Happy Holidays

I will have limited internet access until January 2, 2008. I hope every one stays safe and warm. Enjoy whatever holiday you celebrate, and even if Christmas isn't one of them, go ahead and have a great day on the 25th.

For Christmas, I will be at my parents house. I'm taking my 3 cats over to help celebrate. Mom and Dad lost their cat just before Thanksgiving, and they both have said they need a cat fix. We will exchange gifts, have a family traditional breakfast and dinner. Sports and home improvement channels will be watched. Christmas music will be listened too and naps taken. Books might get read, crafts will be worked and family and friends in other places will be remembered.

I hope you all have as restful a time, and whatever your family traditions, enjoy them.
Peace and Love to all

On not tatting

I have been burying myself in things other than crafting. Meaningless things like playing video games, meaningful things like reading books, and day to day things like avoiding doing the dishes, or doing the dishes. I am working on another motif for the challenge. I am about 1/2 way finished. I might have gotten further, but I chose the wrong movie to throw into the DVD player. The motif is one I have tried several times to tat. It should be easy, 1 shuttle + ball of thread, with only chains and rings. I did very well while watching the Anne Bolynn sequence of the old 1972 version of Six Wives of Henry VIII. Then I made the mistake of switching to Fellowship of the Ring. I haven't seen FotR as often as the Six Wives series and once again I was completely caught up in the visual feast. The tatting went back in it's bag and I curled up under a quilt, the cats curled up on me and I once again journeyed into middle earth.

Vacation Week and Challenge news

Okay, Sharon B. who has the In a Minute Ago blog has announced her challenge for next year. It is the Take in Further Challenge. Please feel go check out the post to get more details. She also welcomed people to talk about their de-stashing, so my hopes of working on projects and de-stashing should fit in with her challenges.

I got little done during my vacation. I worked on a Sampler that was started 20 plus years ago, and started a Crazy Quilt square. I also started another needle tatting motif. Much of the time I had planned to work on organizing my crafting and/or crafting was spent and my Mom's house. She had borrowed a copy of "The Barchester Chronicles" from her friend and my former boss. It is a 7 episode series, each episode about 50 minutes long. We watched it in it's entirety 2 days in a row. I probably could have watched in again, but that didn't happen. So instead of tatting, or doing anything else, I sat curled up on a couch, wrapped in a quilt, watching Alan Rickman ooze slimy charm. The show is a delightful little soap opera of politics and intrigue in a small 19th century town. I highly recommend it.

UFOs

For the subject of this post, UFOs are UnFinished Objects, maybe someday I'll write about the other kind, but not today. Sharon B from In A Minute Ago suggested a possible challenge for next year. {This year she has run the Take a Stitch Tuesday challenge. I only found out about it in September and that was too late, at least in my mind to join in.} Anyway for next year she suggested a de-stashing project, of finishing up UFOs, WIPs(works in progress) and WISPs(works in slow progress). I don't know if that is what the final challenge will be or not. However I decided to make it mine whether or not she runs an official challenge. I started writing down my UFOs on break. I'm not sure I want to admit to how many I have. I am trying to get them organized however, and I'm dividing my supples into; what is in progress and I definitely want to finish, supplies for projects that haven't been started but I want to do, supples for projects that haven't been started and I want to divert to other projects, then just the odds and ends that I had to have because they are pretty, and the odds and ends that are leftover.

I will definitely finish off the 25 motif challenge, and perhaps start it over again as it is just plain fun, motifs don't take a whole lot of time to complete, and they use up stash - which puts it squarely in the realm of the de-stashing part of the new challenge.

I also plan to start CQing. More UFOs? Yes I'm sure there will be, but at the same time it will give me a place to use my motifs, both crocheted and tatted. It will certainly destash fabric and embroidery floss, and bits and bobs that have accumulated.

I will be on vacation next week and plan to get my UFOs and Stash somewhat organized. At least enough to make a list, and a game plan. Also I have no internet at home so I will probably be out of the loop for a whole 9 days.

To all of you who happen to stop by, have a lovely Thanksgiving. I hope you get to share it with family or friends or both. And if you live someplace where you don't celebrate Thanksgiving, have a lovely week and I hope you get to share it with people you love.

Blog Roll

Okay, my blogroll is probably a weird thing to blog, but what the heck. At this point, these are all the blogs that I subscribe too. I use the Bloglines service for this. I check bloglines every morning, and they have done a search and let me know which blogs have been updated, and they provide the postings, either partial or in full -- your choice. Then I can go to the individual sites and browse around, read or leave comments, and see what blogs other people have linked too. It is a wonderful service. If you are forgetful like me, or just plain busy it is a wonderful tool.

