Mystery Doily and TIAS

The top picture is my first round of the Mystery Doily that has been posted on InTatters.  I have had to modify the chain count due to the thread I am using.  Is is coming along pretty well.

The second pic is my finished Day 3 TIAS project by Sherry Pence.  The thread is HDT by me as an experiment.  No real clue yet as to what this is.

Fall TIAS

Sherry Pence (aka LadyShuttleMaker) is hosting a Fall TIAS (Tat It and See) starting September 23.  More info can be found here.  For those of you who have not participated before, a TIAS is where the pattern is published little pieces at a time. Usually lasts for about 3 weeks or so.   It is fun to watch the pattern being tatted and what guesses are being made as to what the pattern is.   I have signed up and am ready to go. 

No. GA Fair Entries/Tat Days Projects

Finished two more Tat Day projects.  The blue star is a 3-D project.  Finally got the hang of the points on the fourth one!  The seahorse earrings were based on a pattern by Jane Eborall.  Last year did not finish one project, this year four are finished.  These two items along with the Milk Hill Crop Circle below were entered this morning into the North Georgia fair in Marietta, GA USA.

There is no longer a tatting category, so I was creative in which division I put them in so they all could be entered.  I wish there were more tatting submitted.  Perhaps in time there will be and they will put the category back in the program.

Tat Days 2013 and Crop Circle

Had a great weekend at Tat Days in Toccoa, GA this year.  It was nice to see those I met last year plus meet new tatters this year.  Yes, Jane you were missed but I did use your tatting tidy at all my classes.  It worked wonderful.

This is a pic of two of the classes I took from Randy Houtz.  I actually finished them!  The purple/white I finished after class because we used the Magic Thread Trick.  I have had problems in the past with this technique and I wanted to finish before the next class with him to make sure it worked as easy as he said.  Lo and behold, I am a believer!  The trick - using 20-pound filament  (braided) fishing line.  It pulled through with no tugging, breaking or frustration.  Went to Wal-Mart yesterday and bought a reel.  I am ready for whatever comes along and will use this trick as often as I can from now on. 

I was fortunate to be able to test tat this pattern from Karen at Tatting For Spirit. It is called Milk Hill Crop Circle.  She does beautiful work (thinking outside the box).  Her work is needle tatted based, but I shuttle tat.  She was pleased that the pattern worked for us shuttle tatters as well.  The pattern starts as a circle and the arms are split rings.  This crop circle is going to be entered into our fair this coming weekend.  She has just listed her pattern for sale and you can find it here  Milk Hill Crop Circle.

Current Tatting

The top motif is from Jan Stawasz "Tatted Treassures" book.  It is called Mirror on page 82.  Outside row was done my normal tatting way as I could not figure out how to do it the opposite way as diagrammed. The thread is from Yarnplayer, size 20 in Corsage.

The bottom pic is my second start to the mystery doily.  I am using size 10 Red Heart thread.  My chain spacing is 3-2-3, join, rw, 2-3.  It still cups a little but not as bad as my first attempt.  May only do two rows and set down for other projects and them come back if I desire. There is a thread at Intatters that has the info on this doily as well as the pattern and updates to the pattern.

Tat Days is next weekend in Toccoa, GA.  I have my tatting bag packed and ready to go.  Eager to learn new techniques, refresh what I know and see fellow tatters.