Still alive :)

Hi there! Got a question in a comment last night if I am alright, because I haven't posted anything for months. So I just wanted to tell you that I am :) I just haven't been very active online this year because I'm at school for several hours a day and don't feel like doing much when I get home. I'm taking math & physics, which is really really hard and takes a lot more effort than anything I've ever done, so naturally I don't have anything to post about... To be honest I haven't tatted anything since the beginning of January (I think), which is a bit sad. I tend to do everything in periods, and right now I'm knitting. Hadn't really knitted for a couple of years, so it's been fun rediscovering it :) Nothing is finished yet, so I have nothing to show you... I have also learned to use my sewing machine, which was a new year's resolution I made. I started a small quilt, but I only finished a handbag for my mother for her birthday:

She wanted a bag to put her choir notes in, and requested that there was musical notes on it. Couldn't find fabric with notes on, so I appliqued some on, cut from an old t-shirt. I'm pretty pleased with the result, for not having sewn anything useful before, and my mother loved it :) I had planned to put some tatted bling on the bag, but in the end I ran out of time :/ I only finished putting the handles on twenty minutes before my mother arrived! Perhaps I'll make her some bling for Christmas instead :)

Anyway, that's a few reasons why I've been so quiet lately. I did a count of how many items I'm up to in the 25 motif challenge, and I think I'm at 19. 18 if you don't count the cluny attempts. So I have a few more to go, and perhaps it will motivate me to pick up my tatting again :) Right now most of my supplies are buried underneath a pile of yarn so big I haven't dared to look through it... If I tip the pile over it will completely take over our livingroom! (Alright, so our livingroom is very small, but still...) 

Since I have nothing new to show, I'll post a picture of my almost finished snail from Inga Madsen's Tatted Animals:

I turned the shell around, because it spiraled the wrong way. Just need to make the antennae and the last few rings & chains on the shell! Don't remember what the yellow thread is called, but the shell color is Lizbeth (not sure, but I think it's Razzle Dazzle). 

Well, that will have to do for now. If I go all quiet again, at least you know why :)