My 1st Time Tatting

I did, I did...Well, I know how to do a ring and a picot (pronounced pee-co, hehe). I'm so proud! At first, I could make an chain, but I couldn't figure out how to make a ring. Somebody was being sparing with her $3 giant spool of cheap thread and therefore didn't even begin to understand how to close a ring until someone showed her. Maybe that'll teach me to make acrylic fun fur out of Red heart yarn tails haha.

I asked a friend in my knitting group, Rebecca, if she'd teach me and it turns out she's actually a tatting instructor in Canada. She also has a very pretty website http://www.tatmom.com/ That's so catchy. She's a great teacher. I'm so lucky to have so many people in my life that are gifted with special craft talents that they're willing to teach to me. She taught me how to make a joined chain by doing 5-5-5 for the chain and 5-5-5-5 for the ring on a size 7 needle and 10 crochet cotton. Of course, I messed up as soon as I was out of her sight and had to attempt to restart about 8 times or so before I was satisfied with my loosely knit boarder of knots and picots.

I felt self-assured, so I did a butterfly pattern, FLOWER AND BUTTERFLY BOOKMARK(Sharon Albers - 1999). I didn't do the flowers though. I wasn't that confident in my picot sizes. Just like with my first knitting pattern, I read over the terms, made sure I knew what they ment and went at it. I still don't know when to turn over my work, but I'm pretty sure that's done just to keep the work out of my way...I think. Practice, practice.

Top left was the one Rebecca showed me how to do. You can see when I left her sight lol. Top right is the umpteenth effort to copy her pattern. Lower right is that cute little butterfly from the Wonderful World of Tatting. Bottom left is just a ring with too-tiny picots.

http://www.geocities.com/skalbers52/ <-butterfly

http://www.geocities.com/pamela+devries/part-2-chain-join.html <-abbreviations and how-to's