In Which I Actually Drink Tea

Because I really must make a Tatting Tea Tuesday post at least once, even if (pause to gasp) I actually do not like tea. Which I don't. At all. However, it is the perfect day for tea, as this peek out my window proves. So I decided to try some Vanilla Chai.

Every time I tell my tea-drinking friends that I do not like tea, they assure me that if I try chai I will love it. I've tried it before and I don't love it. But it is ok.

The main reason I am drinking it today though is that this teabag came slipped into a card from my friend Jessica. Yes, the Jessica I tatted a wedding doily for in July. So this tea is most suitable for a tatting day.

It also seems fitting, since my tea comes from a newlywed, that my piece of tatting for today is a heart. This is Betsy Evans' Small Tatted Heart. I've seen this pattern before, but only in a diagram, never a picture of it actually tatted up. This is probably why I've not been struck by its beauty before. Just yesterday, though, I ran across it on a blog, and knew I needed to try it. So I picked up a shuttle that was already wound with size 10 thread, and started it immediately. (That's how it came out yellow -- I think the last thing I tatted with this shuttle was Jeff's Sine Wave Star.) I am quite pleased with the results. This is an elegant little heart, and it fits my stringent requirements for heart patterns. For me to like a heart pattern, it must look like a heart. There are a lot of patterns out there that only suggest hearts and just aren't shaped enough like a heart to please me. This one does please me. But I would never have guessed it would from the diagram, so I guess my lesson for today (after "Chai is ok") is that one should always give a poor little pattern a chance before dismissing it!