Third Motif

Here is a pattern of Mary Konior's. This is from her book, "Tatting with Visual Patterns." She has a great eye for design, and I find her things very different from so many other tatting patterns. I did adapt it *slightly* to add the leaves. Of course she has fantastic diagrams of the patterns as well, which I find so much easier to read that traditional written patterns. It is how I document most of my own patterns - it's rare that I would actually write the pattern out "long hand."

I work for a tax accountant as my "other" job. Sadly, my boss passed away about three weeks ago. This time of year, that has put even more of a time crunch on my already busy life. It has also been hard because he was a good friend, and I miss him.

I have a show next week though, so the tatting must go on...and, truth be told, I have always maintained that tatting is good therapy. I have found that to be no less true during this this difficult time.

Second Motif (well, a few motifs strung together I'm counting as just one)

I am having difficulty finding time to sit down and actually design a tatting pattern - the designing of the jewelry itself seems to take up so much time.

This is an adapted design from Jan Stawasz's book, "Tatting: theory and patterns." It is a lovely book, and Mr. Stawasz's tatting is impeccable. He is also a very talented designer. When I saw this flower, my mind immediately began to think of ways to use it in a necklace, and this was what I came up with. It is made with a variegated thread called "Silken Pearl" (the flower section) and DMC Cebelia (the stem and leaf section).

My first motif done!

This is not my own original design, but I had to adapt it slightly to use it for this necklace. With all the beads in it, the stitch count needed to be adjusted (as happens often with patterns I add beads to).

The pattern came from the summer of 1993 "Treasures in Needlework" magazine (?). I assume it is from my grandmother's collection of stuff, I happened to find it while going through a bunch of my books, the two pages had been ripped from the magazine and tucked into another book. I don't know where else it would have come from. Although some of the other patterns in this issue of the magazine are credited to Mary McCarthy, this pattern does not name a designer. I recognize one of the other patterns there as one I have in an old book somewhere, so it's possible this pattern came from an older source, I'm not sure.

I was afraid it might look too much like a bib, but I tried it on yesterday and it looks just beautiful. Hopefully it will go home with a happy customer.

TROUBLE!

Sheesh!

I knew I was going to have trouble keeping up with this blog. Home schooling, art/craft shows, holidays, accounting (my other job) - I need about 8 more hours in my day to get everything done.

What I didn't count on was having so much trouble with the blog itself. I hadn't posted in so long it wanted my to update my blog to my gmail account. Well, that didn't quite work as easily as it should have, and I had to start over from scratch. I have had nothing but problems since then.

What a waste of good tatting designing time!!

I am going to try and keep up better with this in January, when I have more time (I hope).

The 25 Motif Challenge

ORIGINAL DATE OF THIS POST: AUGUST 2006

After some serious consideration, I have decided to join the 25 Motif challege. The consideration was mainly as to whether I would have the time to keep up with this, but I think it will be good for me because I would like to design 25 motifs that I can then use in my jewelry.

Some of these ideas have been in my head for a couple of years and never put down on paper or done in thread. Seems I'm too busy trying to keep up with just tatting the patterns I already know, rather than take the time to come up with something new.

Well, those days are over! I'm going to take some time to do some serious designing like I haven't done for a number of years. It may take me a while to do this, but at least I have some motivation.