One day I walked into the living room and found Dillon sleeping on the stuffed lion my son put on the back of the sofa. Guess every cat needs a stuffed "teddy" to cuddle with.

When you've been tat-deprived, you start tatting everything in sight! I spotted a pattern on Spulni-Blog yesterday and had to try it! With Beads! I've been without beads in my tatting for even longer! For the center ring, I slid the beads over from the shuttle as I needed them which puts them on the core thread and makes a center more stable. I should have had the last bead on the thread around my hand though so that when I closed the ring, it would be at the base. It's kind of off-kilter and if you want to look, you'll see it. I also had to remember to leave a little space where I put the beads so there would be room to join into later. Some ended up being a bit snug.

I really thought this snowflake would tat up as large as the Angels in the Snow snowflake but I was wrong, just like I was wrong with the Angels snowflake that I thought would be very small! You can see the difference here. The Spulni-flake is tatted in size 30 but I don't know what brand since the label was missing. It felt soft in the tatting so I suspect it is a 3 cord thread. It was one of Jane Smith's that was sent to me along with other threads and shuttles, etc. She was good about marking the size. Even though I had to make some minor changes to accommodate the beads, this was an easy pattern to tat. The beads are size 10 but looked bigger to me. That's what the package said though!

I've lost my momentum in cleaning...booohooooo! It will be Saturday before I can get back to it but I did sort through most of a stack of Anna Magazines. Well...at least until I found the only one missing a cover which is dated inside for December 1986. There was a tatted doily pattern in two sizes which I wasn't interested in - don't generally do doilies - and three bookmarks. This is the first one. If you've ever tried any of the projects in the Anna magazines, a now defunct publication that has reincarnated in a somewhat different focus, you might remember the pattern sheets in the center with mostly symbols for directions and many printed over each other. Numbers are in the instructions as well as the diagram but both are sketchy. I did figure it out but had to retrotat pretty early in the game as I realized I'd made a wrong join. I like this but I really want to try number two. I may scan the diagrams and put them all on one document instead of scattered on a pattern sheet that is yellowing with age!

I'm debating on saving this for the dye pot or sending it to my aunt along with the angel and snowflake. It's easy to make so I may go ahead and give it away. I'm driving out of state today and won't be back until late evening. That's not going to help my tat-deprivation at all unless I happen upon a spectacular thread/bead/craft shop along the way!