giving and receiving

…. thanks q

According to the Hindu calendar, Guru Poornima is celebrated every year on full moon of the 4th month - this time it fell on the 27th. As per scriptures, it is a day to offer respect and gratitude to one’s teachers. So this may be almost a 3,000 year old legacy! 

Thought I’d give my thanks to each tatter/blogger I’ve had the pleasure to meet online – I always learn a little something and add to my knowledge, be it from a beginner question, peer consultation, or expert advice.

Firstly, I’d like to thank the extremely talented Mari-jan. We got acquainted, and have been in touch, when they asked to publish my pattern in their publication, De Frivolite(k)ring . Recently she celebrated her 1^st blog anniversary and surprised me with this lovely handmade silk plum blossom and handwritten card. 

  

Update : Mari-jan has posted details about this technique here.

Next, as a thank-you gesture for helping her out with some tatting snags over time, Jean Gordon shared this joyful bookmark pattern! I got down to tatting it almost immediately, spurred by her tatted models.

This is the Butterfly Bookvine designed by Kimberley Donohue 

published in #16, KNOTS tatting newsletter, March 1997. 

Jean made a few tweaks and re-wrote it.

I really liked Jean’s colour scheme above! 

I chose the closest I could get from my Anchor size 40 stash. I want to make another with more colourful butterflies and vine using embroidery thread.
It measures 13×3cms without tail.

Butterflies are superb in that there was no need to hide ends at all since we end with a split ring! Instead of using 2 shuttles, I left a long tail in the beginning to use for the 2nd side of split ring and one antenna.

There are 2 versions of the butterfly in the pattern. I chose the more decorative one. 

For the vine, instead of SLT, I used the Reverse Join to switch threads, thus ending up tatting it with one shuttle and green ball thread. 

One has to keep track of the joins, though. I kept making mistakes linking to the butterfly and ended up retrotatting.

You know I like tails on my bookmarks. So a lock stitch chain it was. But for the tassel, I have to thank Stephanie Wilson. Last year, when she was test tatting one of my patterns, she shared her wonderful idea – collect all the scrap threads and make tassels! 

I finally remembered in time, and am so happy with the result, even though these were the only scraps left from recent projects in my tiny collection box. I added a green border on either side of the wrap-around -- ALL scrap!!!.

Here’s another of Jean’s tatting sample (still unblocked). She’s been tatting for just over a year and already learned interlaced rings (the 4-shuttle braid) & the floating twisted picot!

Blogging has brought me so many extraordinary friends!

Many many thanks to this tatting circle of friends qYq