Hand dyed "Snowflake" is back

Hand dyed thread "Snowflake"

Just a coincidence that the weather around here brought the first snowfall the same week that I listed a batch of hand dyed thread "Snowflake" in my Etsy shop. (By the way, more "Poinsettia" will be the next batch.)

The snow covered the last of my late autumn flowers. This picture of purple "Sweet Alyssum" reminds me of the colors of spring crocus in the snow, so I will look forward to spring! (No worries in Wisconsin climate about Alyssum becoming invasive, as our cold winter freezes it out.)

I ran across this photo of my pattern of "Gear Earrings" and I decided to continue work on the pattern. I'm in the process of designing a variation with a tatted "gear" center in place of the metal one. This will make the pattern do-able for tatters who don't have access to, or don't want to use the metal gear finding. Hoping to finish this pattern before the end of 2022, otherwise it will be ready to list on Etsy in early 2023!

Single Shuttle Split Ring in a Dimpled Ring

 Just sharing this little reminder photo that I made for myself, hoping it may help someone else! 

The story behind this is: I knew that I had used Single Shuttle Split Ring (SSSR) at the bottom of the Layered Ring Christmas Tree pattern before, but it had been a long time since I made one. So I had forgotten how I'd done it and started the loop tatted part before tatting the dimpled part of the ring, and found out the hard way that the ring absolutely couldn't close! 

Pardon my dust, but this is not a tutorial on how to do a SSSR. Just a quickie note about how NOT to do it with a dimpled ring! (Also not a tutorial on how to do a dimpled ring.) ☺

The trick that I'm trying to show is to wait until after tatting the dimpled part of the ring before beginning the loop tatted section of the SSSR. In the photo above, you see the tail (yellow) where I stopped tatting over the ball thread tail, continued the dimpled part normally, and then started the loop tatting for the SSSR (white thread going to shuttle and the loop showing red and green).

I tossed my failed attempt into my sample box and started all over, finally managing to finish tatting a pair of sweet Christmas Tree earrings.