A New Join and A Blip-less One Too

I cannot remember where I saw this type of join.  I recall that the instructions said to practice it , if it was a new technique, and I can see the pattern - but I cannot remember the place I saw it!  I THINK it was in the Japanese book by - NO, I remember!  

It is in a pattern by Kiniko Chitose - a collar pattern - in the Ring of Tatters book.

She instructs that to perform this join,  

"...bring the working thread through the picot to which you wish to join, make a picot, then work from the pattern.  The two joining picots are interlinked and look as though they are touching, tip to tip."

Effective!

Then on to Jane's Blip-less join:

This took me a few minutes to figure out, but once I did, I realized that it really works. 

 Excellent, Jane!  Thanks!

GOOD NEWS!  YAY!

Bordering On The Border

Slowly getting there... 

 As for keeping it clean, I am trying the baggie approach and it is all right.  Not as cumbersome as I had originally thought it would be. And it does keep the peanut butter at bay!

The little flowered tin - are you out there Crazy Mom?  

She sent me some Paul Newman Mints a long time ago, in a package of goodies.  The picture of the actor did nothing for me, but the blue around the lid inspired me to use up some pretty paper and I have been using this ever since.  Someone in a coffee shop asked me where I had purchased it!

What about you, Jane?  Are you reading this?  I have to thank you for this:

 
It cost about $2.50 on eBay for approximately 35 of them.  Ah, Internet shopping and tatting.  See, it does not have to cost a fortune to be so rewarding!

Back to the border...

'Tussie Mussie': Not My Métier

#7 Motif Challenge

Tussie Mussie by Rosemarie Peel

Okay - I have had enough of a break from tatting the border.. .grrr.  I will not post anything new before I get that finished.  Actually, it is pleasant to tat and is looking good, so I am not sure what the problem is.  I think Spring is beginning to weave her wander-lusting fingers around my soul!

The bright, but cold mornings bring warm, sunny rays through the window, and The Cat and I are definitely feeling the change of season.  Finally.

Now, about the Tussie Mussie.  I loved the picture in the 30th Anniversary Book of Patterns published by the Ring of Tatters.  It is a lovely design.  For me, however, I find this type of work to be much too fiddly and I like designs that are more... solid.  Heavy.  Gothic.  That much I have discovered recently.

It has sure taken  a lot of time and effort to see what I really enjoy!  I would have thought that my personal preferences would be much more defined after two years of tatting.  I am the same way after MANY decades of buying my own shoes, deciding on my footwear!

Proof of Prodigious Production

Anybody recognize this yet?  I am working on the next colour now.

On the thread supply... this is what is left.  

If you have been following my progress, you might remember that there were always two plastic bins - though neither was filled as much as this one.

Nevertheless, I have really taken a good bite out of my initial stash. There has been a lot of tatting over the past two years!  Yes!  I am determined to whittle this accumulation down by at least a quarter before I even think about adding to it!

I'm lying.  I think about it all the time.  But I have a lot of will power.  Make that: bull-headed inflexibility.