The crafting sites: Embroidery, Tatting, and Crazy Quilting these sites are loaded with patterns and or inspiration.

Other Blogs: Well, just that, other blogs.

• The Criss Library is where I work, information that is a must have for any of us in the Criss Library who work a public service desk. If you don't work there, you probably don't care.
• The Pump Handle, because I am woefully uninformed about the goings on in the world. This is one way I can at least get the headlines on a topic I care about, my fellow human beings.
• Horror Movie a Day. Hard to explain, not the blog, but why I read it. The blogger watches a horror movie every day, then talks about it, like he is talking to a friend. It isn't a review it is more of a conversation. I don't even watch many horror movies, but I love this blog. Warning-He uses rough language.
• My other blog, is where I blog on non-craft things, probably where this entry should go but oh well, the lines between the two are so blurred now anyway that there is probably no hope.
• Any other blogs there at this point are friends, virtual or real-world that have blogs. Not that those who write the crafting blogs are not friends and potential friends, they just have a more focused blog.
  

Pictures Finally

I finally have some scans of my tatting. So here in all its glory, I present to you: twisted picots, wildly uneven tension, thread so soft it needs to be blocked and stiffened, and ends needing to be tucked in. Oh, and lots of stray cat hairs too. They will be happy to know that their contribution made it into this post.
Motif 5
This first piece is from the Tat-along project. This is Base motif number 2. This is the motif with the twisted picots, and well even more obvious is the uneven tension. I just need to take some time to tuck in the ends. Then I will stiffen it and use it for a Christmas ornament on the back of the tree to fill in space and not waste the thread and time.

Needle tatted.

Motif 6
This Albino Bat is from Mark Myers site. Again with uneven tension and loose ends. I'll probably attach him to something. I will say it looked much better after I ironed it, now it is at least recognizable as a bat.

Needle tatted.

Motif 7
One X from the Cecelia Doily. This is one of my old threads from when I was going to crochet a whole bunch of bookmarks. The Thread is nice and soft and even after ironing it will not hold its shape. I plan on making as many Xs as I can from this ball of thread and making a doily. Probably a rather small doily.

Needle tatted.


Motif 8
I cannot find the website for this motif at the moment. I'll have to look it up at home and see if I can at least find the name of the designer. Again the thread is very soft, and this motif will end up being attached to something else so it can hold it's shape. The designer is Lisa C. Trumble, and it can be found at this website.

Needle tatted.

Motif 9.
Another motif from the tat-along project. This is motif is my variation on the first motif. More of that soft soft thread. Again this motif will probably just get stitched onto something else so that it can hold its shape.

Needle tatted.


Motif 10.
these are so small I'm counting the 2 of them as one motif. This is thread from a friends step-mother-in-law, or that woman's mother. We aren't sure exactly. They are just doodles that I needle tatted, and each motif used up what was left on a spool of thread. I didn't use a pattern for these, but I do know that a clover and a daisy are far from original. I just made up the counts as I went along and used up the thread. These will also become part of something else, some day.

So, now I am caught up on posting my tatting and moving along on my tatting adventure. I hope to be able to credit the creator/designer of the triangle pattern very soon. However if anyone knows off the top of his/her head, please let me know so that proper credit can be given. Found it, Lisa C. Trumble, her website is listed above.

Cross Posted on Zaijovan's This n That

Gate of Souls: a Familiar's Tale

This has nothing to do with fiber arts, but it's my friends book, I think it's great and I want her to do well, so if you like the fantasy genre, please consider this book!

I received my copy of Gate of Souls last night. I am quite excited and cannot wait to read it. Probably will sit down Saturday morning with a pot of tea and some scones and really enjoy it. I was a beta reader for this book when my friend Verna was writing it. It was great then, I loved it and was thrilled when she thought she had it published. That promise fell through, and in retrospect it was a very good thing it did. Since I first read the book, my friends Rick and Verna have moved so I haven't seen the changes in this book. Verna published several short stories in e-zines and in this way was 'noticed' by a book publisher. A Familiar's Tale was dusted off and has been through some serious editing. The title of the original, A Familiar's Tale, has become the series title. The story is told through the eyes of the sorcerer's familiars. The first time through Mellypip was the main character along with his sorceress Runa. I expect this hasn't changed any. As sweet and endearing as these two characters are Belwyn the owl -- and Mellypip's tutor -- was a favorite of mine, and everyone in the writers group. To a person, in our imaginations Belwyn had the voice of Edward Woodward. No one tried to give actors or voices to the other characters, but try giving this book a read and see if any voice other than Woodward's comes through for Belwyn.

