Thread Give Away Results

We have a winner!  Nancy in Dallas was the lucky recipient of the thread give away!  She was emailed this morning and gave her consent for me to post the other goodies she is receiving.

Nancy's winnings include: a vintage butter pat (not the one pictured as I accidentally broke it while packing her goodies.  I put in another.),  5 antique shell buttons, a small bag of size 15 Miyuki rocailles in "Fancy Lime Green", a small bag of size 10 seed beads in "Rainbow Peach", DMC floss bobbins, a skein of Wildflowers thread in "Celadon", the tatted pendant/scissors fob and the thread & tatting needles featured in the prior blog post.  Thanks for following the blog Nancy!  Enjoy your goodies!

For some reason, I accomplished little tatting today.  I did begin on the 3rd round of the Valdani doily.  Here it is in process along with the counts I'm using:

Join to very small - of previous round & CH2-2 CL + to very small - adjacent, CH5 (9 even picots) 5 CL +  Continue around motif.

I hope to have more to show y'all tomorrow!!!

The thread give away was so much fun, I think I'll do another give away.  What would you like?  More thread and surprise goodies or a tatted piece?  Let me know in the comments and I'll post what the next give away will be tomorrow.

Happy Tatting!

Buttons

It was a gorgeous day in the Piney Woods!  I awoke this morning to a cool temperature of 56F.  Such a welcome break from all of these triple digit days that begin in the mid-80's.  After dropping the kid off at school I went to our local parish park and walked my American bulldog & faithful tatting companion, Lily Fey.  Although it was most comfortable out, I did not get much tatting done.  The wind was too strong coming off the water for my thread to co-operate.  Upon returning home I found the Czech buttons I had ordered waiting in the mailbox.

Isn't this button gorgeous???  Or as we say down here- "gawjus"!  I have 4 of these beauties and ...

these!

The afternoon was more productive as I piddled with the left over DMC size 5 perle cotton I had used on some of yesterday's offerings. 

This is the result.  I will expand on this and share it later.

The results of my first blog poll are: beads are the top ranked thing you'd like to see more of in tatting with recycled vintage jewelry, mixed media and buttons following respectively.  It just so happens that my Czech buttons arrived today so that is what I played with.

I will be going through my bead, pearl & Swarovski stashes this evening, so you never know what I may have up on the blog tomorrow!!!

Please don't forget:

GIVE AWAY ENDS SOON!!!

Be sure to follow my blog (click on the google "Follow this site" button) for your chance to win the cool thread, tatting needles and other mystery goodies I'm giving away.  Deadline is September 7th!

Happy Tatting!

Thread Play

Today was much better for tatting.  No poisonous serpents lurking where I lay my tatting box or anything of that sort.  I've made more progress on the necklace you've seen in previous posts and have designed some more jewelry pieces which you will get to see in posts next week along with the free patterns for them.

Today I am posting a little piece I did last week with a ball of Valdani perle cotton that was at the back of one of my thread cabinets.  The colors really struck my fancy.  It has been so hot, humid and stifiling down here.  The wonderful darker colors made me think of my favorite season- Autumn.  So I got busy with that little ball and created this:

 I haven't come up with a name for it, so it is just "Valdani doily".

The fist round of this piece is tatted as follows:

R5-5 (sm- m- sm-) 5-5 CL RW

CH5-3 (5 even sized -) 3-5 CL RW

R5+5 (sm- m- sm-) 5-5 CL RW

Continue around forming a motif of 10Rs & Chs.  Tie & cut, hide ends.

The next step is to run the tatting needle through one of the joining picots and Ch13 CL + to next joining - over the top arch of the R.  Do this around the motif.

It should resemble this~

The 2nd round goes:

R5+ to last - of prev made Ch 2 + to first - of adjacent Ch 5 CL RW

Ch10-5 CL R7 (sm- m- sm-) 7 CL Ch 5-10 CL RW

Continue around motif, tie, cut & hide ends.

It should resemble this~

The final round is:

R11+ (to - of Ch prev made) 11 CL RW

Ch5 (7 med -s) 5 CL RW

R11+11 CL RW

Ch7 followed by 7 graduated -s (sm, med, med/lg, lg, med/lg, med, sm) 7 CL RW

Continue around motif, finish off & voila.

This piece is currently on my blocking board and looks like~

This piece may be part of a future give away I'm planning for November.  What do you think?

I really like the Valdani perle cotton.  It is not as smooth or fine as DMC & it bears a strong resemblence in texture to Danish flower thread in my opinion.  The colors offered by this company are absolutely breathtaking!  They are all hand dyed in Romania.  I'm including an image of the ball before I started playing- er, I mean tatting.

Hope you have enjoyed today's free pattern post.  Rest assured, you have not seen the last of the necklace project.  It is still in the design & tweaking stage.  Next week should bring the finished piece, though!  As you may have guessed, I am one of those tatters who is always working on multiple projects.  I just can't help it.  The thread beckons and I am compelled to play.

Happy Tatting!

SPECIAL NOTE:  The Thread Give Away deadline is fast approaching!  To participate click on the google "Follow This Site" button to the right below the poll and you'll be automatically entered.  Spetember 7th will be here before you know it!