Don't look too closely!

If you do, I'm sure you will find at least three mistakes. There's a ring that was pressed over on itself, an easy fix. There's a chain with a big lump, the result of kinked thread because I didn't drop my shuttle to untwist the thread. To top it all off, I missed a join. I sewed it together, so it's not super obvious. All in all, this is not my best tatting effort!

I find that when I come back to a project that I haven't worked on in a while, I tend to make lots of mistakes. Does that happen to you? I'm not quite ready to trash all my UFOs, but I do get tempted when I make lots of mistakes.

I will try tatting Nilam from Elegant Tatting Gems by Jon Yusoff again, hopefully with no mistakes!

I am prepared!

Dave bought this beautiful black cabinet for me for Christmas, specifically for storing shuttles!

I'm still in the middle of reorganizing my sewing room. I'm afraid it's going to take a while. I get a bit overwhelmed as I look at the supplies I have.

As I feared, I have way too many shuttles...

Was I afraid that Handy Hands would run out of Aerlit shuttles?

How many small Clover shuttles does one tatter need?

...or large Clover shuttles for that matter!

What's really scary is that I've only begun working on this room, and I have more supplies upstairs! I hope to have some pretty pictures of an organized space in the next week or two.

I did manage to find time for a little bit of tatting today. One thing I learned from working on my Jan Stawasz Masterpiece last year is that it really doesn't matter how much I tat in one day. What does matter is how much I enjoy the time spent tatting!

I hope you enjoy your tatting time today!

Look what I found!

Today was filled with the activities that come after a vacation... picking up the mail, doing the banking, catching up with laundry, paying bills, grocery shopping... the mundane list could go on and on!

I did work a little on reorganizing my sewing room, the key word being little. While trying to decide what I wanted to do first, I found a snowflake that I had started a while back, Nilam from Elegant Tatting Gems by Jon Yusoff.

I love this little book! There are 18 snowflake designs, each of them beautiful. I may be a little prejudiced, because I helped test tat some of the patterns, but I think this is one tatting book that every tatter should own!

Oh, Susanna!

Once again, we traveled to Alabama to visit Mom and I had my tatting on my knee. That's the only way I was able to finish my Jan Stawasz Masterpiece in 2015.

I am thrilled to pieces with this doily. I still need to block it so that it looks exactly right, but a little steam press sure helped make it look presentable!

I plan on putting this on my dining room table, but that will have to wait. I started rearranging my sewing room today and the table is filled with stuff.

So, how long did it take? Just over a year. I started this doily December 29, 2014, and I finished it December 31, 2015, just before we crossed the Alabama/Tennessee line. It's 32" across in size 20 Lizbeth. I can't imagine tatting anything bigger than this!

So what's in store for 2016? I'm not sure yet, but I think I'm going to avoid large projects for a while. This doily really ruled my life for the past year, and I want to do a little experimenting in 2016. What are your tatting plans?

The final join

I'm ready for the final join on my Jan Stawasz Masterpiece! We're on the road, so it will have to wait until tomorrow. I'm so excited to have the end of this mega project in sight!

Five!

While Dave's been busy making ravioli, I've been busy tatting! I can hardly believe that I'm half way around. With company coming, I'm pretty sure I won't finish by Christmas, but it might be pretty close!

Mom was doing some organizing and found this picture of my sisters and me. From left to right... Janet, Diane, Lisa. I'm guessing that I was about 9 years old at the time. Janet's a year and half younger than me, Lisa is 4 years younger than me. Good times!

Carol, Bella, and Dave were busy making ravioli yesterday. Dave is working on his own today. I'm still coughing from bronchitis, so I'm not allowed in the kitchen.

Following tradition, Dave made fatties (fried ravioli dough) for dinner last night. Yum! I'm really glad to have holiday traditions from both of our families!

Four!

I'm very happy that I've managed to tat around four of the ten motifs of my Jan Stawasz Masterpiece. I really don't think I'll finish by Christmas. Like many of you, I have some last minute Christmas work to finish.

Last night a made a double batch of ravioli filling. We always have ravioli for Christmas Eve. Daughter Carol will be coming over to help make a batch today. We'll finish the second batch tomorrow. I know I won't have to cook tonight, because we always have fatties (fried ravioli dough) for dinner on ravioli day.

I still have Christmas presents to wrap, as well as a few to make. So, I'm off the get ready for Christmas!