lace and kittens

This is a picture of my first attempt at Honiton Lace. I bought 36 bobbins on ebay..(oh, what a tempting place that is...I have just bought myself Mary Konior's Tatting in Lace for £5.52) and so I attempted the first two practice strips from Suzanne Thompson's Introduction to Honiton Lace. The threads are very fine, 120 perhaps, and I pulled the first strip to bits as I pulled the pins out. :(

For the link...it's now in my blog list under "life, death and what not to wear..." but I'm afraid the kittens still haven't opened their eyes yet, they obviously haven't read my particular cat care manual which suggests a week as the correct time.

Missing link

I took down the link to my live journal a while back, because I didn't think it was very useful, but if anyone was interested in my other life please let me know and I will put it back. Todays entry for example, contains kittens! (Yes, not that exciting, really)

Comfort tatting

I should have included this motif in the last post, I did it to try Yarnplayer's Ocean deep HDT. It is always difficult to find the right motif to show the changing colours to their best advantage. This is Masquerade from Mary Konior's book "Tatting with Visual Patterns".
Then I returned to my comfort zone of size 80 thread, and did a snowflake from Jon's book. This one is Astral, done in Tatskool's indigo and Rainbow Bright. Yes, I do need to spend some time finishing the ends, I will, I promise!



My final offering is Heart's Desire by Susan Fuller which I had seen on Mike's blog and Pamela's, but I couldn't find the pattern. I at last found it on a side link chez Tatting Chic. Again Rainbow Bright, this time paired with another favourite thread, Rainforest, by LadyShuttleMaker.

Slow progress

It is a strange thing how hard it can be to tat, and in all the time since my last post I have only done a third round on "Flowery meadow" and had a go at the spinning wheel pattern. I don't think my tatting abilities are flattered by the thicker thread, but it has been interesting to see the difference. The HDT is Yarnplayer's Fern, and it is lovely...it is just that my work is not very good when you can see the details!