Attention: JaneS and Orders from The Boss

Hi, JaneS, Please send your address asap. Got to get this stuff in the mail or it will take forever to get to you - Xmas SLOW!

♔♔♔♔♔♔♔♔♔♔♔♔♔♔♔♔♔♔♔

Just when I thought I was finished with dragons, The Boss has decided she would like one, in #80, PINK.  What's a girl to do?   : 0

I have some lovely vintage #80 in Bubblegum Pink, that Isdihara sent me - what - 2 years ago! Perfect for a pink dragon...

Winners and a Winsome Dragon

Congratulations Jane and Karen!  

Please email me ASAP with your snail mail address,

so I can put your prize in the post. 

...and dragons...

28-100 # Motif Challenge

One of AnneB's Dragon Designs

I found this an incredibly frustrating pattern to tat, because of the directional changes throughout.  Therefore, there are mistakes everywhere in the front/back stitching. 

I realize I really do not enjoy patterns that represent things like animals or angels - tatting that requires parts to make up the whole. For me, they are fiddly rather than challenging, and I get tense and grumpy tatting them.  Not a pretty sight.  Poor Gian...

Floral, leaf, heart or mandala-like motifs make me easier to live with.

Gian does not care.

Dragon Dilemma

Single shuttle split ring or plain, old, ordinary split ring.  Hmmm what will it be?

Before tackling the Dragon pattern by AnneB, I figured I had better practice the SSSR, which I always forget how to tat. I suppose I never really use it much.  Sort of like the split chain, which I did use on the last snowflake. 

However, this time I suddenly realized the split chain no longer terrifies me!  I have made finally, finally befriended it. I could not even find it in the photo when I looked at the post of that snowflake! Yah!

Alas, no such good feeling exists yet between me and the SSSR.  I can tat them, but I am not comfortable with them, so I went with the SR. 

In this pattern, you are instructed to use two shuttles anyway, after the initial one for the tail, so it makes sense to me to just start off with the two. Points for giving it a good shot, though!

Don't you just love that DMC #80 Red for a dragon?  I think it is the perfect thread for a small version of one member Anne B's illustrious Dragon Den.

Bragging Rights

Oh, yah! Lots of you have often admonished me for being too critical of my tatting.
Well, not to-day!  I'll tell you why.

On The Space Between, yesterday I read this:

...I do not believe in forcing tatted lace to assume a specific shape in blocking. Lace knitting is a different story: wet it, pull it, pin it within an inch of its life. That is what is required to show off its beauty. Tatting is not the same. If the piece is tatted right, it should be the right shape to begin with – barring the bit of wayward ripple or ruffle. So, I don’t pull and pin: just a shot of damp pressing (cold or hot).

JaneE responded:

...Every tatting design should be totally ‘right’ when finished without any ‘bullying’. If it is worked with the same tension on both rings and chains then that should be the end result.  

I agree with this, and as Tatting Fool and umintsuru both well know, I neither use pins, ever, nor do I conventionally block my work. Just wet and press it, sort of coaxing it into shape before I pile on the weight. Then I let it dry. Easy.

Perhaps lazy? No, just not my tatting philosophy. Not everybody's cuppa, but I am comfortable with this approach.

Sometimes my tatting is off-kilter. Who am I kidding? It is usually very lopsided and 'symmetrical'  rarely appears in my tatting lexicon!

Not today! This is a first. This piece has been neither watered nor weighted! Straight off the shuttles!

#27-100 Motif Challenge

This is Sharon Brigg's 'Phantom Star,' from Tatted Flurries.
What a great pattern!