Cats and some Tatting

First my other 2 cats. The grey kitty is Motoko, named for the cyborg anti-terrorist Major Motoko Kusinagi from the anime series and movies Ghost in the Shell. Here my little (or rather tubby) anti terrorist is protecting my knitting from any evil doers, you can barely see the knitting needles in front of her. She is a momma's girl and loves doing girl stuff with momma. Things like knitting, sewing, crochet, using power tools, and watching chick flicks, her favorite being Pride and Prejiduce with Jennifer Elle and Colin Firth.
Next up is Leo who helps me tat. I have no pictures of his idea of helping for fear that images might be too graphic for my fellow crafters. So, no tatting hanging from hims jaws, no threads neatly severed due to his chewing on them/tasting them, just a sleepy look.

And finally, the tatting. It is the field of clover doily from the Bestitched website and I am currently on round 3.
I may take a little break from it for a bit and work on something smaller then go back and finish the 3rd round. I love doilys but really don't have anyplace to put them. Plus with my little (tubby) orange tatting taster I'm not sure they are safe to have out.

No progress.

Just checking in. No pictures today, but tatting has been happening. I'm working on a doily right now, and of course progress is much slower on those than on motifs. My orange tabby Leo has been helping me to tat. He tastes the threads to make sure they taste good, then tries to chew on the actual tatted part to test them for strength. I'm not sure how to cope with all that help! I usually just hide the tatting from him and love him up. Tatting is slower, but does not get chewed up, and Leo is quite content with getting pettin's.

Cats, presents and motif #3

Some more birthday presents! a picture that I need to decide where to hang, and a wonderful book with all sorts of cute little critters to crochet! It is going to be hard to decide which creation to work on first.
My cat Banichi with a book.

Banichi checking out a piece of tatting. The blur to the right is Motoko another cat arriving to see what Banichi finds so interesting.

And finally, motif #3 a cross bookmark. I used size 10 cebelia thread. I got the pattern from The Complete book of tatting by Rebecca Jones. She says that all patterns in her book are her own, or are traditional patterns. I'm really not sure which this is. It does still need to be ironed and starched.

Gifts and a little bit of tatting

I tatted this snail before I rejoined the challenge, so I am not counting it as one of my motifs. It is done in Cebelia lavender thread size 20. The pattern is by Nancy Tracy and can be found at Bestitched. It is shuttle tatted, and when I finished with it, I realized that yes I can shuttle tat. I was quite thrilled as I don't believe I have ever successfully shuttle tatted anything before this. The tension isn't awful either.

Below are the books I got for my birthday last month. A very dear friend gave me the Soup Bible and The complete book of Tatting. This book by Rebecca Jones is the book I wish I had when I started learning how to tat.


And here are the books my Mom got me. She told me how much I had to spend, and I went to Amazon. Ms. Cherryh is one of my all time favorite authors, and this book, Deceiver is Book 11 in one of my favorite series. I usually dislike long running series, but this one is pure gold. I don't think I will ever tire of reading about these characters. And my black cat is named after one of the main characters of the series. Banichi, that would be the tallest illustrated character on the cover. I pre-ordered the Cherryh book, then the 3 tatting books were marked as cheaper together, decided I could wait for slower shipping to make that free, and Mom and I have been congratulating ourselves over what a good shopper she is ever since.


It's time for me to get off to work, hopefully by next week I'll have another motif or more to show for the challenge.

Motif 1&2

I'm back from vacation and I got a little bit of tatting done. Motif one for the 25 motif challenge is a tree topper design from the book "Tatting for Today" and was designed by Marion T. Leyds. For years I had been afraid to attempt this design, it looked so complicated to me that I was sure I couldn't do it. This past month or more I've been reading up on the theory and evolution behind tatting and things clicked into place. Suddenly the pattern no longer looked complicated. It was just rings, chains, and rings on chains. The whole rings on chains thing was something I hadn't understood before. I took these pictures with my phone, so I'm afraid the quality is abysmal. My camera with better pictures is at home where I do not have internet so these barely focused pictures will have to do.
Motif 2 is really an edging for and handkerchief. They need to be attached to each other, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. It is a very simple ring and chain edging and is about 38 inches long.




I used a very simple edging in the hopes that I could do it with minimal mistakes. While there are not a whole lot of boo-boos, there is one ring that has 4 extra double stitches and one extra picot. I made sure not to get that part of the edging in the picture.

So, now I am back at work, tatting will be happening more slowly, but I am off to a decent start on getting 25 motifs/edgings/doilies/whatever done in the next 12 months.