Love that Butterfly

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.

I've been wondering since I finished if I should maybe try one with the butterfly a different color than the heart. It would stand out more. I like this one, though. It's made with Lizbeth size 20 Christmas Red (so apropriate to the season, eh?). I don't usually like tassels, but this just works so well at the end of the split ring tail -- no ends to weave in if they are made a part of the tassel. Nifty!

There was a challenge on InTatters in November to tat something from a book you owned but had never used. That's when I opened this little treasure chest from Dianna Stevens. Once I got started, it seemed like I ought to just get through the whole thing!

Butterflies

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.

She mentioned on her blog that the tail could be made with pearl tatting instead of lock chain. I tried that too, since she had a link to "the lazy way" (yeah, that's my speed!). Ooooo, I like it, it's fun to do! I did change the end of the bookmark tail. Instead of the pretty little five-ring beaded flower, I did a non-beaded four-ring butterfly. I did that for two reasons. First, I wasn't certain how long to make the tail -- what if someone was reading a bigger book than they had bookmark? I wouldn't want to have a bookmark with beads that would sit inside the book and make bumps in the pages. Second, so I could not mess with hiding ends. If I'd made the beaded end Jane shows, there would have been no ends to hide, but it would have needed the beads -- and I've already explained why I didn't want beads.

The purple one, done in Lizbeth size 20 "Country Grape Swirl", was the first one I did. the butterfly at the bottom had to be blocked (just sprayed with water and pinned flat), because it wanted to fold up. The blue one is in size 30 Cebelia "Singing the Blues". The butterfly at the bottom of the tail is fastened to the tail at the small rings. It stays flat without all that blocking bother. Nifty -- another new favorite (partly because I really like that pearl-tatted tail, so nice and flat for books!).

Thanks, Jane!

More Chickens!

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.

The one on the left was made from real size 20 thread. It's "Springtime" from Lizbeth, but I got it from Dorcas. :) Lucky me, eh? We're right in the middle of a thread exchange. I've sent mine off, and I received this lovely sample from Dorcas. I don't own any of this, but now I think I might have to get some, because this is a really pretty variegate. Funny, because I keep telling my sister I don't like purple and green together. I guess I do, after all! See, there? Aren't thread exchanges just the most useful thing ever?

I've got another one of these done, too -- it's the one on the right. I've used the size 30 Day and Night Rainbow again, and it's come out just as nifty as the first one. Of course, I was lazy and thought I could put the tail on without breaking the thread, so there's an extra little chain. I think it looks okay, though, right? Say "yes" -- that's what I wanna hear!

Beady Ornament

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 was informed when I was making this that the beads were too large for my thread. Well, okay. That would depend on what "look" I was going for, right? I was going for the beady look; the really beady look. This thing succeeds in that. It's beady, and it's going on our Christmas tree this year. It's not traditional Christmas colors, but we've got lots of other non-traditionaly-colored ornaments, so it works -- even with too-large beads.

Icy 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. :)

This one is adapted from "Ice Crystal" in Tatting Patterns and Designs by Blomqvist and Persson. It's made from my sister's Desert Green thread dyed on a DMC size 80 tatting cotton, and has red seed beads at the picot joins.

I think if I do this one again, I might make the bottom piece a bit differently so it would fit higher up in to the empty spaces left by the top piece. Still I do like this one.

I wonder how well the other patterns in the Blomqvist and Persson will adapt to ornaments? There's a thought.

LadyShuttleMaker Monday Mondo Giveaway

Get over there! She's got silk HDT!!

Festival of Trees

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.

My other pictures have been severely doctored or cropped because, really, who wants to look at an odd body part or two, or a dozen stuck in with the ornaments? There are two of mine, one on a satin ball and one in a ring that I showed on this blog before I turned them in. There is also the one on a satin ball that is the adaptation of Cornelia that I showed in my December 3 post. If you look closely there's another burgundy ornament in a ring that I caught at an angle. I didn't even get a scan or picture of that or its two fellows before I turned those in (at the last minute!). The last two ornaments pictures are of some of the other tree ornaments made by the talented members of the Guild.


There's a bit of the tea table decor -- and I have to find out who did the lovely plate doily! And last, but not least, all the pretty laces that were displayed in the trunk. There are a couple of other photographs of items used at the Festival on the Bonneville Tatters website (under Christmas Share Potluck Party) if you're interested in seeing one of the teddy bears, the front of the trunk, and some more ornaments!


Finally, for anyone who stumbled on this by mistake -- looking for tattoos or something equally outré -- here ya go (my niece's favorite tree -- teenagers are beyond me):

Adaptable Cornelia

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.

The green size 40 and some silver beads made a nice little tree. It needed a trunk, but as I just had a bag of necessities (I was visiting), I didn't have any brown. (Just kidding -- I don't actually own any brown. It's so brown!) I did have a shuttle with some ecru thread on it. Ta-da, a tree with an anemic trunk -- inside a ring of course, I'm making ornaments! And more ornaments. I did two more with little changes, like different bead colors and some different stitch counts.

Guess what happened when I turned the tree upside down? Yup -- an even better heart. I doctored this one so you can see it, too -- but I've not made a nice red one yet.

I think a combination of the second and third one will work out best if I decide to make more (and how can I resist?). Wouldn't these make great presents to fit inside a card? Of course, the post office would probably mangle 'em unless I use a padded envelope. (People who need padded cells ought to have lots of padded envelopes -- but they are sadly lacking in this household).

Making Ornaments

Cornelia by Iris Niebach (from Tatted Doilies) is one of my favorite patterns.
When the Bonneville Tatters Guild asked me to make another ornament or two for the guild submission to the Festival of Trees I was a little worried that I wouldn't have time to get something made. I've made other ornaments by adapting Cornelia, but that adaptation required quite a bit of tatting. This is what I finally came up with:
It's made of size 20 Lizbeth ecru. I wrapped it over the top and down the sides of a burgundy satin ornament. I had intended to make a couple of little motifs to put on the sides below the center of the strap, but there wasn't enough time. I didn't even get a picture of it. So I made two more. :) One is a nice Christmas Green and the other is Christmas Red both are size 40 Lizbeth thread. I had time to make the extra little motif for the sides for these.

Ice Crystal

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.

When I was trying to decide what color to use, I finally reached dither-point. After dithering around for a while, I figured I'd just use all the colors. This is Ice Crystal in Rainbow colors. The thread is a size 80 DMC tatting cotton which my sister dyed for me. It measures just 5.25 inches (13.5 cm) across at it's widest point

Okay, it doesn't look like ice -- but it's certainly cheerful!