an apology

I apologize to all of you waiting for the pattern for the Trefoil bookmark.
I had said I would get it published this week. That was before I realized that I will need to be gone for 2 days.
I have an EMS conference to attend on friday and saturday. I am leaving tomorrow afternoon and haven't been able to finish the pattern and the testing.

sorry.
EMS = Emergency Medical Service I am a First Responder with our local village fire department.

TreFoil Bookmark again

well, the consensus from comments to the previous blog post and to the answers received on a tatting email group I belong to says that it is a new pattern.

you will have to give me a few days to get it written up and posted. I will want to tat some samples to be sure that I have it correct, so please be patient.

I leave tomorrow night right after work to pick up 1 grandchild and then take her with me to baby-sit 2 others. so I may not get much done on it until next week.

I will let you know when it is posted on my pattern blog.

Thanks for the encouragement.

more then 1 subject for this post

I did it, I bought myself something and it isn't even my birthday.

I have no other reason then I wanted it.

is that bad reason? I have 8 Silent tatters I think, or maybe more. I love them, they are the best shuttles, I don't know why I ever try any others. You can buy them from Roseground in the UK

I also did some tatting this evening, I wanted to test tat one more design from the Design-Tat class so chose Krystle's design.

The pattern worked well but my tatting leaves something to be desired. I made 1 major mistake and didn't exicute the climb out from round 1 to round 2 very well.

I used the same thread for this motif as I did for Miranda's because that was on the shuttles. The varigated is a Manuela size 20 and the green is a Flora Size 20

I plan on having a very good weekend, so if you don't hear from me until next week, don't be too worried about it.

What's that you ask? What am I doing?

I am going to go pick up my oldest granddaughter on friday night and then travel to my youngest daughter's to visit with her and help with a rummage sale, or babysit her other children while she gives birth to our newest grandbaby. Baby isn't due until October 8, but her midwife says any day, any minute so we will see what happens. So I will be enjoying at least 3 of my grandchildren or maybe 4 this weekend.

Trefoil bookmark/Edging

I was doing some cleaning over the weekend, and came across this bookmark that I started several years ago. I was using up some thread that I had on shuttles and I remember having to figure out how many of the small rings to make to match the cloverleaves.

so I don't think that I was following a pattern.


it is all single shuttle work, there are no chains.
A single pass would make a nice edging.
If anyone can point me in the direction of a previously printed pattern, I will say thanks, if not, then I will work up the pattern and post it on my patterns blog.

Since this is several years old and not finished as I ran out of thread on the shuttles, I will not be counting this for my 25 motif challenge.

Tatting Blog Give Aways

LadyShuttleMaker has a mondo weekly give away, sign up every monday.

WickedTats has a Halloween give away on her blog. with mysterious clues to the prizes

Miranda's Playing with Blocks

One of the lessons in our Design-Tat class required us to test tat another students design. This one is by Miranda Rensberger.

Her original design was done in one color, but I thought and several others mentioned that it looked like vines with flowers hanging over a wall, so I chose to tat it in 2 colors. That proved to make the tatting more difficult that Miranda's pattern called for. it required the Shoe lace trick at the corners, as I rings with picots suggested stamens to me, so the outer clovers had to be in the flower color which then required the shoe lace trick twice to get the threads in the proper place before and after.

I used the Catherine Wheel join in the block tatted areas to avoid the dreaded color spot you would get with a regular lock join. This added to the stitch count of the chains in the block tatting, so needed to compensate for that, but since the block tatted areas increase and decrease I had some trouble getting the blocks to look like leaves.


Because of the choice I made to use 2 colors, I had some trouble getting the hanging rings from the blocks in the correct position. my fault not Mirandas.
I do like how it ended up looking with 2 colors.
Thank you Miranda for a challenging pattern

Another Threes snowflake - Edited to add link to Iris's instructions

I decided to try the Threes snowflake in size 80 to see how it would look as an earing.


The first one is size 30 Melamine HDT from Tarnished Tatter and the second one is DMC size 80 HDT in Tuscany from LadyShuttleMaker
The quarter is for size comparison.
by itself, it is o.k. but if I wanted to add beads, I would need to strengthen the motif. either by using some sort of stiffening after it was made or by tatting over a core of wire as Iris Neibach does. click here for Iris's website, you will find the instructions for tatting over a wire core on the left side of this page.

