I finished up the stems for the other dagger hearts and grouped them together for a scan. I'm done with this diversion for awhile.

I'm still working on the figure 3 insertion. I haven't done any sewing yet but I did feel inspired to tat with beads in a different way. These are only little snippets. Once they are stitched on fabric like an insertion normally is, it will look yet again different.

The difference between this one and the one before is the number of beads...and....I haven't joined them together. I'm anxious to see how this will look stitched on fabric too. Once I get the sewing done, I'll be finished with figure 3.

Yesterday I was exploring some crochet on Ravelry.com and found a new source for vintage tatting. I followed the link for a free crochet button pattern and it was at an online archive of Australian articles. Just for kicks and giggles, I entered "tatting, tatted" in the search field and was amazed to see it come up with 24,656 pages of articles, notices and patterns. The text is electronically translated along with the original and you can get it as a pdf or text version. And it's FREE!!!!! I found several articles/patterns by Norma Benporath, a well known Australian tatter. As with all vintage material, much of it is hard to read in terms of pattern writing but certainly worth a try. I only looked at about 5 pages and much of it was notices about tatting awards or programs but there was still a significant number of patterns. Edgings, motifs, doilies. The black and white photos are hard to see but if you're up for a challenge, go for it! (update - apparantly tatting is only in the first 10-11 pages. 26,000 + is the total of pages archived, not tatting references.)