Earrings

I have been working on earrings lately, not because I wear a lot of earrings.  I rarely wear them.  I mainly want to empty a ton of shuttles that have leftover thread from previous projects.  But I also have a guilt complex about starting a new project when I still have two almost finished larger projects.  I only have about 12 more repeats of the last round of Renulek's Spring Doily, last updated here.  And I only have about five repeats of that hanky edging. So it would be crazy for me to start another project, right?  So, in an attempt to be a good girl and finish my WIPS while staving off bordem, I made these earrings.

They are a super simple pattern that I found on Jane McLellan's blog It literally took me like 30 minutes to make each earring.  And since it's all rings, it's perfect for emptying shuttles.  Here's me modeling them.

The next earring pattern I found on MaryLena's blog.  It's a heart pattern, just in time for Valentine's Day.

I decided my daughter makes a better earring model than I do. We also had a lot of fun making up her face in preparation for the "photo shoot."  Here is a close-up of the earring.

 I made these in blue because I was emptying a shuttle, but I will definitely make them again in red with pearls.  All the beads give the earring a nice weight.

My daughter made me promise to include a picture of her with her cat, so here it is.

New Favorite Cross Pattern

I really like tatting crosses as bookmarks because most people still have a hard copy of the Bible to put it in.  Books, on the other hand, are now digital for many people, so a tatted bookmark may not be put to use.  I was very excited when I saw Robin Perfetti's cross pattern and purchased it before Christmas, but am just now getting around to tatting it.  I decided on one solid color because I thought the pattern would really shine.  

 I really love how this cross turned out.  It has a lot of visual interest without being too complex to tat.  If you are comfortable with directional tatting and switching shuttles, you will have no problem with this pattern.  The only "problem" I had with this project was over estimating how much thread to load onto my shuttles.  I filled both shuttles almost full, and that turned out to be way too much as it only required about half of each shuttle.  So I decided to make another cross, but this time using contrasting colors.  Here's how the second one turned out:

I like this one even better.  It's like a cross within a cross.

I think this will be my go-to cross pattern for awhile.

Happy New Year

I wish everyone a Happy New Year and a very belated Merry Christmas.  I was woefully unproductive in my Christmas tatting this season.  Every so often, I have to take a little break from tatting; I just don't feel motivated to tat much.  This year, my tatting break came right before Christmas.  I did manage to get a few things accomplished, but nothing like last year.  Here is the sum total of my Christmas tatting for 2014:

Pretty pathetic considering last year I made at least 10 snowflakes and a few bookmarks and crosses to give out as Christmas presents.  The small snowflakes were used to adorn jars of homemade peach jam that I made over the summer.  My mother-in-law and sisters-in-law were the lucky recipients of that yummy jam.

I also completed this bookmark.

The pattern was a free download off some website, but I can't find the link.  Does anyone know where this pattern comes from?  I would like to give the designer credit.  The thread is Lizbeth Juicy Watermelon and Lime Green Medium, both size 40.

This bookmark is a free pattern on Robin Perfetti's blog on her Free Patterns page.

I really love this pattern because it lays nice and flat without blocking.  Plus, it's wide and stable in size 40 thread.  Not to mention it's a beautiful design.  I wonder how hard it would be to adapt this pattern into a cross?  The original pattern is in the public domain as an edging and Robin adapted it to make the bookmark. (See her blog post about it here).  Is anyone up for a design challenge???  I would do it myself, but I know the limits of my talent.  I can follow a pattern, but can't create one.  I admire all of you who can design from scratch or see many possibilities in an existing design.