Playing With Picots & Bouton

Season's Greetings!

I haven't been tatting as much as I'd like to, but that's what happens when life gets busy, which is a good thing in it's own right.

I made a bookmark for my Christmas exchange person at work and as usual I forgot to take a picture, so had to take it out of the gift bag to take a picture with my cellphone. Needless to say it's not the best picture.

It is the Slalom Bookmark and is from Martha Ess' book Playing with Picots. I made some picot gages out of plastic, which worked great at keeping the picots uniform size, but really are a pain to keep track off in their current state. And since I'm sure to do more projects from this book I've got to come up with a better way to cart them around than just in a paper envelope.

Also I wanted to share with you about a cute little bear give away. His name is Bouton.

I have visited Ginger's bearbits blog before. She's a very talented artist. Even the picture at the top of her blog, the one with the 3 bears looking out the windshield, gives me a smile.

Have a good day!

Bonnie

David Reed Shuttle Giveaway

TattedTreasures and David Reed are giving away one of his lovely shuttles, go check it out.

"Oh No You Didn't"

... Oh yes I did........
There are 2 things I would like you to see here. Both are marked with a X. First the top X shows where I missed a join and the bottom X which shows where I cut the thread to finish it off, before I realized that I'd missed a whole section of tatting.

For some reason my friend, Peg - the one I am helping learn to tat - thought that it was really funny that I missed a join and had ALREADY cut the thread. She said something like it was good to see that I make mistakes too.

I was lucky enough to win this Patriotic HDT from Anika. (you can find her etsy shop here) And since I'd just made this pattern, Julie's Hearts and Flower Cross, for a friend I wanted to make it again for myself and this new HDT was itching to be used.

So in the end was there a lesson to be learned from this experience? Sure was, if - rather WHEN - I make a mistake again don't show Peg. LOL.

Tat On,

Bonnie

Tatted Hairpin Lace

A couple of weeks ago, Georgia asked for volunteers to tat something using Ruth Perry's Tatted Mock Hair Pin Lace. I was unable to find it online to show you, but it is where the Hairpin Lace is made by tatting large picots.

Georgia provided 4 or 5 patterns for us to pick from. Because my time was limited and she asked for it to be done in 2 weeks, I choose a - what I thought at the time would be- fairly simple pattern and made Saundra Hameed's Round Center Motif.


I'd never done Hairpin Lace, so I didn't really understand it, and in hindsight I did it wrong. I made it so both sets of picots were the same size. Stupidly after I made it was when I decided I should have researched HPLace. In doing so I learned that the middle set of picots should have been smaller than the outer ones. I think that's why the upper to middle right section is a bit ....... well, off I guess.

( I prepared this post a few days ago and since then LadyShuttleMaker did an excellent PDF of how to correctly make this pattern using Ruth Perry's Mock Hairpin Lace technique, it can be found here. )

Oh well, as Georgia said "every test brings us more knowledge", and with LadyShuttleMaker's great tutorial I may just give this one a try again.

Tat On!,
Bonnie

Rosy Ironbark

I'm sorry to say that I tat many pieces that I don't take the time to blog about.



But not this time :-)

I was told by KBDesignOriginals that I was the first person to purchase the Rosy Ironbark pattern when she posted it in her etsy shop back in April. Since then I have made it a number of times, at least 4 or 5. Finally I am remembering to show you one of them before I gift it away.

Tat On!

Bonnie