Olivia, from Tatted Butterflies by Adelheid Dangela

After all that fabric sorting, I thought it was time to finish up the motif I gave you a sneak peek at a few days ago. I don't remember doing this one before. The body is done in some thread I dyed last year. I think it is size 20 or 30. The yellow is Flora size 50 and the purple is explained next. It measures 4" wide and 2 1/2" tall.

I put two threads together back when I was making the pincushions. I started an edging for the sachet and didn't like it so then I tried a different thread that I liked better. That left me with 2 full shuttles of thread. So last week, needing a tatting fix, I tatted the bottom wings of Olivia. I just wanted to see what it looked like tatted up and I did not tat it exactly right. The end towards the body actually has fewer stitches and some joining picots but I made it the same on both ends, not intending to make the whole thing. By the time I came back to it, I'd forgotten I wasn't going to complete the butterfly and I picked up the shuttles and tatted the upper wing with yellow for contrast. That's where I left off in the earlier post - but then I didn't have enough thread for the second wing. I thought I'd find the thread easily but ...Murphy's Law dictated NO.

It took me quite awhile to even remember the thread. I did know one was the variegated glace. It was in an entirely different box, one I'd used to dump everything into when I needed the table for something else. That's the one I couldn't find. I thought I had the right purple but then I noticed the tiny bit on the shuttle was skinnier than what I'd found. So I looked more and noticed a spool of purple thread with a partial edging attached. I remembered it was one of my samples for the pincushion/sachet so I matched it against the old thread and it fit. Together, they are slightly larger than the Flora so actually, I have 3 sizes of thread in this piece but they seem to go together okay.

I like it better than I thought I would. It's not nearly as big as I expected it to be and maybe that's because of the smaller thread. I'm sure I've used size 20 for the majority of flutters I've made from this book. Everything is black and white in the book so it's kind of hard to envision how each looks in color until it's done. I also didn't make the antennae the same. It's supposed to have the antennae tatted separately and joined but that would be more ends to hide so I just made very long picots that I knotted on the ends.

I'm working on another flutter from the book and then I hope to get back to the 25 motif challenge pieces.