Got My Tatting Mojo Back

I don't know quite what happened.  Everything was going great on both knitting and tatting.  I had started the sweater for Miss S and it was going great.  There was enough yarn and the pattern was not difficult and it was working well.  The tatting was going great too. I finished Mary Konior's Spiral Glass Mat and loved making it in spite of the thread I broke.  I started and finished Anne Bruvold's Seahorse Dragon and really enjoyed the pattern.  Then I started on Anne's Dragon Wing doily and it was going so well too - it's not a difficult or tedious pattern and the thread is so pretty .  Then I got cocky, made a mistake and had to open a ring and redo it.  I got the ring open and undone and redone but when I went to close it again, the thread just snapped.  I had to undo it again and go back a little farther so I could attach new thread.  I'm not sure what happened or why, but I lost my mojo.  

I quit knitting the sweater and all I had left to do was the cuffs and the bind off.  It was knit in one piece without seams so there were only about 5 or 6 ends to be worked in and buttons to be added and it would be done but I just couldn't pick it up.

I stopped where I was on the Dragon Wing Doily and just couldn't seem to pick it up.  So I wound up some new thread onto a shuttle and started a leaf out of one of  Karen Lindsay's Tatted Sampler books.  It started out going great and again, not a difficult pattern or hard to follow.  But about halfway thru it I put it down and wasn't interested in picking it up.

I've found my mojo again.  The sweater is finished, ends worked in and ready for buttons.  I'll need to mail it to the girl soon as it will be getting cold where she is sooner than it will here.

I finished the Dragon Wing Doily.  Here it is - pattern by Anne Bruvold available for free here.  Tatted in Lizbeth, Size 10 in Vineyard Harvest.  

And, here is Karen Lindsay's Leaf completed.  Pattern is in her Tatted Sampler Books available from her Tatting Applications website.  Tatted in Lizbeth Size 10 in Red Burst. Don't look too closely or you'll see the mistakes.  It was a complicated pattern in that it had so many rings and chains and joins, but the only thing even remotely difficult was keeping your place in the pattern - thank goodness for sticky notes!

And just for good measure, I tatted up one of Mary Konior's Bud Fragments from her book Tatting with Visual Patterns (available in paperback here or here or several other places).  I swear this is my favorite book right now - so many really cool patterns to tat.  I have bought 3 copies of it - one for me and two were gifts.  This little bud fragment only took a little time and it's cute - might make nice earings.  It's tatted in the Lizbeth size 10, Vineyard Harvest thread that was left on the shuttle after the Dragon Wing Doily.

And last, a couple of baby water lily leaves - they have been trying all summer to grow big and now they finally have their first leaves on the surface just in time for fall.  I might have to send them south so that they get a chance to try again next spring.  Yes, they really are that small next to the regular water lily leaves.