Silver and untidy ends :o

I haven't' fallen completely asleep. Unfortunately I've been a bit ill, but I'm getting on my feets now. Here is a bit I did a while ago - I was just too lazy to hide the ends until yesterday. :P I sincerely wish I never had to hide any ends ever. I know you can do the magic trick, but I always end up breaking the thread or draw the hole piece skewed, or I get so eager when I start a new project that I forget to think ahead. Anyway I always end up with a billion ends (at minimum!!), and then I leave the piece in my tatting basket until "a day where I suddenly feel an urge to hiding ends" (as if that day existed :P). But yesterday I was a good girl and finished 2 projects.

One is a bracelet made with beanile lace (I had to try something after I got that book :D). The colors are a bit random. The silver beads were the only beads I had lying around, and the white yarn was the only yarn with the right size. I tried with my usual DMC 80 first, but the knots were too small. They simply disappeared in the beads. It did turn out ok, I think, though I would have preferred black yarn and maybe some more colorful beads. I think I will have to make another one at some point.

The other project was a small Christmas ornament. A star made with metallic
silver colored yarn from the "24 Snowflakes in Tatting" by Lene Bjørn. It's a cute motif, and the yarn works very well for this, I think. My only worry is if I can actually iron that kind of yarn? If you look close on the picture, you will see that I haven't done it yet. I think I better tat a test sample and test how the yarn responds to heat, before I try ironing the real piece, even though if it's through the usual damp piece of cloth.

So many plans, so little time...

I'm still working on multiple projects. My birthday was in late August and I got several tatting books as presents, amongst those Nina Libin's "Beanile Lace", which I *had* to spend some time on. :D
Before I make any grander projects, how ever, I need to get some new beads. I've started to think about making some beaded snowflakes for Christmas. I do feel a bit like the woman dreaming with the basket of eggs on her head...while I imagine all the lovely pieces I can make, I will probably make the worst mess out of it ever or even stab myself to death with the tatting pin. Maybe I ought to learn to master (or at least use) the technique before I plan the awesome designs I want to make with it. :P


I also started following Sharon's Design-tat, which is very, very fun so far. I'm not overly happy about my designs yet, but on the other hand - if I was, why take the class? In the last lesson we all had to make a design from the same starting point - eight 4-4-4-4 rings connected with 4-4 chains. My first design was a very simple one. I wanted a cloverlike shape, but ended up with something looking a bit more like a tudor rose. There ought of course have been some extra rounds, but I misread and thought part of the challenge was only one round.


A couple of days after I finished that design, I woke up one morning and had dreamt about another design. I had the whole design in my head when I woke, and of course I had to try and make that as well. It came out ok, I think, even though in my dream it was a lot easier to make even sized very large rings. :P In reality I tightened too much when I pulled them together, but since I didn't believe I would be able to make it all right in first go, I didn't bother to unravel - I thought I would be unravelling any second anyway. It turned out I didn't - I actually did it all right in the first go :o. But I guess I ought to make a new one with a proper tension in the rings. Wtb more time...