Emptying shuttles

All my shuttles (all forty or fifty of them!) have thread on them from some project - I'm just useless at calculating how much thread I need and I always end up with way too much left on the shuttle. I needed some empty shuttles, so I sat down and made a few things from the little thread leftovers. I didn't want to join more thread from a ball, so I made up these things as I went, using rings only:

The black one is made with some Perle Cotton size 20 and green transparent seed beads. The blue & white is made with Flora 20, color #55. The tiny black & purple one is made with Valdani variegated (size 70/80) in "Black & Indigo". This is one of my favorite color combinations, and I really wish this thread would be thicker so I could tat with it more easily, I'm still not used to tatting with such thin thread. I don't know if many people have heard of this thread before, but I get it from Roseground. Check it out if you want :) The white pendant with green beads is made with size 40 thread, don't know the brand. The reason it's asymmetrical is simply that I ran out of thread and had to skip the final ring. I managed to open the last ring, but picking up the stitches proved far more difficult, so I gave up and decided to leave it as it is. Works well enough for a test design, right? :) It didn't come out well on the light background, so here's a better view of it:

The green pendant was an attempt to redo the design of the white one, but I ran out of thread even sooner, and it became a totally different shape. The thread is Coats Opera I think, size 20. I really like the designs of the two pendants, and I'm considering making them into earrings or something. That should solve some Christmas present problems :)

Something old

I have a biology exam on Wednesday, and since I've been sick for a while I've had lots of reading to catch up on the last few days. Which also means less time for tatting :( After a long day at the library I don't really have the energy to do much when I get home, so I don't work fast enough to finish an item in one evening. Naturally this has led to be starting a new project every day, because I get bored easily plus I really want to see how the new colors look, hehe. I think I need to catch a touch of Finishitis soon, or I'll be totally swamped with UFOs! I'm sort of running out of available shuttles here - they are either filled with too much thread to simply unwind, or they are attached to a work in progress... Guess that hadn't been a problem if I did needle tatting :)

That's why I've deciced to post about a few things that I made a while ago. This is "Wind Mills" from Mary Konior's Tatting with Visual Patterns, made in Flora size 20, color #56:

Here is a simple little bracelet I made from a border I found in Christmas Angels and Other Tatting Patterns by Monica Hahn. I dropped the picots on the chains and added some green beads:

I made this on a bus, so I didn't have any proper metal clasps handy. Instead I made a ring on one end and an onion ring thing on the other. I think it works (but please don't look at my hairy arms!) :) If I remember correctly it's made in Gjestal Maxi.

And finally here's a teeny tiny snowflake-looking thing with lots of beads on. I think it's very cute, even though it's so small I don't really know what to do with it... Don't have the name of the thread, but I think it's size 40.

Huh. While writing this post I've dug out all my UFOs, and there are quite a few of them. Among other things I've started both Anne B's Dragon Wing Doily and her Seahorse Dragon, the snail from Inga Madsen's Tatted Animals and a celtic knot pumpkin. I've realized (like I do every year) that I started too late for Halloween, and I won't have anything finished in time. Maybe next year :)

Lizbeth thread & a small motif

A few days ago I got three balls of Lizbeth 20 in the mail, ordered from this site. I simply love all the different colors this thread comes in, especially the variegated ones. At least from the site I'm using, the color selection is much bigger for size 20 than size 40, so that's what I ordered. I'm used to working with size 20, but I'm starting to realize that using thinner threads isn't as scary as I thought! Two balls of Lizbeth size 40 is on their way already, and at least one of them will be used for a Christmas present for my mother :)

The colors I have are #131 Vineyard Harvest, #119 Jelly Bean and #146 Mocha Swirl. Love them! Naturally I had to test the thread right away, and last night I finished this small motif from Julia E. Sanders's Tatting Patterns:

Pattern is "Oval Motif for Triangle 2" (fig. 59 on pages 25 and 27), color is Vinyeard Harvest. As usual this thing needs some serious blocking to become symmetrical :)

I has heard a lot of good things about the Lizbeth thread, but also a lot of bad, so I was really exctited to try it. I love it! It does twist a little, but so does every other thread I've worked with so far, and there's a really simple solution to that problem: drop your shuttle and let it dangle until it stops spinning :) One problem I had not foreseen, though... With the variegated thread I end up finishing the piece with ends that totally don't match the colors of the parts they need to be worked into.  I don't like to cut & tie, because that tends to unravel after a while... What other options do I have? Hmm...