I sent Betsy's package off on Saturday. Yay! A whole week before I draw the name of the next anniversary winner! I've had to let the mystery vintage patterns go for now. I don't think anyone has time to play with them before the holidays anyway.

Lately I've been tatting a few patterns to see how they work up and then I've gone on to make something more with them but can't show for now. The tree is from the Christmas Tree earrings pattern by Linda Davies. I used cebelia size 30 and seed beads.

The naked bell is Wanda's Bell pattern. It's very easy and I did add the embellishments to another version. This one is done in size 40 Coates. I had hoped it would fit on the glass bell I showed in the last entry and it did...but it didn't look right for some reason. I've decided I will probably paint on the glass instead of putting tatting on it. Wanda says to use 2 shuttles but for this one, I just used the shuttle and ball and did the shoelace trick. As you can tell, that kind of skews the clapper at the bottom. For the one I tatted after that, I used two shuttles and the clapper part looked much better. For some items, you can get by with doing the shoelace trick but when it's a featured "point" in the pattern, it's better to go with the 2 shuttles. I might have been able to block the tilt out too.

Today is my next-to-youngest grandson's birthday. He's 13. A teenager. The other grandson will be 13 in April. I guess I could start tatting booties for their one-day children...especially at the rate I'm going, I just might get done in time. LOL! I don't even have something like that tatted for my newly wedded son. Oh sure...I have plenty of time.....sigh...

I have to say it's been an especially frustrating year for me in blogging for the simple reason that I cannot show 80% of what I tat until some time later. I'm really enjoying tatting for the giveaways, but I'm not enjoying holding off on posting about it. Well...only 3 more to go. Time sure is flying by, isn't it? This is my 956th post....moving close to 1,000! I suspect it will come close to my six year anniversary. That's a lot of tatting.

And speaking of tatting....I need to catch up on some chores so I can work on my SS package!!!!