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.