Butterfly One

Progression of the middle butterfly... The first incarnation in yellow Cébélia size 30 had too much going on in the center -- lots of chains to get the thread back to where I wanted to go without cutting (not to mention the halves didn't match). The second incarnation moves the thread in a better way to get all around this butterfly in one pass. That seemed to work, so I tried in in Coats rainbow quilting thread. Then I had this brainstorm in thinking that I could do the whole thing using a chain to connect the bits and just join the chain at the end. That also works, but gives a totally different look to the center. I left the long threads on the last one so I can sew it on my Treasures from Trash bag. The others will probably go into a little pile of "dunno, I'll decide what to do with that some other time." I'm working on a new one now and have two others in the "ewww that's icky" stage. Still, its possible the patterns can be altered enough to be not icky.

Wasting thread

That's what I've been doing. When I couldn't tat, I was making all these complicated butterfly patterns -- without stitch counts. Wow, they look great on paper. Ewww. Not so good after I tried actually making them. The first one is a total no-go! I thought the second one had hope if I changed some things. I started to do that, and goofed on the second ring, so I just made the plain little butterfly -- which would have been better without the Josephine rings on the wings. Of course, the fact that they are yellow doesn't help. Maybe I just better get Ruth's and Sherry's books! The really good thing is I'm getting my fingers back.