You know why this cat looks so grumpy? I cut the whiskers off one side of the scan. Oops. They really are all still there on the bookmark. This one is for a friend who owns a tabby cat, so I thought she might like it. Like the snail, it is made from Lizbeth size 20 medium Harvest Orange, and a size 20 Omega orange variegate. It has a really long tassel tail. It can tease the cat while it hangs out the bottom of a book, right? 
Look at that speedy little beast go! He's going to get away -- in about a month. This is the Snail bookmark from Dianna Stevens' Animal Bookmarks: A Tatted Zoo. This is the only kind of snail I like. The snail is made from Lizbeth size 20 medium Harvest Orange, and a size 20 Omega (which seemed larger) orange variegate I got from Aileen (Wickedtats) as a runner-up in her Halloween give away. It was perfect for this little snail. The tail is done in pearl tatting with encapsulated threads to simulate a snail trail on grass (with Lizbeth size 30 Christmas Green grass). The pattern didn't call for that weird ring cluster at the end. I was just getting...uh...fancy, yeah, fancy.
Isn't that just the sweetest little thing? This is my niece's favorite of all the bookmarks I've been making lately. Bet you thought it was from Dianna Stevens again. Nope, this one is Tatty Turtle from Mark Myers. This is such a clever pattern and it made a really nice little bookmark. I used a different color for the bookmark tail because I didn't want any one thinking I thought turtles had really long tails. The butterfly at the end is so there were no ends to hide when I finished (well, not in the tail, there were ends to hide in the turtle). The turtle is made of Lizbeth size 20 Christmas green. The tail is size 30 Cebelia "Day and Night Rainbow". I like that nice flat pearl tatted tail for bookmarks.
You're ready to run out and get a copy of Dianna Stevens' Animal Bookmarks: A Tatted Zoo, aren't you? This little beastie is another from that book. The pattern is fairly easy, and the results are so much fun. I think I might have done a better job on the lower jaw, though. I just decided this is a mama alligator, and she's carrying baby ones in that puffy mouth. :) Yeah, that works -- I wonder if they'll grow up to be bookmarks too? I was going to make something creative like a pink and purple alligator, but decided on these more earthy colors. These are medium Harvest Orange and Christmas Green from Lizbeth in size 20. I was going to get all creative and put a bead in the eye, but decided not to chance that bead-bump-in-the-book problem.
This is the Butterfly heart Bookmark from Dianna Stevens' Animal bookmarks: A Tatted Zoo. I've been to the butterfly zoo, once in Seattle, and once in Las Vegas (just between you, me and the gatepost, Seattle was better). This was a pretty simple bookmark to work, especially if you like split rings. There are lots of them.
Jane Eborall, the ever creative and generous (yes, you are, don't be modest), has just shared this new pattern for butterfly bookmarks. It's got her wonderful long beaded picots, so I used silver ones on both of these. 
Isn't that just the cutest little chicken? I think the Cockerel bookmark from Dianna Stevens' Animal bookmarks: A Tatted Zoo is my new favorite -- or one of them, anyway.
Two views of the same ornament. The pattern is my first original ornament pattern, without the top and bottom caps. The thread is my sister's Dark Rainbow on a size 80 DMC tatting cotton base. Finally, the beads are pale green seed beads, but there are lots and lots of them. They are crowded together on picots separated by only one ds, and clustered in threes on other picots. It clacked and clicked while I was working on it and felt heavy when I was trying to pin it to the ornament.
I had to wait until this one reached it's destination before posting it. It was part of the package I sent off for an InTatters Secret Santa Exchange. It seems that people have stopped taking pleasure in anticipation! Packages are being opened as they arrive (I can hardly wait -- until Christmas. I like to have things to open that morning!). Anyway, this ornament is not a secret anymore. :)
As I had created a few decorations for the tree the Bonneville Tatters Guild donated to the Festival of Trees, we went out to see the Festival. Fanciful trees, traditional trees, cheerful trees, mournful trees, big trees, little trees -- wow -- there were a LOT of trees, and wreaths and tabletop decorations. All of these things were being sold for charity. Many of them were sold at auction before the Festival began, and others still had "for sale" tags on them. The Bonneville Tatters tree was one that was sold at the auction to a local pediatric clinic. I got some pictures of the tree and ornaments, but not much that was very good of the rest of the display because in addition to all the trees and decorations there were people -- lots and lots of people! I took the liberty of cleaning up a bit of the background -- which was more trees and people -- so the tree could be seen. Isn't that pretty? The group from the Guild who did the decorating did themselves proud, did they not? There was also a group of teddy bears having tea, a treasure chest with tatting in it, and a beautiful doll with tatting edging her dress.
There! See how adaptable "Cornelia" is! It's just the most amazing pattern. I was playing around with the size 40 red thread after I made the size 20 ornament strap adaptation. It came out as a really nice little heart, so I put it in a ring. I dropped it on the table and it landed upside down. Oh -- wow! A tree, I could see a tree.
And more ornaments. I did two more with little changes, like different bead colors and some different stitch counts.
Cornelia by Iris Niebach (from Tatted Doilies) is one of my favorite patterns.
