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.