It started out with Laura Bobay wanting to learn how to do the lobster stitch braid that is used in Romanian Point Lace. I offered to teach her and her needle tatting friends along with some tatting to ...keep it tatting-related. LOL! We've actually been talking about this for months and finally we set a day, June 27th. It's a 2 1/2 hour drive to Columbia City and Laura offered a place for me to stay the night before to avoid an early morning departure from Lafayette, which I happily accepted!

In spite of our planning, the timing was difficult for a lot of reasons. She had to work. I had work issues that prevented me from preparing everything as early as I wanted so there was a lot of last minute scrambling but it all worked out. I arrived around 9:30 Friday night. Tom-Tom took me right there and it was still daylight. Sadly, though I took my camera, I did not get a SINGLE photo! I met Dewayne, Laura's husband and then brought in my stuff. I can't believe I finally managed to pack LIGHTLY for a change. I have a tendency to bring bags and bags of stuff that I don't need.

We gabbed about tatting and quilting and plans for the next day until midnight. Laura was fixing a delicious 7-layer salad for the lunch carry-in on Saturday. She gave me a bedroom with a beautiful blue quilt that I kept meaning to take a photo off and didn't. I got to see her gourd bird who is cute as a button! If you happened to be at our Lace Day in March, you got to see her gourd hedgehog. Laura is talented in many many areas.


She gave me this Mary Englebrite teacup trio of memo pad, calendar and magnets! It just so happens that the teacup memo pad currently on my refrigerator only has 2 sheets of paper left so this is the perfect time for this!

We showed up at Dee's house at 10:00 a.m. and several of the ladies were already there. A few came in just after us and after some chit-chat, we got started. There were 7 ladies there and I was pretty sure we wouldn't get much tatting done and I was right. We started with this lobster stitch cord. Once you get past the first few stitches, the cord is easy to crochet but it's starting out that is so tricky. Two of the ladies didn't crochet at all so they also had to learn how to hold the thread, tension, and crochet terms on top of the learning the cord. I showed them how to chain and sent them to practice that while I showed the others the cord. I was using size 3 thread and a larger alumninum hook to demonstrate. It's hard to see the stitches, even with size 10 thread, so by the end of our session, everyone was using the size 3 thread for awhile.

I think I'd sat with each person and they were starting to get it fairly well when we broke for lunch. That was yummy! When we started up again, I showed how to do the ruffled braid which is much much easier and the rest of the time was spent practicing the two braids, getting details down and tension even. We never did get to tatting but I showed them Kim Millar's patterns as an example of how the ruffled braid could be incorporated into tatting. Geocities is going away, so if you want her patterns, be sure to get them now!

This is the bookmark I designed to use with the braid. It can also be tatted on the ruffled braid, joining at every other point. I have a white sample, just a segment, but will also tat one with this thread to show both on different braids. I have the braid done but not the tatting. The center green is Aida size 20 and the tatted flower buds are Lizbeth thread, Springtime, in size 20. This is the only Lizbeth varigated that I've really liked so far. I just tatted another bookmark in a Lizbeth varigated which I'll show next!

So I had a great time in Columbia City and made it home by 5:30 p.m. After I brought things in the house and caught up on everything you have to catch up on when you're gone, I tatted.


This is the next bookmark, the daisy bookmark, from Sharon Briggs' book done in Carousel. I used a lockstitch chain for the tail instead of the set stitch and a ring at the end instead of a tassel, but the daisy is the same! I didn't have enough thread on the shuttle for the set stitch and didn't want to wind more. I like this colorway better than the others except for Springtime. That one is still my favorite. I had trouble with this particular ball of thread splitting when I had to pick a stitch undone or hide my ends. It made me wonder if it was one of the original less-than-excellent balls that so many were unhappy about?