All About Her Ankles

#46-100 Motif Challenge

#30 Lizbeth

...lace.  What else?  Mini-Boss is lucking out this visit.  I shall be travelling to see my NYC family later this month, and wee Maeve shall have two pairs of socks with tatted edgings.


I would love to tat two dragons for her brothers, as I am so pleased with the stiffening agent I used on the last one, but I do not think I will have enough time to get through two of them.


But, you know me...  once I get an idea... I do have some lovely thread from Suneeti in a perfect blue and turquoise that could have either blue or green as the body...

"V" is for Vixen, and also for Vexed

#45-100 Motif Challenge

DMC Festive Tatting

HDT Yarnplayer's Lola

Yes, that would be me. Disgruntled. Not gruntled?  : O

I feel a bit rudderless - beginning of the year let-down or winter blues...  I just want to tat very simple, uncomplicated bits until I figure out what I want to tackle next.

This is the attempt at a border for the second pair of little, white socks for Mini-Boss.  I am not pleased.

Seems I cannot keep my mind on fiddly patterns these days, and with apologies to Martha, Mrs. Mee's picots are not pleasing to me!  Ruffles just are not my thing, I suppose.

I tried the pattern with regular picots, but still found it too intricate for a pair of kiddy socks, so I will do something else. There are a lot of wonderful patterns in Martha's Playing With Picots book however; I am just not in the mood for fiddly.

In fact, I am not in the mood for any of the patterns in my copious supply.  *sigh*  I don't know where all this is leading...

Oh, yes... I am attempting to learn EasyDraw - the free version, and am finding it very frustrating.  Any thoughts on software for Mac?

Doggedness of the Dragon

...or the tenacity of its tatter! 

#44-100 Motif Challenge

Pattern by Anne Buvold

This is a gift; luckily it is the best one yet.  

I got the wings right this time, EXCEPT the last one is supposed to be started on the back side and a mirror image of the first, but it ended up being on the front side when I attached it to the body. 

I am not sure at all how that happened, as I concentrated throughout in order to avoid this very thing! Grrrr.

However, considering I was never going to tat another dragon, I am pleased with the result.  This one is tatted in Altin Basak #50 and Lizbeth #40.

❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧❧

Dragons - mine at least - tend to have a very floppy nature, no matter how tightly I tat. So, I embarked on a very risky experiment.

Risky, because I have read a lot online about the dangers of stiffening tatted pieces.  I think I have been intimidated by all the chatter, and so never attempted to stiffen motifs.

This time, I took the plunge.  I used the only glue that I have - a non-toxic white liquid that I got from who knows where - watered down to a consistency I thought felt okay. How's that for scientific? : ))

I wet the tatting, got it into shape, and pressed the excess water away with a paper towel. Then I dabbed it all over with the water/glue mixture, put a piece of saran wrap over it and placed it under my heavy-pressing vase for a while.

Lastly, I removed the vase and the saran after about an hour or so and let the thing air-dry.

It is stiff, but not overly so. The dragon feels a bit rough because of the glue, but it seems to have done the trick!

Frivole For the First

... of January, that is. This is Frivole's new Criss-Cross pattern:

#43-100 motif Challenge

Thread is vintage Coates #30, from Kelly at Tatfully Yours.

You would never know that I used a picot gauge to tat this, but honestly, I did - in spite of the fact that I think I do worse in the measuring department when I hold the thing; I am a very clumsy tatter. Those picots are all different lengths!  I don't know what else I can do about that, except perhaps to try it without the gauge...

❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦

Here is another snowflake from the DMC Festival Tatting book, finishing off the Coates #30 and using some of Yarnplayer's gorgous Lola - #40, sent to me from Suneeti.

It is interesting to note how variegated thread works so well in this small motif, but was so totally wrong for this one, even though the pattern by Frivole is brilliant. In this case, only plain thread would have been appropriate - dit moi!

I did give the aforementioned motif to a friend over the holidays, after adding a little silver chain for hanging purposes.  She loved it and so did her husband.  They don't know a thing about variegated versus non- variegated threads, but they do know about Swarovski crystals!