Test Tatting for Sherry, Mary Konior's Rose Garden, and a Wee Bit More Maille

About a month and a half ago, I answered Sherry's (AKA LadyShuttleMaker's) call for test tatters for her new butterfly book. I enjoy testing other tatters new patterns, and was pleased when Sherry accepted my offer. I got to test two patterns, though the second one came a few weeks after I finished the first one.

This is Amberlynn. She was tatted with Lizbeth size 20 thread in colour #129 Purple Splendor (I think!). This is a really cool butterfly, and easy to tat.

This little guy (yup, I'm calling this one a guy) is called Swirls (see, it could be a guy butterfly...) was also tatted in Lizbeth thread. For this one, I used Lizbeth size 20, in colour #125 Seascape. I love this colorway as well; you will see it again. I really like these side profile butterflies, but my fingers were not as appreciative; all those joins in the top section of the wing were a pain in the but, er, fingers. As a side note, the slope and roll join was used in the top section of the wing. This was the first time I used the join, but I couldn't talk about it. Both butterflies, and many more, can be found in Sherry's new book "The Exquisite Collection of Tatted Butterflies II", available now in her Etsy shop. I'm thinking of buying it, and I'm not a huge butterfly person.

I took a small break from working on my Windmills doily to try a motif from my new Mary Konior book.

This motif is Rose Garden, by Mary Konior, from her book "Tatting in Lace". This is a very pretty motif. I think it would look even better in more than one colour, perhaps with the outer "leaf" round in a variegated green colourway. The scan doesn't do the motif justice. The centre rose is 3-dimensional. Some of you (I hope) will notice that the motif's outer round shares a striking resemblance to Mary's Masquerade motif. Thread Stats: DMC Cordonnet size 20 thread in white. The above three motifs will be motifs 18,19, and 20 of my Third 25 Motif Challenge.

Finally, I have a few samples of Vertebrae to show you. I mentioned last time that I thought that the weave would look good with another metal as the medium sized rings. Here is the result:

The sample on the left has brass as the medium rings and the right one has bronze as the medium rings. I like the way they both came out, though the brass rings are a little too big. How did that happen, you might ask? Well, apparently, someone (not mentioning names here, but he knows who he is) made a mistake, and ordered the rings in the wrong wire gauge. This mistake means that the rings are about 0.4 mm too big. That doesn't sound like much, but it is. Fortunately they do work, just barely. To be honest, the bronze rings aren't the right size either, but I figured they would be close enough. I'm currently testing a bracelet using these samples. I joined them together, and added more rings to make a bracelet with 6 bronze, 6 brass, 6 bronze and 6 brass vertebra. I will be testing this bracelet to see if my wrist will turn green. If all goes well, a bracelet using one or both of these metals (with stainless steel) will go into my shop, along with the other two. I have the new, larger clasps now, however, I need to wait for a sunny day (that I'm home for) in order to get some decent photos for my shop.

That's all for now. Hopefully, I'll have my Windmills doily completed for my next post (I only have a couple motifs to complete. Till next time.