I hear the 2nd book in the series is almost done. I wonder how much chocolate I'll have to mail out to Verna in order to see a rough draft of this book ahead of time?

Cats and Quilts

Cats are attracted to quilts. I've never met a cat who wasn't. I don't know the reason, but I'm sure there should be a universal law about it. Once upon a time I was embroidering white flour sack dishcloths. I was told that the embroidery was too pretty and ornate to be dishcloths, I should make it a quilt. Then as I dutifully did as I was told and started making a quilt I was told that it should be a queen-sized quilt, because then it would work as a bed spread for my double bed. Seeking approval I embroidered enough squares for a queen-sized quilt. 24 squares, plus borders. Only 4 squares are quilted. I dug it out of it's box too have a look, that's more quilting than I thought I had done. I'm rather wishing now I had not been so easily led, and such an approval seeker, but it will make a pretty quilt if I ever get it done.

So anyway, I spread it out on my living room floor to have a good look at it. My living room is almost empty because I'm working slowly on finishing that room. Finishing off the ceiling, painting and wall papering, so the furniture is all in my dining room. Lots of room on the living room floor. I sit down on the love seat (that is in the dining room, blocking any use of my dining table) to have a good look at it. The cats find the quilt. One promptly sits on it to have a bath, the other two circle around it for a bit. Suddenly the quilt becomes a mat or a ring, and the cat version of WWW occurs in my living room on that quilt. All the kitty wrestling must happen on the quilt. If a cat leaves the quilt for any reason the wrestling stops. It was quite entertaining, and I watched for some time thinking I was justified in not having cable.

And as I look over this blog and think about all the craft work I have, all those UFOs, and all the possibilities for more UFOs I'm thinking maybe the blog name should change from Catherine's Tatting Attempts to Catherine's Crafting Attempts. I'll think about it, I'll only change it if the addy can stay the same.

Halloween

Another Halloween has come and gone. I did not dress up this year, and neither did my cat. Banichi sometimes dresses up as a spider and helps me hand out candy. He is usually as big a hit as the candy. I just didn't want to deal with that this year. I had somewhere between 50 and 75 trick or treaters come by, before I decided to call it quits. I got chilled, the neighbors were starting to close up and turn out lights so I did too. I didn't think I was ever going to warm up.

While handing out candy I worked on my embroidery sampler. I actually got a fair amount done. There were many nice complements on the colors and several little girls commented that they liked to embroider. I was saddened though when one girl asked if I was knitting. Here was this nice curious little girl who had never been exposed to needle crafts. A fair amount of my history is tied up in craft work -- not to mention a huge amount of space in my house. My mother taught me to embroider. My grandmother gave me my first knitting needles and yarn. My mother made me clothes, taught me to make clothes, she sewed and knitted Barbie doll clothes for me, I learned to needlepoint by watching her; she and I learned to quilt together, she on quilt tops made by her grandmother, and me using up scraps from cloth mom and I had made clothes out of. Then there is the hours of fun and enjoyment of learning new crafts with friends, and the new friends I have made simply by knowing some needlework and getting involved with groups in person or online who also practice needlework. I do hope that, that little girl who didn't know the difference between knitting and embroidery has some other memories with her parents, some other hobbies that will be as pleasing and rewarding to her as needlework has been and continues to be for me.

Update on my Aunt

My Aunt who was diagnosed with breast cancer had her surgery on Monday. They did lumpectomies and removed at least one lymph node. Nothing was found in the initial check of the lymph node, and we are awaiting all the test results. She and my uncle were exhausted, but glad that part of the ordeal was over with. It was a one day procedure and she got to go home that night. While I know she was glad to be home, it seems to me that this revolving door medicine is going too far. There have been some horror stories in the news about women sent home after surgeries for breast cancer where they or their families were unable to perform the follow-up care that was needed.

No Piccies yet

Hi, I didn't get any scans made, but I got some Tatting done! I am rather excited about that, plus I have a general invite for tea and homemade cookies if I offer tatting lessons to my co-workers at my part time job. Over the weekend they were looking at my work and talking about the dying art. I assured them it wasn't dying. Then i got to thinking that that is the wrong response. I will now ask people if they would like to help keep it from dying, and thus try to recruit new tatters. Then once they are committed (yeah right) I can spring on them the plethora of web sights and blogs, all the wonderful vibrant and living people out there with their innovations and new creations that are breathing life into this far from dead art form.

