As Promised

I hereby present to you the very first beaded tatting I have done!

Beads are wonderful for beautifying any piece of tatting, but there is one use for tatting in which they are nearly essential. Earrings. For earrings they are not only beautiful but also functional, as they add some much needed weight to what would otherwise be a few yards of knotted thread hanging from your ears and flipping about in the wind. So when I decided to make some earrings for my friend Heather for a Christmas present, I knew it was the perfect opportunity to finally make my first piece of beaded tatting.
Here they are with one still on the shuttle. I was looking for big and bright and paisley-shaped, and while I didn't find a full on paisley design, Mary Konior's Curds and Whey turned out even better. I really love the shape two repeats of this design makes. I picked out which picots I wanted pink beads on, strung all the beads onto my shuttle, and started tatting and it was as easy as pie. A very satisfying introduction to beads. To space the earrings a bit more away from the ear, I tatted a spiral chain with just one half stitch repeated over and over till I got the length I wanted. Actually, to get the smooth finish at the top where it attached to the earring finding, I tatted the chain backwards, kind of like a split chain works. These were so fun to make. Here they are all finished. They have been mailed and received, and Heather proclaims them "exquisite." I was going to say my bead story has a happy ending, but actually I think it has a happy beginning!