Bless Their Hearts...

My two oldest kids INSISTED on staying late at their music lessons so I could have some tat time in the car today. Baby Doll did her part and fell asleep and Groovy Girl laughed as I followed Jon's instructions (which are WONDERFUL) for tatting split rings. She thought it was funny that I was trying to make my hand look like a dead spider. Jon's tutorial was SO clear I was tatting my third split ring when the kids came out of their lesson! I'm very excited! I found a pattern years ago which I really liked and which called for split rings - I think I will pull it back out and give it a whirl!

Here is some visual evidence of my previous foray into tatting. I made this tote for my mom about eight years ago. The pictures aren't so great. I took them with my old camera rather hurriedly so I could mail the bag to her.

I used a bulls eye quilt block. The bag took me quite a while to make, because I took my time with it and enjoyed experimenting with different embroidered embellishments. I had just gotten ELEGANT STITCHES by Judith Baker Montano and there were beautiful illustrations which made me want to branch out from my trusty stem stitch and lazy daisy.

In the bottom left corner I stitched the first letter of Mom's name with french knots and flanked it with wheat because my family farms wheat. I added a gold thread to the floss to make the heads of wheat shimmer.

In the bottom right corner I stitched a spider web complete with spider. I read that traditional crazy quilts often had webs for good luck. There are little clear beads on the web to look like dew. Apparently I am obsessed with dewy webs!

I don't remember where the tatted motif patterns came from. It's been too long. I do remember pulling my ends to the back of the block and tying them off.

I used the same fabrics from the quilt block to make some piping and edged the bag with it. I enjoyed making the bag and think it turned out well, but more importantly, Mom liked it a lot.