But back to the piccies part. I finished the tat-along motif, it was number 2, and did a very amateur job of it, uneven tension twisted picots and who knows what else. I'll still starch it and turn in into a Christmas Tree ornament, I'll just put it at the back of the tree. I also made Mark's aka Tatman's Bat, and the little x from the Cecelia doily. Hopefully pictures tomorrow.

Cross Post with Zaijovan's This n That

Naming confusion?

I realized that I have a naming confusion going on here in my blogs. So I'm taking a moment to sort it out. My blog name is listed as Kelly, my tatting blog says it is Catherine's tatting attempts, the online Tarot community knows me as Catherine, at one job they call me Kelly at the other they call me Catherine, and no I don't have 2 personalities. At least I don't think so. My mom and my aunt both loved the name Kelly for girls. Whoever had the first girl got to name her Kelly. I was the first girl and so that is what my family calls me. My legal birth certificate name is Catherine Marie, after my grandmothers. I use the names almost interchangeably, and you all can too. But please use Catherine and not Cathy. Oh, and dear Peter in Oz, you and you alone are allowed to call me Cate. ;-) The only other person to do so was my Master Sergeant when I was in Junior ROTC in high school.

Odd Facts Meme

I've been tagged by Melissa to share 7 facts about myself!

Here are the rules which you must abide by if you are tagged.
1. Link to your tagger and post these rules.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself: some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post and list their names (linking to them).
4. Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment at their blogs.

EEK, I've been tagged.

7 odd facts uh?

1. My car has radio buttons programmed for Classical, Country, and Rap stations.
2. I'm addicted to Anime, but will only watch in the original Japanese.
3. I am a tea snob - I almost exclusively drink imported British or Asian teas.
4. My house and yard are both fixer uppers, one friend says she's waiting to see me interviewed on the evening news because bodies were found buried in the back yard. Luckily so far I've only found rusted out car parts.
5. I love high heels. I'm about 5'8" tall, and love to wear heels. I don't very often since I gained so much weight it is too hard on my feet, but otherwise bring on those 3 and 4 inch heels. In fact in a church play, in my 4 inch heels I made a run for the stage, leapt onto the stage and got into a scuffle with another actor, it was lots of fun, and I never lost balance.
6. I prefer to drive stick shifts. Once while driving my mom's car - an automatic - I got stuck at a stop sign because I couldn't find the clutch or stick shift. Please no blonde or women driver jokes, plus it was in a very rural area so I wasn't holding up traffic.
   
7. My lolcat personality is the sad cookie cat. See my general blog under tests if you are curious.
   

I tag:
Golly, don't know a lot of people out there in the cyber fiber arts community yet. Most of my face to face friends don't have blogs. If you want me to tag you I will, or I may go see if any of my other cyber communities have members with blogs.

Asking Permission

Hi all,
I have started adding more to my blog. Specifically links to other blogs. I don't know all the netiquette on this, like is it proper to ask permission to have the links. To be on the safe side, I am asking for permission, after the fact, but I can remove links if the owners wish. I have been blessed to have a few of you come back on a regular basis, and so I am asking here for permission to link to your blogs. I will try to go to each individual to ask, but some of you I cannot leave comments for. Clyde P. yours is one I cannot leave a comment on, so if you read this and want me to remove your link from my page I will respect your wishes. If I do not hear from you I will assume it is okay to keep the link. Now, I am off to leave comments/permission requests on the blogs I have posted.

False Starts and Finishes and Cats

Well, I was quite disjointed last night and feel like not a lot got done on anything. I did a bit of laundry, some dishes, heated up leftovers, tried to start practicing a few embroidery stitches, tried to finish a video game, and then tried to tat. I'm not sure if I'm going to rip out that last bit of tatting or not. My uneven tension came back, big time. I was just too tired to be doing anything right. When I get home from work I'll look at it with fresh eyes and see if it is as bad or worse than I currently think it is. At least the really bad part is where I stopped so there won't be a whole lot of lost time if I rip it out. Also, one of the joys of needle tatting over shuttle tatting, is that it is a lot easier to rip out mistakes, well if you catch them soon enough anyway. I still hate to loose the time spent, but at least the motif is not a waste like it is when I have a big goof in shuttle tatting.
Anyway, just because here are some pictures of my furbabies. This is Banichi at about 6 months old. He's 3 1/2 now. He has that wonderfully regal granting an audience look to him here.



