It was a busy week and it flew by! Monday night my son was stuck sideways in front of my garage and Tuesday night the furnace was out, requiring a repairman visit and then HE got stuck in the very same way. I was able to help my son get out but the repairman had to call a tow truck. I really need to send an appreciative note to that company. Wednesday night I recovered. Thursday night I sorted through more of the Christmas decorations before they are stored away. (still going on) Next thing I know...here we are, Saturday!

I haven't been tatting much. but I worked on a project a bit both Thursday night and last night. This is all I'll show for now. It's a motif from Patti Duff's Mini Tats, which I'm beginning to consider a tatting classic. It's been tatted in size 40, 70 and 80. I keep thinking it might look better if I do it with 5 petals instead of 6. Hopefully you'll see the comparison tomorrow.

I stumbled across this thrift find last night that I'd forgotten about. I got it in Greenfield at the end of January for 75 cents! It's a bell, obviously with some age on it.

But look! It's not just a bell! It's a music box! Tucked inside like that, it's difficult to wind up much but it does play. It's a common music box tune but I can't remember the name. In my search to jog my memory, I found The Music House, which makes music boxes to order and repairs them. They have several tune samples to listen to but I didn't find this one. I've heard it in a lot of movies. sigh...

Here's another view of the "clapper". I was also playing with "macro" on my camera and zoomed in too.

Another macro test...see the glitter on the bell??

I can't figure out what it is made of. There is not a single identifying mark on it. I was wondering if it was cardboard heavily varnished. You can see a bit of paper peeled back here. It IS solid under the paper but very thin. I can't tell if it is glass or metal or...eggshell. I'm tempted to think it is a goose egg but don't know how to tell.

It was damaged which is probably why I got it so cheap. See how part of this piece is broken off? I think that is the letter "R" and it looks handwritten so I'm really wondering if this is not handmade?

I did find a few goose egg bells on Culturopedia.com. This link is an exhibition but check out the goose egg galleries 1-6. You can follow directions to make your own egg bell at the Eggstravaganza.co.uk site. They list several musical movements too, both the press on kind and the wind up kind so now I'm convinced this truly is an egg and handmade. Extravaganza is in the UK. I didn't find any other images on my google search.

If this one is not extremely valuable, I might try to remove the bottom circles where the one piece is broken. Don't you think it would look even more delicate with tiny tatted rings where the gold braid is? Just an idea........