The Evolution of Design

He's done! Finally! I've been working on this fellow for several weeks now. I was thinking Christmas thoughts and tatting for my Secret Christmas gift exchange - one of them anyway....and I saw a tatted teddy bear which made me remember I had asked last year, or the year before, if there were any gingerbread designs out there? I guess not - I sure don't remember seeing any, but I forgot about it after I asked. So of course....I HAD to give it a try.



My first attempt was based largely on the teddy bear but I didn't know what to do with all the picots. And when I tried to add "frosting", the picots looked even stranger so I added a plain border around. And then I wanted him to have eyes. You always gotta put raisins or chocolate chips for the eyes and button fronts! But my beads were too tiny and he looked....beady eyed.


So that meant bigger beads. I didn't like the way the round motifs worked either so I had to come up with a different design. I also needed to make sure I could chain the border around and have places to attach it to. And writing all this stuff down in the process! I have pages of scribbled out notes. I say this is version #3 but that doesn't count 2 efforts that were tossed in the trash. I also got in a hurry the other night and made his legs one set of rings shorter than I meant to....but he still looks okay.
I wanted to give him a nose and a smile but that sort of escaped my inspirational musing. LOL! I've got the directions on my yahoo group but if you aren't a member and would like a copy, email me. Just click on the "Email Tatting Goddess" link to the right. I have it in word doc, pdf, and plain text.

Merry Christmas!