xmas presents

Among the presents I gave were a 1936 Singer sewing machine with all the bits (successful auction-site hunting) and an electric ukelele (joint xmas/birthday present from 2 people).
I received 10 books including including "The Steampunk Bible",  "24 snowflakes in Tatting" and - a bit late because someone forgot to do xmas shopping - "Tatting with Visual Patterns" by Mary Konior (insert big grin here!). Now where can I fit in that extra bookcase...

No tatting over Christmas due to distractions from these 2 guys:

Max by the fire

Soppy collie

BTW some of the 10 books were probably late birthday presents.

This week's tatting

This week I've mostly been playing with Kira's Star. The accidental diamond one has now been joined by a few more...

I also got my first copy of a Mary Konior book this week so the little purple one is "Seahorse" from "Tatting Patterns" by Mary Konior.  All the others are Kira's Star or based on it.  Top left is the full Kira's Star but the tension in the outer round is a bit iffy.  It's also the only one where I started the inner round on a chain instead of finishing on a chain.

The grey thread which is metallic in normal light didn't want to become a 6-pointed star so I stopped at 5 points. Even then its still not quite lying flat.  It's an Anchor pearl cotton so not as easy to tat with and definitely not as easy to undo mistakes. I bought it before I found out what sort of cotton is best for tatting with.  The others are all Puppets Eldorado thread.

A little tatting

I had my first try at Kira's star - but got distracted by the tv and closed it after only 4 clovers resulting in this rather neat little square/diamond

I also tried Frivole's method for ending on a chain - I think I'm getting better at it :)

I really need to get back to finishing the tatted necklace that's going to be a christmas present but I'm in the mood for tatting little things instead.

PS hope you can see the pictures ok - they're linked from my album at intatters. I've rather assumed that if you're interested enough in tatting to be reading this then you're probably already registered at intatters :)

scrapbook

I've started keeping a tatting scrapbook of the short bits of edgings that I've tried out.

The tatting at the bottom is even worse in real life - sewing it to the paper has helped hold it in shape.  The second from bottom is tricky as well. Don't think I'll be using either of them in earnest for a while unless someone has a cunning way to change the pattern to make it easier to do.
Most of them are from "My book No 3" Tatting Craft by Anna Valerie. It's an edwardian book that you can find online for free since its out of copyright, but its also part of the "Tatting - designs from Victorian lace craft" which I bought since its hard using the pdf versions on my notebook.

New blog

Thought I might start a Tatting blog.

Here is a picture of some of my tatting.

I discovered Tatting when looking for trimmming suitable for Victorian and Edwardian costume so I have been focussing on trimmings.  This piece is now long enough to reach from fingertip to fingertip with my arms outstretched - now need to make something to use it on! 

I've got a bit distracted by variegated thread. I'll have to go back to plain white or ecru to make period trimmings but for the time being while I'm working on keeping things consistent from one end to the other I'm going to have fun with variegated thread :)

I started tatting in late September so that's just over 2 months now.