How do you use thread leftovers? Earrings of course!

I really hate wasting thread, and throw it away, mostly if it's good and not so cheap thread!
That's why I like the patterns where you have an overall indication of how much thread you will need to tat the pattern! But even when you have the indication, we don't have all the same hand and tension... and if there's something I hate even more is to get close to finish a tatting piece and be left with no thread... so I always wound a bit more to avoid attaching new thread during the work!
The consequence? A lot of small leftovers, wounded on the shuttles :-(

I'm sure at all tatters happens the same (if not please explain me how do you do!!!), so what we just need are very small tatting things to use them. What do you do with your leftovers?
I often tat small flowers, hoping I will find them a place one day!

This time, I decided for another pair of earrings, to finish all my Lizbeth thread leftovers, adding some coordinated seed beads.

Not a new pattern, you've already seen it here. I don't know where I first saw the pattern, or who is the designer, if you know please tell me so that I can give credits :)

Some steps forward on my first design

Still working on my first design... this weekend has been a beautiful one with all the family to the seaside, that means beach, sun, sea, ice creams and barbecue... but only little bit of time left for tatting and therefore testing my design! But I'll show you that little bit of progress I made on the bracelet:

Here there's the first two motifs in Lizbeth #20 Ecru with wood beads of 8mm... and this has been the issue: the pattern would work better with smaller beads, I guess 6mm should be fine.

But in my mind I had seen this pattern tatted in ecru thread and wood beads, and I only had home 8mm beads.. so to fit them I changed a little bit the stitch counting.

By the way, the pattern is customizable depending on the bead size you use, just need a change in number of ds in the chain over the bead. In the paper design the chain had 4 picots indeed... here in the picture you can see there are 6!


What do you think about it? I'd love to hear you sincere opinion!

Hope I'll be able to show it completed, and maybe even in some other colors and beads size!
Please be patient :)

Dolphins' family completed!

I don't have really much to show... except for the dolphins' family completed!

Now the group of three is ready to be sewn on baby sheets... I think I will add some embroidered waves and some water squirts! 

Concerning threads, the darkest one is in Lizbeth #20, while the two lighter ones are in MFM #20, Italian "Cordonetto" thread. I can say I really enjoyed tatting with this new thread, it's a little bit less twisted than lizbeth but not enough to affect the tatting joy! So, for italian tatters, if you find it buy it, I'll always be in love with Lizbeth but this is a good alternative and a big saving!

Jane Eborall's Dolphin Free Pattern

And now... my hands are finally free to work on my first jewelry pattern! Can't stay with you one minute more... I need to start the stitch count checking!

Have a nice crafting day!

Dolphins for my soon-to-be-born nephew

Today I completed a little dolphin for my sister-in-law incoming baby. It's the first of a group of three, in two different tones of blue, that are supposed to be sewed on a baby bedding sheets set, let's see it when it will be finished!

The pattern of course is a free one from Jane Eborall's blog, I just adore working on her animal patterns, they're absolutely perfect for babies' birth equipment!

As I was giving a hint on a previous post, to follow the pattern I had to face my first split chain! The pattern contains two split chain (they're optional, but the dolphin looks better with than without, go and see it here to visualize the difference), being my first try the first one was a mess, the second one was almost right!

If you look at the picture it really contains plenty of mistakes - what a pity... what was I thinking about while tatting? But if you don't know the pattern the overall impact is not that bad... I think I will keep it and not trow it away in the end!

I will tat the other two dolphins with a new thread I bought yesterday, from a brand I've never tried called MFM, made in Italy... there are a lot of nice colors! I only bought two balls so far, I want to see how it works first!

A super cute handmade gift from Poland

Today's post won't be about tatting, but as I anticipated I received a super cute handmade gift from a new friend from Poland. I met here through this new blogging thing, that's the beauty of it!


Look at it, it's sweet, isn't it?

Her name (she is a lady) is Lea! And she is so small she can stay in a hand!


You can have a look at the Mulinowe Misie Little Bear world here.