Tatting Tea Tuesday

Iced tea that is . . . it's way too hot down here for hot tea and I've been working outside all afternoon in the heat. I had to go out and look for the pond leak again. The girls and I have ripped out the rock wall almost all the way around the pond, but there was one side of the waterfall left. On the left side (as you look at the pond from the house) there is a dwarf japanese maple tree on the hillside overlooking the pond. I had it put there kind of as a tribute to all the japanese tea gardens that Daddy tried to build over the years. Anyway, it's flourishing there and part of the reason is that it's got a virtually unlimited source of water - the drought down here doesn't bother it a bit. I cut two roots that were more than an inch in diameter that had infiltrated the waterfall and pushed the liner (which was cut too close originally) down far enough for the water to seep over it. I'm really hoping that this is the last piece of the puzzle, but we won't know that for a day or two.

Anyway, tatting has been happening - and a lot more than just on Tuesday. I need to finish the knitting that I'm doing for other people because babies won't wait to be born until I'm done and they won't stop growing for me either. But I am still enchanted with the Mary Konior book and am still tatting from it too. Miss S is also tatting from it every chance she gets - on her new custom made tatting shuttles. I'm starting another pattern from it with the variegated red Lizbeth 20 you see in the picture - but just getting started. The blue on the right side is going to be a birthday present for Mother so I can't tell you what it's going to be yet. I was hoping to show you that it is almost the right color, but it looks almost black in the picture. It is too dark, but it isn't nearly as dark as it looks in this picture.

And in the finished objects we have a couple of empty the shuttle butterflies. DH seems to really like tatting and he's claimed one of them. The little thing in the butterfly picture was supposed to be a flower just because I liked the thread, but it is too tight and not enough petals, so it's just a doodle. Then we have a little owl - found the pattern for that on InTatters. I didn't weave in the ends - just tied them and cut them - so you can see one sticking out on the side. And lastly, I finished Black Magic from the Mary Konior book Tatting with Visual Patterns in Lizbeth size 10 in Spring Garden. I really like that colorway. There are a couple of very noticeable mistakes in it, but I still like it and it will make a lovely bookmark.