Exchange complete!

I love it when an exchange goes well!

Necklace from Janet Hartley

The node stitch shows up very nicely in this thread. Great job Janet!

I became somewhat cynical about exchanges a few years ago when nearly half my exchanges fizzled out. Often I received nothing. There were those who did reciprocate and those were all the more appreciated. After an absence from any exchanges, I joined some of the round robins that were immensely popular and all but one were completed and returned. That renewed my interest in exchanges. I'm still disappointed that I haven't received my angel round robin back, but who knows? It might mysteriously appear some day. LOL!

We've had some exchanges between members of the list associated with this blog and those have gone well. I've shown some of the results here from time to time. In fact, we have two exchanges going on right now; a seasonal tatted motif on a quilt square and a boo-boo exchange. One of the more rewarding elements of tatting is the sharing, be it by word, by pattern, or one's own tatting.

I haven't shared much of my recent tatting because it was for the exchange and I didn't want it posted until Janet received it. We mailed on the same day and got each others necklace yesterday. It was so late when I got home last night and I had connection problems - I didn't try to make an entry.

I'm really happy with the way this turned out. I mentioned earlier the pattern from a December 1915 Needlecraft magazine - the Butterfly Slide necklace by Sarah Ethel Compton. I had made the butterfly before but I didn't like the cord. I wanted something a little more substantial and found it Ring of Tatters Tatting 2000 - the false plait by Jean Sharples. I posted my test samples of that in an earlier entry too. I decided to add beads to the butterfly and incorporate them in the cord. It took me awhile to get the hang of how to make the split rings space nicely. You have to start the next ring by making sure the first stitch is within or right on top of the current ring. If it was just outside or at the base, you could see a slight gap. It was time-consuming but if I had not been adding beads with each ring, it might have gone faster.



The first two show more detail than the last one does. The last one is mostly to show length and how it will look on someone. I've been wanting to make this, in terms of necklace design, ever since I first laid eyes on it. Now.....I've got even more ideas to pursue with it!