a bag pattern but after the first side she did the second with beads instead of chains and she thinks it turned out OK.

Joy was fortunate enough to find a tatted bag which appears to be the "Bag with Coronation Cord" from Tatting Patterns by Julia Saunders, which is a reprint of the earlier Priscilla Tatting Book. Coronation cord was a peculiar type of cording that has regular spaced sections of fat and thin cord, which is no longer produced. It adds substance to the tatting without a lot of extra work and is ideally suited to this kind of project.

Kristen started on a baby bonnet, but got stalled when the babies turned out to be boys, So when one of her friends had a baby girl she decided to finish it, only a #5 needle and this gorgeous Pearle 8 Turkish cotton resulted in a bonnet too big for a baby. (Just a note, if you follow the thread size recommended for most vintage patterns, the bonnet will fit a large orange. Babies used to be smaller.) Sew on some sparklies for glitz and it would make a lovely bridal cap. The Lacy Square from Rozella F. Linden's "Easy Tatting is much, much smaller and less intricate, but still very pretty. She just found out today that all 4 things she entered in the Iowa State Fair are on display. Both the doily and the bookmark received Best in Show ribbons.

Jessica was just a wee bit depressed about all the tatting she was going to have to do, just to work out the best connector strips to use for her shawl, but after she got into it, it wasn't so bad, and when she's done she'll have a miniature shawl to use as a display piece.

Marta has discovered that tatting is like candy, hard to stop, once you get started. This is her third necklace variation called Halva and in the same colour another bookmark.

IsDihara is working on an Interlocking Ring Lanyard and has
begun the "braid" technique described in Jane from South Africa's Interlocking Ring Choker pattern. She's using Lizbeth 40 #157 Raspberry Frappe for the foundation row and Lizbeth 40 #638 Christmas Green for the Interlocking Row.

Bree shows several pieces that she has had framed so that they can be displayed in rotation. Her most recently framed piece is her Shaded Sun design.

Gina was intrigued with the effect of working a ring on the picot of another ring and had to try it our herself. It made an interesting little motif, but it was a little cramped, so she did it again with better results, but thinks she might have to give it another go with fewer picots. Then she went back to Bree's doily in 2 colours, but she isn't happy with it mostly because she doesn't like her colour choice. She may end up doing the outer row in white just to salvage it. She finally used some thread she bought from Lady Shuttlemaker she thinks it's Rainbow Sherbert.

Isa has done the whole tri colour set of necklace, bracelet and earrings, complete with beads.

Marty made this Blue Diamond doily in two colors of blue Lizbeth size 20 thread and a bunch of little blue and white shirt buttons. It's about the size of her hand and it won a first prize.