Meandering Path

I have decided to name the motif I designed for the Design-Tat class, Meandering Path.

I have posted the diagram on my patterns blog, the link is to the right.

I will try to get the diagram for the Threes Snowflake posted soon. by the way, Heather caught a mistake in my written pattern, I have corrected it, so Thank you Heather.

And the Winner Is.......

Hello Everyone,

today is the drawing for the Shuttle, Box and the added screwdriver and bobbin winder.



There are 35 individual comments.



I went to Random.org to use their random number generator



The 13th individual commenter is Tatskool.
YYCongratulations!!YY

Thank you to all who left a comment on my post.

#7 for 25 motif challenge

I have been abit out of touch for a few days.

I have been tatting but have not had anything to show.

I have been test tatting a motif from the Design-Tat class, but it is not finished so can't show it yet.

Have also been out of town and then getting my ducks in a row here at home and at work so I can be gone for several days when my youngest DD has her 3rd baby any day now. I will go stay for several days while she is in the hospital and help when she first gets home. The other kids in the family are 8 and 1 so an extra hand will be a good thing.

but I needed to accomplish something the other day so decided to work on an easy edging so I didn't have to think too hard.

I looked in the book Tatting Doilies and Edgings edited by Rita Weiss for something to spark my interest but be fairly mindless due to repetition.

I picked edging No. 3006 from page 10. As I was looking at it I decided to change the confirmation of the one ring so it was easy to remember. and as I got several repeats done it started to curl. I joined repeat 6 to repeat 1 and had an easy snowflake.

I called it Threes Snowflake as all # of ds between picots are 3 and there are 3 picots or joins in each ring and on the chain.

The thread is some of Heather Johnstons Melamine in size 30 left over from the Beatrice Doily that I did a few weeks ago.

The pattern for this snowflake is posted on my patterns blog - see the link to the right, and Heather caught a mistake in my notation, so I have fixed it.

Today is the 15th so will get down to business and get the shuttle drawing done. I will get that taken care of tomorrow unless grandbaby decides to show up in which case I will do it when I get back home.

I have a packed bag, ready to go when the phone rings. It is an hour&half drive to get to their house.

time to get to bed and off the computer, put in 12 hours at work today so I can be gone if necessary.

#6 motif for real this time

a second quickie post for Labor Day.

I have finished lesson 4 for the Design-Tat class being taught by Sharon.

I think it qualifies as Motif #6 for my 25 Motif Challenge. I had miscounted my earlier post today, so this is #6 for real now.

The thread is a ball of what I think is bedspread cotton from my late mother-in-laws stash. I have been tatting with 20, 30 or 50 lately so this felt like tatting with cable and it was soft so the stitch definition wasn't as crisp.

I haven't blocked this yet.

# 5 on the list

this is #5 for this 25 motif challenge. It is tatted in Manuela size 20 color # 210 and the beads are silver lined clear delicas.
because this is a first, I have named it Incipient Snowflake.

I am rather proud of this as it is the first design that I drew out with software before tatting and it worked. well mostly. It cupped a bit but then that was to my advantage as I am actually aiming for an ornament drape instead of a flat snowflake, but with blocking it does lay flat. Since this was a trial, I didn't put as many beads on it as I will for a drape. I have found some changes that I want to make and have designed a second one. that I think will do more for what I need it for.
I will be putting this pattern on my patterns blog possibly tonight.

#4 motif of the 25motif challenge

I have #4 of my 3rd motif challenge finished.

it is another snowflake trial in my quest for this year's ornament drape. the thread is Size 20 Lizbeth in springtime again. It seems kinda funny to be tatting snowflakes in august and september using a thread colorway titled springtime.

The pattern is by Terri Dusenbury available on esnips.

I think I have some ideas that I will put together for what I want, but may do a few more trials before I am satisfied.

A Bit of Clarification

With out meaning too, I have apparently been a bit misleading.

The shuttle being given away and the box it comes with are made by a gentleman in Hungary. His ebay ID is smalcoin

The small brass screwdriver and the small dowel for winding the bobbin actually came with a Silent tatter from Roseground in England. I have a large selection of Silent Tatters ( i love them) and since the shuttle I am giving away did not have a screw driver or bobbin winder I am adding them to the give away shuttle set.

I apologize for haveing mislead anyone.