This is Motoko and Leo when they were about 4 months old. This is from the weekend I adopted them a little over a year ago. Leo is the orange kitty, and Motoko is the Gray one. Isn't that a sweet expression on her face.














And these are my favorite pictures of Leo and Motoko. This was last Holloween. They had to stay inside while Banichi and I were on the porch handing out candy. As you can see, they were not pleased with that arrangement. I need to get new pictures of all three of them.









They are also great craft helpers, they make sure that the threads taste good, and that there are lots of knots and tangles to keep me busy.

Meandering around tatting

My tatting mentor had a flare up of something. We had thought she had Raynauds Syndrome, but that isn't the case. She is sensitive to cold, and stress, and overwork, and it causes her a great deal of trouble with her hands and feet. So I did a little bit of tatting, and we talked. I left her with tatting needles and my how to needle tat book. Working with a shuttle is causing too much tension in her hands, so we are hoping that needle tatting won't be as hard on her muscles. Of course her goal is to get back to shuttle tatting, but she seems excited to be able to do any kind of tatting at this point.

I started a doily this weekend. The first round is to the left. It is from the BeStitched website. It appears to have come out in a series starting with a 10 pointed snowflake, then growing round by round in Nancy Tracy's monthly patterns until it reached the doily that can be found at the above website. I'm using DMC size 80. I had been trying to use some size 80 from Great Aunt Joyce's stash, but the thread kept breaking. I read on Sherry's blog that she was having the same problem, and the wonderful tatting community recommended that she try newer threads as thread can get brittle with age. Wow, the difference newer thread makes. It slides more smoothly and no breaking! I think my tension is getting a bit more consistent, and the picots a little more even. I do need to make myself some picot gauges though. Right now I must admit I'm just having too much fun to stop and make the gauges.

I have also started on a tat-along project. I'm using size 10 Cebelia for it and am actually trying to make some pattern changes. I wanted something easy to work on for a 30 minute break at my retail job and figured the larger thread would fit the bill. I hope to have both another round of the doily to show off, and the finished tat-along project as a motif later this week, but we'll have to see how all the housework and other obligations play out. I guess just one or the other would show progress.

Motif 3, and Thank You

Thank you to the thoughtful people who stopped in to the comment section to offer prayers and encouragement for my aunt and my family. It is very much appreciated. Unfortunately my Aunt lives in Seattle and I live in Omaha, so we don't see each other as much as we all would like. Despite that we keep in touch and the families are really very close in friendship, spirit, and love.

Anyway on to tatting. I got two of the awareness ribbons blocked and stiffened yesterday. After work I go to the craft store to look for small magnets and pin backs so that I can finish them off. The pattern is copyrighted by Lenore English and was very fun and easy to make.

These are the two ribbons that are going to my mom and aunt. I don't know the specifics on the thread because it was inherited from my great aunt, their aunt. Aunt Joyce was a British War Bride, and unfortunately I never got to meet her. After her death I did meet my Great Uncle Clyde, who is, well, a great uncle. His children and grandchildren didn't want much of Aunt Joyce's crafting supplies so he gave them to me. I believe the size of thread is a 10. The color is actually a dark rose color and is not variegated. I need some practice with that scanner. The small motif in the middle is also from Aunt Joyce's stash and it is done with six strands of embroidery floss. Once again I don't know the maker or color of the floss. However here is the pattern, and it is copyrighted to JoAnn Stearns.

All pieces are needle tatted as despite all the flaws, I am still better with the needle than with a shuttle. I'm counting the ribbons as motif 3. I'm not sure if the Dove counts as a motif or not, it is so tiny and doesn't doe the original pattern justice at all (not that my ribbons do either).

As I read back over the rules I noticed that we were asked to state a theme for our motifs. People have been very creative and some of you are doing all animals, or all snowflakes, or designing all of your motifs. If it is okay I would like for my theme to be general improvement in tatting ability. Or how about getting up the courage to learn newer and more complicated techniques. Then there is also the ever popular, just keep working at it and practice makes perfect. I'll settle for better and not embarrassing, and believe me the pieces posted are the better and least embarrassing ones. You should see the others. ;-) And tonight, I get to go tat with my tatting mentor! I'm hoping to learn some new shuttle techniques, and she is going to learn needle tatting. Very Basic needle tatting.

