Black Bedazzled Butterfly tatted necklace

The necklace that I've been working on is done! The pattern is from my Boutique Tatting book. I did some extra embellishing on this one, adding tatted connectors to the neck chain and making the antennae a bit more fancy, but otherwise it is just as written in the book. The thread in this model is Lizbeth size 20, the beads are Swarovski pearls sizes 4mm and 6mm, and the seed beads around the outer edge are size 11/0.

Here's a short video showing the outer chain tatting in progress, with lock joins and bead picots.



Note to experienced tatters: after trying the lock joins both ways (pulling UP through the picot, or DOWN through the picot) I decided that the up join worked best for this design element. The reason: the up join tends to make the edging turn slightly upwards, which is what I want for the front of the necklace. A detail that most people won't notice, but that is just how it is with details, we do them to please ourselves, don't we :-)

Other news: someone asked if I had thread dyed in grey to crimson like my I.D. photo. Well, at the time I didn't (the photo effect was created digitally) but, I do now! At least until it gets scooped up by Etsy shoppers!