Tatting Away and Preparing for the April Shuttlebirds Workshop

I've been keeping busy in my tatting.

The week before Easter my cousins were up for their Spring Break.  I had a blast with the three boys - lightsaber fights in the backyard and Nerf gun wars in the basement.  My cousin Emma (the youngest and only girl in the lot the came to visit) loved the look of my tatted things, and probably would have took home my entire completed stash if I had let her.  Instead, I tatted up a bracelet for her.  It's the accidental heart on a split ring chain.  She loved it.

Little girl wrists are tiny!

Heart on a string.

I really like how the two variegated colors worked with each other!

 Then it was on to birthday time.  Last weekend I had to birthdays to attend.  A sweet wonderful nine year old (for whom the following bracelet is made). And my Evil Twin (it's a camp thing) for whom I made a heart necklace.

Butterfly bracelet.

Again, little girls have tiny wrists.

 Then it is onto angels and the Shuttlebirds Workshop which is coming up, April 19-20.  The theme for this year's workshop is Angels Among Us.  This will be my first workshop and I am super excited!

My contribution to a guild project.

An angel for the themed contest.  This little cutie is my own design.

The themed contest is open to all tatters, not just workshop attendees.  So if you have an angel you would like to submit - check out the official rules here. [You'll want to act quickly as the mail-in date for entries is fast approaching.  My apologies for not getting this post up earlier.]

I'd love to hear what you think of my angel.  Happy tatting!

Adventures in Tatting

On Thursday night, my friend introduced me to the wonderful world of tatting.  She taught me the basics: double stitch, picot, join, chain, and ring.

My practice thread.  It starts out with a chain of double stitches using two threads.  The the work goes to a single thread as she taught me how to make rings.  Then I learned how to add picots.  After I had practiced two rings with picots side by side, she decided I needed to learn how to join rings through a picot.  Then I started making a flower.  I got partway around it and realized that my gap between petals was too large.  So I abandoned the partial flower to start on my first project.

This project was started and completed Friday morning.  I had a lot of fun making it.

This is my first completed (minus tucking in the final strings) project.  I needed youtube's help to learn a few more steps for this project.

When I first tried joining the last petal of my flower to the first petal of my flower it ended up twisted.  So I undid my join and started hunting for a video.  I found one that showed me how to make a folded join to complete a circular motif.  I also learned how to add a bead to the center of a tatted ring, which I practiced at the end of my bracelet chain.  I also stumbled across a fantastic way to hide tail threads, unfortunately, it was after I had already finished my bracelet.  So until I get around to buying a special needle, my tails will remain loose on this one.

Close up of the flower details.

Another shot of my first complete flower.

On to project number two, which I started Saturday.  This project uses the pattern found here, except that I've added an extra picot on the two outer rings of the clover.

Project #2 - Rambling Flowers Pattern

I started this project with two threads and used the thread hiding method found here.  I also learned how to open a closed ring, because I accidentally closed the center ring of the second clover a picot and five double stitches sooner than I should have.  I wouldn't want to make a habit out of reopening closed rings, but it wasn't as painful as the tutorial made it sound.

I am very excited to work on this project some more this morning and, after church, I will be meeting with the gal that taught me to show her my progress and to tat some more.