Tatting Tea Thursday

I missed both Knitting Monday and Tatting Tea Tuesday, so I'm just going to go for a Tatting Tea Thursday.  Actually, I've been doing a lot of tatting in veterinarians' waiting room (see post below) and have finished the Spinning Wheel glass mat from Tatting with Visual Patterns by Mary Konior.  I have to say it was really fun to make.  I made more than my share of mistakes and you'll have to forgive the ends that I haven't worked in yet, but I'm very proud of it.  I'm getting better with each project I tat!

These colors are much closer to the real thing that the last picture, but still not 100% accurate.  It's a bit smaller across than a cd.  I made it with Lizbeth size 20 in the color called Red Burst (which photographs as orange for me instead of red).  I love this and need to find one of those glass coasters that I can put it in.

And these came in the mail the other day - they are so much lovelier in person than in photographs.  I'm so happy that I whined to my big sister about how I couldn't stay up till 3:45 in the morning to get any and they'd all be gone by the time I got up.  I tried to get a picture of a gulf fritillary the other day, but it flitted off and I missed it.  I can't wait to load these up with some nice thread and start something - I love wooden tatting shuttles!

And finally, I've started a new tatting project (this afternoon just before the second vet visit).  I can't tell you what pattern it is because it's a surprise for someone's birthday.  But it's a dark blue size 10 thread - I think it's DMC, but not sure, anyway it's that normal crochet thread they sell everywhere.  This project must be made in blue and that's the only blue I have.  The pattern uses a lot of split rings so I'm very glad I taught myself how to do those on that bookmark that I never finished.  I taught myself how to do a floating ring today while waiting on bloodwork - fortunately both the bloodwork and the floating ring turned out ok.  (If you look on the right in the picture, the top ring is where I started.  The other ring that is sticking up is the floating ring.  I'm learning new tricks every day!)

This project is also going to count for the August Bookmark in the One Bookmark a Month Challenge on The Tatting Forums.  Lace Lovin' Librarian started it as "Not to challenging" which is nice because I'm not good enough for anything too challenging yet . . .