Happy Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day is more than half over, and I very nearly forgot to post these. The three white ones are "Heart's Desire" by Susan K. Fuller. The large one is Coats "Button Carpet & Craft" thread, the small one at the top is two strands of polyester machine embroidery thread, and the other is DMC size 80 tatting cotton. This is a really great pattern. It looks so complicated and I kept wondering how I was going to get the last part joined without being a contortionist. Ta-da! It just worked so smoothly. That's why there are three them -- how fun!

The pink heart is Nancy Tracy's "Clover Drop Heart" with a little variation. The first one I made according to the pattern, but my chains were too tight and it was oddly misshapen. For this second one I added beads and a couple of extra stitches to the chains. That worked for me.
Hmmmm...perhaps I should have made some flowers to go with those hearts. Maybe next year...

Still Snowing

Motifs number 14 and number 5 from Tatting by Myra Piper. These are nice substantial snowflakes as they are made with Coats "Buttons Carpets & Crafts" thread. It's a cotton-covered polyester with a glace finish and works up nice and crisp. These just required a bit of a press under a slightly damp cloth, no real blocking. I'm pretty certain I can find a home for them -- I've already had volunteers.

It's Snowing

...at least it was this morning. Making these two was certainly more fun than shoveling the real stuff out of the driveway (which is long enough for five cars). These little snowflakes are items No. 1 and No. 2 from Tatting by Myra Piper. In the book, they both have nine points -- but I wanted them to be snowflakes, so I only made six. The first one is made of size 12 DMC cotton perlé and the second is machine embroidery thread (one strand of white and one of blue ombre). They are both really small, No. 1 is only 1.5 inches (4 cm) and No. 2 is a bare 1.25 inches (3 cm). These are both going to my niece's school for the silent auction on Art Night. They'll probably be combined with some of my other snowflakes rather than auctioned by themselves -- they're so little, they'd get lost wandering around by themselves.

Quantiesque With a Twist

Jon Yusoff's Quantiesque Snowflake again -- but this time with a twist in the chains leading to the outer clovers. I had to make the chains almost double length to do the cross-over for the twist, and I think they should have been still a bit longer. This twist makes the outer edge look more round with sticky-outy things. The original version has a nicer flow, but I think this is interesting. I used size 80 DMC tatting cotton in red and green, but to get it to shine added one strand of white rayon machine embroidery thread. I made another one with a green center and outer round but, somehow, got the twists backward on a couple of the ends. It looks odd, so I'm not showing it off.

Scribble

Anxiety does odd things to tatting shuttles -- or the hands that wield them. This really is a scribble using left over thread ends from two different projects. It goes around and back-and-forth, then up and down and around again. It hasn't been blocked in any way, nor have the ends been hidden. It doesn't look like anything much. I would have just kept going, but finally ran out of thread on the red shuttle.
My sister makes knitted felted purses. She said if I gave it to her she could put it on a purse. I think I might do that. If I don't, it will just end up in my dresser drawer with all the other odds and ends -- though this might be the very oddest of the ends.