Thursday, November 30, 2006

The laces I missed and some new tatting

My apologies, I missed listing some entries yesterday. I usually check each of the blogs and write notes about what's new, then transfer the notes and pictures to the challenge blog. I got interrupted and hadn't gone through all of the blogs yesterday, so here they are now.

Note: Several people have commented on the tatting lists that the blogs with black backgrounds are hard to read, as are the blogs that have lighter colour, matching text. You can change your template, but if you do remember to save your links list first as it will be erased. If you do have trouble reading the text on a blog, you can often make it more visible by highlighting it.

Laura has been suffering from migraines and hasn't been tatting.

LaRae had a jointed doll body and matched it up with a pattern from a magazine called Crafting Traditions that she modified to fit the doll body. The addition of some strategically placed beads and a little halo created an adorable angel.











Bhavani has ventured into celtic tatting and given it her own twist by adding beads.


Dawn has added several new motives to her collection. There's Julie Patterson's candy cane needle tatted in size 8 perle cotton. She also did Samantha Melnychuk's Christmas Wreath. She didn't have any red beads so she used green. Dawn notes that the thread got frayed a lot needle tatting with beads, so she thinks she'll switch to shuttle tatting if she does more bead work. Her latest motif is a simple celtic tatted wreath.




Ruth is wishing the Red Hat Lacers Merry Christmas with her celtic "R","H" and "L". She has also posted a clear diagram for a celtic snowflake which makes it really easy follow.

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Four calling birds, Three sets of earrings and a tatted Christmas ball cover


OK, so the title doesn't fit the subject or the melody, but at least I'm back and can update the challenge page.


Ruth has been busy since the last update. Snowflake earrings, a rainbow tatted fish, a Poinsettia tatted with hanging clunys, a Christmas mushroom, and 4 calling birds. A real feast for the eyes so you have to check out her page to see it all.






Janet has been busy doing Christmas tatting. Flower earrings, and a sweet bracelet and earring set.
















Sharol has replaced an ugly flower with a much prettier one on her pink hat. She went on to tat a purple butterfly with a red button for one of her Red Hat friends. She has also done some adorable Pink Hat earrings.





Mark's leisure time is taken up with raking leaves, so he hasn't been doing much lacemaking recently.









Jon has created a clever medallion that makes use of SCMRs to allow an inner row of rings. Beautiful.





Fani is back to tatting again and she shares with us a lovely Christmas ball cover.








Snowy has 7 new motives to show. She's been using an assortment of new threads she received and she's showing us lots of new laces in beautiful colours. The gorgeous threads are Valdani and King Tut and I can see how your fingers would be itching to work with them all.







Marilee has created a wonderful necklace she calls Vision done from a pattern she wrote out last year.

Thursday, November 23, 2006

Tatting for Christmas







Things are going to be a bit busy for a while so there may not be any new posts until next week
Eva has done a little block tatting billy goat for a Christmas card. Is there some significance to a goat, or was it just appropriate for the person it's being sent to?







Clyde is making more progress on his tablecloth.




LaRae posts more tree pictures. Isn't it lovely? I think I want one too.












Dawn joins the challenge with 2 needle tatted motives. She has been shuttle tatting for a while but she decided to give needle tatting a try.

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Snowflake, Necklace and a Tree








Ruth posts a simple yet elegant snowflake motif.












Wow! Marilee has created a marvelous necklace to match the earrings she did with side hole polymer clay beads.







LaRae shares more pictures of the marvelous Christmas tree. Snowflakes and hearts; teddy bears and angels, doesn't t make you want to tat one of your own?

Look at all of the wonderful clever ideas








Ruth is working on more hanging clunys.







Janet hasn't been able to sit up, but she has been tatting. A lovely little beaded tree and a rose centred motif in honour of her grandfather.






Jon has created a clever one shuttle heart. I think Mickey's hiding in there.





No tatting for Laura today, just happy grand kid pics.



Can you imagine a Christmas tree covered in nothing but tiny lights an white lace? You don't have to imagine, LaRae has posted pictures of the tree in the Victorian Dodge house.

Bhavani has done her motif replacing the chains with tiny beads. What a novel idea.

Sunday, November 19, 2006

Lace for Edgings, Weddings, and Rememberance

Ruth has been experimenting again. Double cluny, a hanging cluny edging and a whole lot of snowflakes, stars, and a Christmas star-cross for the LGGKC project.





Janet has been tatting in and out of the hospital, finishing up projects and trying our some new ones that didn't quite work the first time so she had another go outside of the hospital. These look great.

Riet has taken a rest from tatting motives and she has tatted some special flowers for a candle holder to commemorate her son who died last year. The flowers and leaves are wonderful. What a beautiful gesture.
Laura thinks she has her final design done for the wedding hanky.







Bhavani is working on an older design and modifying it so that it can be done in one round by using split rings.

Saturday, November 18, 2006

Peppermint Flakes and Lacy Pumpkins

You may have noticed that some of the blogs associated with the challenge seem to have stalled. Several of our participants have had different situations arise that leave them with little opportunity for tatting. Work, sickness and a busy schedule are just a few of the obstacles that people have been dealing with. That's all right that's why it's nice that we have a year to work on our motives. They'll post their pictures when they get a chance.




Wally has done a delicate looking snowflake alternating "normal" and "direct" (unflipped) stitches which creates a chain that is similar to zig zag or ric rac tatting. This variation, if done in 2 colours results in bands of alternating colours. Originally done in red and white it looked like peppermint candy. Very clever.


Jeanne's entry for today gave me the giggles. Imagine a teeny, tiny, white pumpkin crowned with black lace and orange beads, topped with an orange bow. Not typical, but still very Halloween.