November has been month for doing things I hadn't before. I've made one (yeah, just one) piece from Tatting Patterns and Designs by Blomqvist and Persson (Lucky Clover -- but I've done it a bunch of times). There are so many pretty patterns in this book, I finally decided I needed to make Ice Crystal. I've made some little icicle ornaments adapted from this pattern, but not the whole pattern.
Actually, it's not a Chicken -- it's a Cockerel Bookmark from Dianna Stevens' Animal Bookmarks: A Tatted Zoo.
It called for size 20 thread, but I started it in size 80. Ahhhhh, isn't that cute? Well, no actually it was very nearly tiny and sort of wimpy. I left of making the long bookmark tail and started over.
Annalisa from Tatted Doilies by Iris Niebach, made with size 30 purple Cébélia.
Look at these! Aren't they pretty? Elizabeth is giving them away in honor of her 100th Etsy sale. If you'd like a chance to have these for your very own, jump on over to her blog and enter. 
Yup. Earrings. I've been making 'em. I haven't been using a pattern, just Jon Yusoff's method for covering rings. There are four stitches over the cabone ring between each beaded ring. Oren Bayan metallic threads are the best I've ever used. That said, I must admit that the silver ones were made with DMC metallic. It takes a little longer and I have to work a little looser, but I like the look of the metallic threads. The multi-color and green ones have really tiny beads. I found a new bead store not too far from home, and it had all these really tiny seed beads. I think they are 15 or something like that -- I really can't read the codes on them. The best I could manage was to read the price. That wasn't really tiny. Sigh. They were worth it, though. You should see me when I drop one -- no, you shouldn't; it's too embarrassing. The blue beaded earrings are mine, the green ones are my sister's and the bottom two are for friends of my aunt (those two are garnering me a small remuneration -- enough to buy some more beads). Oh, the reason you can't see the hooks on most of these is that the are nylon hooks. I put beads on the shanks. The green beads barely fit and the blue beads were a total no-go, so my earrings have gold hooks.
miscellaneous tatting in the County and entering it as sewing in the State (especially when it was the tatting that was new, not the purse). I'm going to be more careful about picking categories if I do this again!
My sister has been dying things again. She did a set of tie-dyed sheets to enter in the Fair (which won a blue ribbon). While she had all those dyes out and mixed, I ...um... let her use some on thread for me. Just because I'm nice, you know. I've ended up with a wonderful mix of marine blues and greens she calls "mermaid" and another dark rainbow in size 80 thread. The other two are pinks and reds on a size 30 Cebelia base. I didn't have anything but a tiny little plastic core (same thing the size 80 came on) to wind the reds on. So -- I have ended up with a Bermuda Onion. I've been unable to make myself use it -- don't want to mess up my onion! I have used the mermaid, though. I made a t-shirt decoration and sewed it on a white t-shirt to enter in the State Fair. OH! That reminds me, I've gotta run -- I've taken the day off work to demonstrate tatting at the fair -- not sit here and rattle on like a pea in a boxcar!
Hey! Look at this! Sherry, LadyShuttleMaker, is giving things away every Monday. Can you believe that? [She must not have that pack-rat hoarder gene I've got.] You do realize that means hand-dyed threads, ceramic shuttles, original watercolors, tatting books, bits of tatting, and other goodies, right?
No tatting for a little while. I did an oops. Monday night I was slicing bread for supper. That's not all I sliced. Really, I can't imagine how my thumb came to be there -- not at all, really! What was it thinking?! I think thumbs must not have any brains -- at least mine don't. My sister took me and my thumb down to the "InstaCare" (what a misnomer -- we were there more than an hour and dinner was ruined). First they made me wait behind curtain number 2. This guy whose razor hasn't worked for at least three days must have been the winner. Oh -- nope. He was the doctor. He filled my thumb full of lead...er...no,no, he filled it full of some kind of numbing agent. He did it with a NEEDLE (shudder) . Sadist. Then he demanded someone set up a suture kit for him. (He apparently couldn't open the cupboard and take out a box and put it on the tray by himself. I hoped it was a sign he was just uppity -- not inept. He was gone forever. I thought might be thinking the box would open itself if he waited long enough. Nope. He finally came back, then spent 10 minutes complaining that it was some kind of disposable kit. The nurse told him they were out of the regular kits and this was all they had left. His response, "Well, that's not a good enough answer." What kind of answer could he want? They all ran away from home? There really are some of the others, but we don't like your patient? The others are being saved for the best doctors? Doesn't matter -- that's the only answer they had to give him. Grumbling, he decided he could use "that piece of crap". Great. I want my thumb fixed with crap -- oh, yeah. Still, fix it he did. Stitched it right up, and tied the knots with a couple of hemostats. It was beautiful to watch him tie those knots -- 30 years experience, he said. "Wow," says I, "I'd certainly like to have a couple of those hemostats." "Why would you want 'em?" he mumbles. "Oh, because I can use them with my tatting!" "Whazzat?" he says. Heathen. I told him it was lace making with a bunch of little knots, and I could use those for short thread joins and stuff. He looked at me like I was speaking Ancient Egyptian. (I could have told him tatting wasn't that old.) Still, when he finished he told the nurse to give me the hemostats -- since they were disposable anyway (maybe they melt in the autoclave?). They didn't look disposable to me -- see:
This is a set of winter decorations. I'd use them on the Christmas tree, but they'd do just as well in the window or hanging from the ceiling.
