Earrings, TIAS, Doilies, Snowflakes, Bookmarks, Heart, Necklace, Hairclip, Ornaments, Bracelet and Wreath

Mary Lena has joined the challenge and begins by showing us the tatted beaded heart earrings she has created. She has also posted instructions for making your own earrings.

Julie P has started Jane Eborall's Tat It And See or TIAS. Each year Jane has enchanted us with her delightful and interesting designs provided in tiny bite size doses where you get to tat along with each new snippet to see what is finally revealed. This year's design is tatted around a button. What will it be? You'll have to tat your own to find out beginning here.

Sue used size 20 Lizbeth Mountain Breeze and another Lizbeth variegated thread to make this doily that she started before Christmas. She has started her TIAS and her guess at what is will be is, an elephant foot umbrella stand.

mb duke shares some of her Christmas tatting, lots of snowflakes and a hummingbird. The small snowflakes were used to adorn jars of homemade peach jam that she made over the summer. The pattern for this bookmark done in Lizbeth Juicy Watermelon and Lime Green Medium, both size 40, was a free download off some website, but she can't find the link. This bookmark is a free pattern from Robin Perfetti done in size 40 thread. She likes tatting crosses as bookmarks because most people still have a hard copy of the Bible to put it in and she loves how Robin Perfetti's cross pattern turned out. She did it the first time in one colour, and then because she had thread left on the shuttles, did it again in two colours.

Linda made  the first and second round of Bruce's Tatted Doily by Nancy Tracy in Purple Berry Twist in size 10. She didn't have any problems tatting with the thread, but she ran into a knot just before the end of the round. Knots are unfortunate, but they occur in every brand of thread and they always seem to appear in the most awkward places where they're really difficult to deal with, or where they are really obvious, or when you don't have the time to fuss with them.

Grace is starting her year off with a bang. Featherline Snowflake by Jon Yusoff is tatted in size 20 white Lizbeth. It seemed to be a "fiddly" tat, but that might have been from doing it "her way" instead of just following directions.Of course "her way" let her do it in one go. The doll's cherry blossom flower was her own adaptation. She executed Heart of Texas by Teresa Woods, in Lizbeth red size 40, in one pass as well although she's not pleased with how the cleft in the heart looks so she may do it again. Teri Dusenbury's Forever Young pineapple doily in size 40 Lizbeth in Purple Marble and she's not entirely pleased with the results. She thinks the range of variegation detracts from the pattern. In my opinion it often does and frequently works best with simpler designs the let the variegations really show off.

Diane started her year off with some tatting, but didn't accomplish as much as she thought she would. The Tollway Tatters are back at it. Diane brought along the snowflakes she started tatting before Christmas. Marilee spent the day working on this beautiful necklace. Sue Anna brought along this beautiful doily that they tried to determine how it was made. Diane made pretty good progress on the Monster Doily. Barbara was working on a snowflake she plans on hanging in her car. Here's round 3 of the Monster Doily. Round 4 of the Monster Doily is super simple so she's been able to accomplish a lot. Here it's 75 percent done. Of course she had to take time out to start Jane's TIAS.

Fox is finding that the border of her doily is curved instead of straight, so she's convinced she's done something wrong. In the interim she's contemplating starting one of Ben Fikkert's designs. She thought she was nearly finished with this red doily, until she realized it was just the first page of the pattern. The Jan Stawasz doily has grown and is straightening out, but this section is pretty easy so she's working on both doilies at the same time. The red thread is splitting, knotted and thin, so after this project in size 40 thread, she's going to stick to size 80 which doesn't cause her problems. The Jan Stawasz doily is coming along and she's ready to add the last elements. She really likes how this doily is turning out in spite of the problems with splitting thread.

Lilas always likes making bridal lace and she wanted something with several different flowers. She uses seed beads and pearls and on one of the flowers she added cluny leaves for more interest. Lots of variety and texture.

Marie was watching a DVD while tatting this Christmas ornament and missed a whole section, which resulted in a lot of improvising. These are a couple of crosses from her favorite book by Lene Bjorn, Tatted Bookmarks, Crosses.

Muskaan has added some of her recent tatting to the tree for display. She has provided some pictures to show how to wind your threads CTM.

HisKid has been test tatting for Elaine P. Gan and this one is a heart in Lizbeth size 40 Juicy Watermelon. The earring tatted in Lizbeth size 40 Green Coral Sea. The bracelet turned out to be too short for her done in size 40 Lizbeth Boysenberry Dk. More test tatting done in Tat-ilicious HDT Kaleidoscope size 40.

Wanda designed this green wreath with some green thread she had on hand and a few red beads. Braided red thread made the bow and created a lovely little ornament.

Earrings, Snowflakes, Hairclips, Necklace, Doilies and ornaments

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

To start off this year right, here are the Guidelines for the challenge. An attempt is made to re post these guidelines once a month as a reminder.

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 you 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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Julie P has decided to join the challenge and what better way to start off the new Year! Her first entry is a pair of earrings in Lizbeth 20, colour 654, Navy Blue using a pattern from Gosia Sokolowska's Little Black Lace shop

Jenn tatted Robin Perfetti's First Snowfall pattern which was a fun and easy pattern to tat as it was tatted all in one round.

Lilas has done lace for weddings but hasn't previously thought of making hair jewellery. These hair pins are made in DMC size 40 with Miyuki rocaille pearls and Swarovski pearls. This necklace done in DMC cordonnet size 40 beige with 15/0 Miuyki pearl white beads finishes off her 25 Motif Challenge, which also began with a necklace. She has included a recap of all the designs she did for this challenge on her blog.

Sue tatted this pattern which is the Chicken Wing Doily by Jane Eborall using some earth tone variegated threads.

Claire has done a tutorial showing how to add beads to your tatting and what they look like with different placements.

Diane started the "Monster Doily" by Jan Stawasz using size 20 Lizbeth. Even with some year end errands to complete she managed to get some work done on her doily. The third row is started.

Fox also has a jump on the new year with DMC #60 Cordonnet on another Jan Stawasz doily chosen by her daughter. Size 40 Lizbeth is being used on this pattern from New Tatting by Tomoko Morimoto. The chains are not quite as problematic as she would have imagined and this pattern is looking lovely in the vibrant red.

Marie finished this snowflake from one of her favourite books, 24 Snowflakes, Lene Bjorn back in November. Then she did some more from the same book. Her favourite snowflake is the Rose Flake with red bead accents.

Wanda found some satin covered styrofoam ornaments and decided to cover them in tatting. She had the first rows done of this one and then left it pinned to the ball waiting for inspiration. The bottom row was simple and the lacing gave it just a little more interest. She cut a plastic card to make a thread gauge but didn't notice that it was an angled cut making one side of the gauge a little longer that the other and the results are evident, although not obvious, in the finished lace.