Motifs 28, 29, 30, 31, 32

Not the best pic, but this is a tea towel with a cross stitch band where I sewed on a teapot from Pam Palmer's book Tatting Treats 3 and Anne Bruvold's Square Star.  The thread is size 12 Sulky Blendables.  I have blogged about this thread before.  The variegation repeats are subtle and frequent enough for a beautiful effect on small pieces, such as the Square Star.  The towel was a gift for my sister-in-law on her birthday.

Another Square Star earring set I made this summer.
Thread is also Sulky Blendables size 12.

This lovely vintage star doily pattern is from a 50's Workbasket I bought on Etsy.  The magazine paper is so crumbly that I took pix so that I don't lose the pattern.  I am making it in Lizbeth size 40 Rainbow Taffy with coordinating green.  I nearly finished it while on our Virginia vacation in August.  There are 8 rays of the star and I think I only have one left, but I took a break from all my doilies to work on Christmas ornaments.  After the first of the year, I'll take a picture of all my doily WIPs.  My goal is to finish all of them next year.  I can do that, no sweat!

 I found this amazing blended thread, cotton with a metallic twist, that is smooth and gorgeous to work with.   For some reason, the red is the best quality for tatting.  It is size 10 Garden Metallic by Nazli Gelin.  In the picture with my green/white quilt, the left snowflake is from Lene Bjorn's book 24 Snowflakes and the star on the right is from Monica Hahn's book.

I have found that red is horrible to photograph (at least on my cell phone), hence the two different pix below to try to show the color on the left and the metallic sparkle on the right.  Still doesn't do the thread justice.

The Lene Bjorn snowflake is such a beautiful piece!  It is all split rings and thrown rings, and I will not be doing another one for a few months due to a repetitive motion injury.  It just hurts too much to do split rings, more than a couple at a time.  I gave away or sold nearly all my snowflakes and stars but this one is MINE and is hanging on my knick knack shelf in my bedroom.

Above left, both snowflakes are from Jennifer Williams' snowflake book.  The yellow/gold snowflake is in Aunt Lydia's size 10 gold with a metallic twist in it, and the blue one is the Garden Metallic with a silver twist.  Above right, pattern is from Lene Bjorn's snowflake book and the thread is size 60 Sunlight Oro from Edda Guastalla's shoppe in Italy.  This is a delicate little piece that I am also not giving away.  :)

I have fallen in love with several of Edda's threads and must curb my habit!  The shipping is pretty high to the US but not exorbitant.  Here's the website.  It's in Italian but she speaks English and you can message her if you need help.  Use Google translate button to negotiate the site.

For the 2015 challenge I decided to only count my motifs the first time I made them to make it harder, so no counting any of the Square Stars or the Monica Hahn star.  I've made gazillions of both!

Thread Zapper and MORE MOTIFS! #25, 26, 27

So here's the thread zapper:









Thread Zap II by the BeadSmith

I leave the battery loosened when not in use.  It's fantastic for using on polyester thread.  I've been using it a lot lately working with my gorgeous metallic threads for tree ornaments.

New favorite Lizbeth thread size 40 Rainbow Taffy
Pattern is from Kersti Anear's blog.

Classic edgings in Lizbeth size 20, colors 696 and 655. Gifts for my aunts on our Virginia trip this summer.



Virginia was amazing.  Look at the collar I found at the Museum of the Confederacy.  The women smuggled these North to sell because there was no money in the South.

This tatted collar is single shuttle, rings only.  Very cool to see it in person!

Still more tatting--this is only up to August--to catch up on.  I hope to do more blogging tonight.