Ups and downs

I did no crafting on Friday! Instead, I read a murder mystery, Olive Park by C. L. Booth. It's not one I'd necessarily recommend, but it did hold my interest. In fact, I purchased the other two books in the trilogy. Why wouldn't I recommend it? I guess I'm turning into an old fuddy daddy, but I was turned off by the foul language. Are all cops and criminals so crude? Maybe they are. Give me Sherlock Holmes or Nancy Drew, please!

Saturday started off great with another Curds & Whey bookmark (pattern in Tatting with Visual PatternsI by Mary Konior). Once that was finished, I spent time on my computer looking for a pattern called Petals Button Pattern. Wouldn't you know, I got distracted and spent the morning with YouTube!

I can't tell you how many YouTube videos I watched. Let's just say I was on the computer for a few hours! This tape lace video caught my eye, and I just happened to have a shuttle wound and ready for action, so I followed along!

Pretty soon, I had another bookmark! I may be inspired to try some other new patterns today!

I was feeling pretty good about my morning, so after lunch and went back to my computer to search for the Petals Button Pattern. I found it! It was on the Tatted Button Ornaments page on Facebook. The pattern was posted by Iti Fox on December 2, 2020. I know why I didn't try it right away. It's a needle tatting pattern, and I wasn't in the mood to figure things out at the time. However, with renewed tatting confidence, I plunged right in!

I haven't tatted outward facing rings with buttons before. I had three very sloppy false starts before I got this far. The first set of rings looked great, but as I kept going, my small rings leaned further and further to the right. What was I doing wrong?

I decided to keep going, but I should have tatted one more pattern repeat. Maybe I should have used size 10 thread with the 5/8" button I was using, and maybe I should have checked before closing that last big ring with my shuttle on the wrong side of the tatting!

Totally frustrated, I contacted my friend Shelley and after a video chat, I decided to try again. Instead of tilting to the right, my small rings tilted to the left!

I then decided that the best thing to do would be to tat the motif without the button, a much easier way to see where I was going wrong. This doesn't look too bad, and I think I have choices. I can stick with size 20 thread and use a smaller button. I can stick with size 20 thread and add more rings to the motif. I can switch to size 10 thread, still using the 5/8" button. 

Maybe I'll take a break and tat another bookmark!