Maybe Today

No tatting last night. Got the book finished for book club though. It was "Snow Flower and the Secret Fan". I really enjoyed the book, but I hate forced reads. I must start reading next months book at least a week ahead of time instead of only 2 days.

We are having strange and bad smells where I work. They are renovating the library I work in, and well, there are just too many books to move out so that we can work elsewhere while noises and smells and bumps and shudderings go on. They put down concrete sealer yesterday. I think that was what it was anyway. It smells really bad though. I took vacation and left early yesterday and plan to do so again today. I'm working my public desk hour right now and the rest of my work is behind the scenes so I won't be missed if I'm out for a few days.

Anyway, I plan to put the vacation time to good use and Tat! Well, I'll tuck in the ends of the awareness ribbons and try to get them blocked and the stiffening stuff on them. I'll need to go find some small pins for the back, or magnets. I think they need to be refrigerator magnets because they are so big. My mom says it is okay for a pin.

Progress with a price tag

I finally got some tatting in, this is good progress for me. The reason though is unhappy. My aunt, a breast cancer survivor, was diagnosed with cancer in her other breast. She sees either the oncologist or the surgeon today (or is the oncologist the surgeon too?). She is jumping right on the problem, and the spots they found are small, but it is of course still upsetting. So I have been tatting awareness ribbons. The first one actually came out okay, not great, but okay. I'm going to keep it because the tension changed from start to finish. I've made 2 more and the tension is much better on them. These I will give to my mother and my aunt. I have to tuck the ends in and then block and stiffen them up, but that won't happen till this weekend at the earliest. Tonight I must finish my book club book, and tomorrow night is book club.

Anyway I have tons of pink thread in several sizes, so all of my family members may be getting a ribbon, as well as friends whom I've asked to pray for my aunt.


Hopefully Monday I will have a picture/scan to share, I'll look up the web page with the pattern and then I can add my 3rd motif to the challenge.

Still nothing new

I am really enthusiastic about learning to tat right now. Perhaps this enthusiasm is partly how little time I am having. I got called into my second job on Tuesday, attempts to tat between jobs resulted in failure. Wednesday I donated platelets at the Red Cross and was hoping to tat afterwards. After all you are supposed to avoid heavy lifting or anything strenuous for several hours afterwards, but it left me too wiped out to tat, so only more tatting failures. Tonight is errand night, then dinner with my folks, and tomorrow night I get to see Thoroughly Modern Millie at the playhouse. I love that musical. I'll have to try to find a stupidly simple edging that I can practice on, and make myself work slowly and precisely. It may not get me another motif done, but it would be practice, and if I do it right, I'm hoping to edge some pillow cases. If it doesn't go well, I may put away the shuttles and dig out the tatting needles in order to accomplish a simple piece - though for me that also has a high failure rate right now. Oh, the joys of learning something new. The good thing is I do have a project in mind that will make use of all my failures and left-over ends.

Random thoughts

I stopped by the craft store last night to get 2 new shuttles. I'm going to try plastic as I'm still clumsy with the shuttles and the metal shuttles tend to fray my threads. I have been getting better, but still not as good as I would like. I also went looking for definition of terms and instructions. There are several patterns I want to try, but they contain techniques that I am not familiar with -- not too surprising since I am such a beginner. I was all gung ho to tat when I got my errands finished, but my allergies would not permit anything but sleep. Maybe tonight.

Motifs 1 & 2

I finally have tatting that is worth posting. Here are my first 2 motifs for the 25 motif challenge.

Motif one is Pretty Tatted Kitty from the Be-stitched website copyrighted by Nancy Tracy. It was the pattern of the month for January of 2006. Here is their website: bestitched.com
This was needle tatted using size 20 thread.


Motif two was actually tatted first, but the finishing was done after I completed Pretty Tatted Kitty.
This pattern is Rabbit from This 'n' Tat
It was pattern of the month from February of 1999 copywrited by Lisa C. Trumble. It was shuttle tatted using size 20 thread.

Reason for this Blog

This blog is coming about because I wish to join a 25 motif challenge. The challenge is to create 25 tatted motifs in one year. They like when you can post your pictures to your own blog and I didn't want any tatters to need to bother with my main site if they didn't want, nor did I want the non-tatters to have to go through tatting pictures. I do link back in forth in case any possible readers I may have are that curious.

Anyway, here is the 25 Motif Challenge Blog Spot. Get ready to drool, there are some really talented people posting here. I just hope that my journey and challenge makes my tatting somewhat acceptable.