Last Night blogger was down and I didn't really have much time anyway. I didn't sleep well the night before and I went to the gym after work so I was dog-tired. I bought this fabric one night last week thinking it would make a great bag. I have tons of patterns for bags and haven't made the first one. The pattern I'm thinking of has a focal point with a medallion on it. I haven't really figured out how I'm going to do this. I really wanted a paisley shaped motif and I've printed off the one from Dan Tribble's site. It's the 2nd link for an 1874 German pattern. It's actually tatting with tape lace but I want to figure out a way to do it all in tatting.

In the meantime, I tatted this square motif from the Japanese book, Tatting, by Yusai Shokoin. I think I've tatted it before - I like it so well. I didn't hide the ends because I can use the thread to sew it to the fabric....if I use it on this fabric. It's a bit tricky to tat. There is only the diagram since I can't read Japanese and it doesn't really show where to start. It looks like you make the center 4 rings, but if you climb out of those rings to the next round, you climb out into a chain. It can be done, but I don't like to do that if I can help it. So then I figured out you start with the second round and throw the center rings off of the chains. It still ends in an awkward place and you have to cut & tie and start a new round. Every join from the 2nd to the 3rd round is at a chain so even if I could figure out a way to end elsewhere on the 2nd round, it's going to be an awkward climb out onto a chain. Sometimes it's just as well to cut & tie. In this case, since I was planning on sewing it to fabric, I didn't have to worry about hiding ends anyway.

What I really need to do is write up my pattern for Hector. I'm sure Karey is tapping her toe and pursing her lips....maybe I should go do that RIGHT NOW!