One year ago today...

One year ago today, I started tatting.  I had been thinking a lot about how meaningful my Grandmother's tatting was for us to receive.  I ran across a shuttle at the local craft store and bought it.  It took me a week or so before I actually picked it up and loaded that little clover shuttle with some size 10 thread and gave it a try...and the magical flip happened!  Now, my first little set of rings that I put on a shirt for my Rosie was a mess...and all second half of the DS to boot.  I didn't remember about the two parts of the DS until the next day (I truely believe that Grandma visited my dreams that night to remind me).  But, it was a start...and I haven't stopped since!  Here is that first attempt...

It was a little over a month later that I started my blog...but it seems appropriate that what I have to post today happens to be tatted from the same pattern as my first blog post.  This is, once again, Kersti Anear's Stumpy bookmark...tatted in that same Royal Ocean thread that I did one of the bookmarks in that first post in, though this time I was using up thread I had on my shuttles left over from an edging I did for the shirt for my Rosie that I posted on a couple of days ago here...

What is really interesting to me, that I hadn't noticed before, is that this and the Mary Konior Large Cross pattern use the exact same pattern and stitch counts.  I hadn't tatted one of the "Stumpy" bookmarks for several months though it remained one of my favorite patterns.  Now I know why the "Large Cross" pattern felt so familiar and comfortable.  Interesting how the same count and alignment of rings and chains appears frequently in different patterns.  Somewhere I have seen the same thing in a snowflake too...

I also finished the "Large Cross" I was working on, here it is...it needs a quick press before I send it off tomorrow and I have already started another with the pretty blue thead you can see...

These are two of my favorite patterns.  I tatted many of the Stumpy bookmarks over the first few months of my tatting.  Now a days, I generally have one of the Large Cross in progress, usually in my purse.  The small thread makes it so nicely portable, and it is a pattern that I can tat easily while listening to a speaker (I am one of those that listens better if my hands are occupied) or to fill a few minutes while waiting somewhere for something.

At any rate, I think I've come a long way in a year and I am excited to start my second year of tatting...it will be fun to see what the year brings, there is so much I want to learn this year and so many patterns I want to try!!!