Laura is taking a break from tatting to knit a poncho for her mother in law. The colour of the yarn is wonderful, too bad you can't tat with it.

Thursday, November 16, 2006

Tons of Terrific Tatting





Ruth continues to create more designs and she's been playing around with interlocking picots. Neat. She was working on a design for wings and came up with a tree and she's sharing the pattern. Today's entry is a split ring Christmas ball motif. If it lays flat, how does it go around a ball?






Sharol took a break from tatting suns and did a beautiful Beaded Ornament using a pattern by Debbie Arnold. She plans to do another with red and green dagger beads for her mom. She's going to love it.






Mark has created an ingenious edging using Oliver Twist a variegated thread. It's a row of SR ground in and a second row of ring and chain. Isn't it wonderful?





Barbara posts a medallion from Tatting with Anne Orr, page 16 - Medallion No 4 (Dover Needlework Series). She tatted this one with with DMC Cordonnet Ecru 40.





Laura has done another celtic motif, adding beads this time. She thinks the beads are too big, but needs to block it first to be sure.










LaRae did a star shaped motif, #41 from the Myra Piper book called Tatting. The Dodge House was decorated last night and she's been told it's "dripping" with lace. We'll get to see the pictures of it later.




Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Celtic Tatting, Celtic Pig, Celtic With Beads.








Wally has posted an intricate beaded Celtic motif.







Ruth found the cord for her scanner and her blog has lots of new pictures. There's the Five Point Celtic Christmas Star for Bina which includes the pattern, the baby pig for the online class and Mama pig too, and for Georgia, Hanging Cluny Tatting: Butterfly, Nosegay, and Flower Sprig. Awesome!





Jon has created a bookmark which reminds her of the oriental coins that have the square hole in the centre.


Marilee has created some lovely earrings by first making polymer clay beads for a unique design.












Bhavani has made her first celtic motif using Ruth's pattern here.

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Celtic Motif and Snowflake


Lynda is still working on her angel, housework keeps getting in the way.




Carol has posted a picture of the tatted witch made for her by Sherry.



Laura has done a celtic motif, there was a slight boo-boo with the first one so she re-tatted it in 6 colours. Talk about challenge!


LaRae posts another snowflake for the tree. This one is #18 from the Myra Piper book called Tatting.

Monday, November 13, 2006

Dimples, Tabatha and a Variegated Motif

Wally has had some interesting adventures but she has arrived safely in Egypt and today she has posted another motif. This is a pattern that has dimpled chains.












Laura has done another of Kersti Anear's Tabatha bookmarks. This one is in a wine colour DMC #6 Perle colour #814.






Bhavani joins the challenge today from Trichy, India.She is interested in a number of needle arts which you can explore in her other blogs. She explains that she usually uses Anchor Pearl cotton but for the challenge she used a silk thread that comes on a spool like sewing thread. Just as she was finishing up the first motif, the thread broke so she started another motif. The second motif was completed without incident. The thread looks yummy, I wonder if we can get it in North America?

Sunday, November 12, 2006

Heart and candy



Some of our participants are involved in exchanges and other gift giving which means that they are doing a lot of tatting but they can't share the pictures. Consequently there are pictures of previously created projects showing up that don't really have anything to do with the challenge. Some of them like Carol's passion flower are unique enough that I can't resist including them, but if you have posted a non-challenge item and it didn't show up here, that was the reason. Likewise, when the challenge first started and there were only 1 or 2 people posting each day I included a brief synopsis of what they had written even when it wasn't tatting related. These days there are too many non-tatting related postings and I have too little time to always continue that practice, so I will only be including as much as I have time for.



Janet has posted the pattern for the snowflake she did for the exchange, but won't post the picture until her partner has received it.



LaRae has posted a heart motif, the pattern for which she got off the internet. The web site it was on is no longer there.


Martha has posted a picture of calorie free candy corn, tatted with 3 strands of embroidery floss.

Cross, edging, and some things too secret to post





Ruth has found the cord to her printer and finally sent off all the copies of her new book. Just in time too, because she's got a new addition to the family. Pictures will be coming soon.




Janet has been working on exchange items. No pictures yet though.








Gail has done another Mary Konior cross, it's called Rockingham and it's from the Tatting in Lace book in DMC size 12.






Jon is working on an edging for a scarf her mother gave her in a variegated DMC Dentelles. She asks what name do you give to a finished piece of tatting?


In response to the discussion on the tatting lists, Terry has posted a doily she did a while ago,done in pink, green and ecru Altin Basak thread.

Friday, November 10, 2006

Edgings, Icicles and Flowers

Sorry for the sporadic posting. Things have been a little hectic here.

Sharon has posted a motif turned into a doily as part of the design primer.





Snowy has posted a lovely edging attached to a hanky and a second hanky with a motif in one corner, both are very pretty. She has also finished her black edging and discovered that she omitted a ring at one point. Now to fix it. We've all done that, working on something and then noticing later that there's a mistake further back. Then you have to decide whether to leave it, cut it off, or try to fix it. I had a hanky edging once where fixing it meant hiding 8 ends inside 2 rings because the thread kept breaking. What a stinker. I hate fixing things like this, you have 2 short ends on the left, 2 short ends on the right, and the 2 ends where you add the new thread in. A minimum of 6 ends to hide. Hands up, all those who love to hide ends especially short ones. What? No hands?



Since Carol has been working on some exchange pieces that she can't show yet, she has posted a passion flower she did a while ago. Isn't it marvelous?





Laura's been making some more adjustments on the edging for Candace's wedding hanky. Lots of possibilities.





Larae has done another icicle from the same Workbasket magazine. This tree is going to be so pretty.