Update: Inspiration!

Last week I was reading Orsi's blog when I came across one of her latest creations: 

Photo by Orsi

I am not sure if she is planning to put this up for sale in her Etsy shop (either this one or this one) or not, but I think it is gorgeous! I really like the effect, and it gave me an idea. 

These might make good flowers! I don't know if it will work as well, because they are multi-colored and because they are not very wide. But I think I'm going to try. Can't hurt to try! 

A Surprise

A lady I know from square dancing, Rosie, presented this to me this week. What do you suppose is inside? 

It was an easy guess for me. Tatting thread! 

She inherited the full tin from one of her relatives and was looking for something to do with it, so she thought of me. Most of these are size 30 and I am particularly looking forward to the lighter blue, the moss green, and the goldenrod yellow. I haven't decided what I'm going to tat yet, but looking at the tin makes me want to put all five of the size 30s together. (Light blue, lavender, pink, goldenrod, and moss green.) Perhaps a doily with every round a separate color? Usually I tat monochromatically, so I think that I should pounce on this strange desire to be bold in my color pairing. 

The tin also came with these long strips of crocheted edging. I don't crochet and the look of it is not usually to my taste, but I do think these are pretty. I might keep them or I might find someone who will appreciate them more and re-gift them to a new home.

This little surprise definitely brightened up my day! Thanks, Rosie. 

First Snowflakes of the Season!

It is that time of year. Time to tat snowflakes! It's after Thanksgiving, it's December, and I've been itching to bust out the white thread and snowflake patterns. Actually, I was so eager that I cheated and started tatting snowflakes before Thanksgiving. It snows in November, right? Well, not in my part of the country, but it does so elsewhere, or so I justify it to myself.

Here are my first three snowflakes of 2012. (Not counting the ones I tatted in January because I wasn't ready to stop last year.)

The bottom one is Jennifer Williams' Small Mat Using SCMRs. I have seen her patterns mentioned and tatted on several blogs, most notably Frivole's, Fox's, and Jane's (Jane in South Africa, that is). I had fun exploring her site (several of her patterns are on my to-do list now), and when I saw this one I thought it would make a good snowflake, done in white. I still like it as a snowflake but when it was done I thought it would be good with a little more pointiness, so I tried adding a small ring to the middle chain of each section. That resulted in the top snowflake. I can't get over how different they look from a distance even though they are almost identical. Finally, the snowflake on the right is Regal, by, again, Frivole. I love her snowflakes. This is my first time tatting Regal, and I altered it a little as I didn't want to put beads on. So I swapped a small ring for Frivole's large bead. I like it, but it did change the shape of the large rings in the first round and they do not look as pretty as the original. I shall have to tat it again to see if I can find a better bead substitute. Boo-hoo, what a hardship! And then I might have to tat it again the original way to see if I like it best with beads after all. Life is tough.