How about some split rings.

Here is an American flag I'm working on for the 4th of July.  It is comprised almost entirely of split rings, so if you want to practice your split rings, here's the pattern for you!

I got the pattern here.  I'm using Lizbeth size 20 in Christmas red, white, and royal blue.  This pattern is so easy that I find my mind wandering  and not paying close attention, hence the mistakes.  But once it's finished and blocked, the mistakes aren't so noticeable.  This flag measures about 5 inches wide and will be about 4 inches long when finished.  I still have 3 full rows and one partial row yet to go to make 13 stripes.  (This is motif # 4 in the 25 Motif Challenge)

The one below I completed for Memorial Day.  My next door neighbor and crafting buddy sewed on the beads to represent stars, wrapped the bar to look like a metal pole,  and gave me the wire hanger.  So I'm giving her the flag pictured above once I finish.

Mail call

I got a something special in the mail today.  It is a beautiful pendant that I won from umintsuru.

Here is the post where she explains where the pattern came from.  I won the Juicy Watermelon one.  It looks so beautiful in real life.  Here is my daughter modeling it since she's a lot prettier than I am.

 

She was a very cooperative model at first, following my directions and posing as I asked.

But she soon tired of modeling and decided to try her own poses.

But the pendant still looks stunning, even with this silly pose, don't you think?  Thank you umintsuru for the beautiful pendant.

Doily XII - Motif challenge # 3

Just finished round 2 of Doily XII from Jan Stawasz's Tatted Treasures.  I'm not doing the whole doily, just one motif from it.  Just two rounds of one motif has taken me like 2 weeks.

I can't imagine how long the entire doily would take. There are like 8 of these motifs in the full doily, plus some ring/chains around the center motif.  That's a lot of tatting!  And you really have to pay attention to the details with this doily (and all of his designs).  It's not the same size ring repeated multiple times.  Each ring in a "cluster" has a unique stitch count and two or three sizes of picots.  Not a pattern you can tat while vegging out.  That's why I usually have two different patterns going at the same time; one more challenging, like this one, and one that is simple and repetitive.  That way I can choose the pattern that suits my mood when I pick up my tatting.  If I'm tired or stressed, it's the easy pattern.  If I'm alert and ready to flex my tatting muscles, it's the difficult pattern. 

Motif # 2 Jane's Bookmark Cross

Another small project done.  This is Jane's Bookmark Cross adapted by Grace Tan.  You can find the pattern here. 

I did this in Lizbeth size 20 in Elderberry Jam.  It's the first time I've used this thread and I love the subtle changes in color.  If you look closely you can see that the center of the cross is not correct.  Since it's not perfect, I may just have to keep this one for myself.  Not sure what I did wrong.  The pattern is pretty straightforward, but joining the two "L's" in the center was a little tricky.

Motif # 1 Flower Pot 1

I am very proud of my very first complete Jan Stawasz project.  It is "Flower Pot 1" from Tatted Treasures.  I used Christmas Green, Golden Yellow Medium and Mocha Brown Medium in Lizbeth 20 thread.

  The hardest part of this project was all the different sizes of picots and the double picots in several of the elements.  I don't use a standard picot gauge, but measure my picots with some common items found in my house.

For the smallest picots, like joining picots, I use a "T" pin.  The toothpick is my standard picot size.  The round bottom end of the crochet hook is a little larger, followed by a wooden cuticle stick (never used, of course) and a crayon for really big picots, especially double picots. A lot of Jan Stawasz's patterns call for graduated picots or picots of varying sizes, so this is my tool kit for creating consistent picots of different sizes.

At my local Hobby Lobby store, I found these adorable framed blank canvasses in various sizes.

I bought a 4''x4" and a 5"x7".  I found the perfect pattern to fit into the 4"x4" canvass from Contemporary Tatting by Judith Connors.

I had to empty several shuttles to get enough flowers to fill the wheel barrow.

In the 5"x7" canvass, I plan to put "Flower Pot 1" from Jan Stawasz's Tatted Treasures.  So far, I have made all three flowers, but still have one stem and the flower pot to tat.

Entering the tatting blogosphere

I am a lonely tatter in Texas whose only tatting influence comes from other tatters' blogs, so I decided to join the conversation instead of just looking in from the outside.  I am a married mother of two children, ages 10 and 7.  I learned to tat from the book "Learn to Tat" by Janette Baker in 2010.  Before 2010 I had never heard of tatting.  I saw a woman at the park doing something strange with thread wrapped around her hand and asked her about it.  She told me about tatting, I went out and bought the "Learn to Tat"  book and have been hooked ever since.  I consider myself an intermediate tatter with numerous pattern books and patterns printed off the internet and an endless collection of threads, mostly size 20 and 40.  I really enjoy reading other tatting blogs and seeing the progress they are making on their projects. That has inspired me to challenge myself and improve my techniques.  Here are some projects I have recently completed:

This is called "Flowerpiece" from Mary Konior's Tatting with Visual Patterns.  It is done in Lizbeth size 20 Christmas Red and Leaf Green Dark.  I love how the dark green really sets off the red.  I plan on giving this as a Christmas present if I can bear to part with it.  It's my favorite project so far from my favorite pattern book.

Below is another pattern from Mary Konior's book:

This on is called "Glass Mat" and is done in LIzbeth #20 Cranberry Bush.  Although I love the pattern, it turned out smaller than I thought.  I could try it in size 10,  but I hate tatting in size 10.  You have to load your shuttle all the time.