Motif 8: Button bookmark

I wasn't able to completely give up the colour, but I did tone it down a little. This is Jane Eborall's elegant bookmark with buttons, done in DMC cebelia 20. Personally, I think it's much pretty to hide away inside a book.

The overlapping bits had me a bit worried, but it was a surprisingly restful project. The only problem was loss of portability. I had to sit a table so I could rest my shuttles on it. If I didn't I ended up with an impressive tangle.

It's a good think I like to untangle things. It was one of the first crafty things my mother let me do. She'd let me play with her knitting things and as punishment/reward, I'd get to untangle the resulting mess.

Motif 7: Unintended colour study

The plan was to make one doily, in one variegated colour. I was having ...umm... dye lot issues. So there was a change of plan, and now there are two doilies. This is the Scalloped doily from 'The Tatter's Treasure Chest', done a piebald selection of hand-dyed and store-bought unidentifiable perle 8.

I'm not sure whether or not I like these. I've been admiring the beautiful colourful tatting on other people's blogs, which is why I wanted to make some for myself. Now that I have them, some part of me can't help thinking 'lace should be white'!

Motif 6: Puffy flowers

I finished the latest of these a few months ago and forgot all about it. They're perfect for keeping my hands busy while I wait for downloads and other annoying computer things.

The one in the lower left corner is the Carnation Boutonniere from 'The Tatter's Treasure Chest', done with DMC 80 . The others are all variations on the design, done with unidentifiable crochet cotton from my local craft shop.


Here's one I made last year, made up as a hair comb for my sister-in-law. I'll probably do the same thing to the others, but as barrettes. The comb works great for my sister-in-law's lovely, bouncy curls. I have stick straight hair; I need a barrette.


I have an urge to make a baby bonnet. It's an illogical urge, since my kids (and all my friends' kids) are long past babyhood. Oh well, if I were being logical, I wouldn't be making knots in thread. Does anyone have any pattern suggestions?

Magic thread trick

I read about using floss threaders on Jon Yusoff's blog (also in Crazy Mom Tats) . I was so excited when I found some at a local pharmacy. Unfortunately, it didn't work well with my current project. Maybe the perle 8 was too thin and squishy. Maybe I had the wrong brand.

Anyway, it did get me thinking about other things to use for the magic thread trick. Here are two that I'm trying.


The one with a circle on the end is a needle threader. I've read about using them in other places (Teri Dusenbury's blog and as a tool here). The longer one is a twisted wire needle (used for beading). The eye is collapsible, so it pulls through very easily. As long as I keep my stitches loose, it works great.

Thimble rings

My son spotted my bag of thimble rings and asked if he could play with them. He arranged them and counted them and told me there were thirteen. I was surprised. I didn't realize I'd made a full baker's dozen of them.

Before I show mine, let me show the master thimble. I won this in a lucky draw from Chloe Patricia's blog. It almost hurts to look at; the stitching is so fine. I'm using it as motivation whenever I get too sloppy with my stitches.


Here's a super bright one from two months ago.


This is from last month. I think it looks like peacock feathers.


Here are the latest ones. The blue-green one is my current favourite. It's very calm.

Motif 5: A bit of edging

I had an eventful month that robbed me of the will to do anything except eat, sleep and watch movies. The good thing is I'm too scatter-brained to maintain a funk for long. So the shuttles are starting to move again, the keyboard keys are clicking.


Here's a little tatted edging made with the last of my DMC cordonette 10 (It's from the book 'Tatting Ideas' by Yusai Shokoin). I have nostalic thoughts as I use up this ball. It's the first ball of thread that I bought specifically for tatting. Before that, I'd been trying to teach myself to tat using a huge ball of acrylic yarn. The results were less than encouraging.



Here's the inside of the bag. Those little dragonflies are at least three years. Let's not look too closely, eh? My joins were still a little iffy back then.




These are my two latest baju kurung. The yellow one almost fell victim to my 80% rule. My 80% rule dictates that only 80% of the garments I make end up being wearable.

The yellow cloth was a remnant. I knew there wasn't enough, but I loved the colour too much to resist. I decided to reduce my usual measurements a little bit. Since I usually cut loosely, I thought I'd be OK. When it was finished, I was able to wear it, but the result was miserably unflattering. After much foot stomping, I finally cut it down and turned it into a baju kedah for my mother. It fits her beautifully. She even looks better in yellow than I do. Sigh...

The black one fits fine, but Malaysia is in the middle of a heat wave. It's not the most comfotable thing to wear right now.

Motif 4: Mignonette motifs

I got delayed by mid-terms and missing camera batteries, but now I can finally push down my picture of defeat. Here are some motifs from my lone Japanese tatting book, all with bits of mignonette. The white one is in DMC Cebelia 10, the pink ones in DMC Cebelia 20.

Right now, I'm taking course on multimedia technologies. It's a hands-on course, and one of the assignments is to create a magazine page using Adobe Illustrator. For my assignment, I decided to make a page for an imaginary tatting magazine, with a diagram for a little tatted butterfly (DMC Cebelia 20, dyed with batik colours) by Anna Wuerfle Brown.


My little lady grabbed this out of my hands when I showed it to her. Then she got out a roll of sticky tape and stuck it on to her dress. I guess that one way to accessorize.