A Cross for a Lovely Girl on her First Communion Day...

This Saturday we are going to be attending the First Communion of one of our beautiful nieces and I thought that a tatted cross bookmark for her Bible would be very appropriate...and hopefully something she will treasure for years to come.

I couldn't find exactly what I wanted for this...so I tweaked a few things to get what I think is something she will love and enjoy...

I found a cross bookmark pattern in Christmas Angels and Other Tatting Patterns by Monica Hahn...I love the overall design, but wanted it a little more lacy rather than with just three picots on each chain, and didn't quite like how much the chains overlap between each arm of the cross.  You can see this in the photo behind my finished cross below:

I had also seen Ruth Perry's easy cross variation of Beeton's edging here and a bookmark I tatted a while back that I know I had the pattern for but can only find a picture of one like it that Mary at Peachtree Cottage did, both of which I took some inspiration from.  At any rate, I modified it to my satisfaction by making the chains in the crook of the arm a bit shorter and adding a join where they meet up and by making the chains lacier by doing them with more picots as on the bookmark pattern I mentioned but cannot find. 

Here are a couple of additional pictures of the completed bookmark:

I used size 20 Lizbeth in Tropical Punch and Azalea Medium for this cross bookmark.  The charm at the end is something I saw someone somewhere do with their bookmarks too...thought it was cute and would appeal to a young girl.  I would like to try tatting this again and try some other things with variations on the picot count and the length of the chains.  It's a fun cross bookmark to tat, I enjoy the little flower motif that is created by the little rings.  This will be #8 in my 25 motif challenge.