One each month 2025

 

Some creatives have been posting online about their projects completed in 2025, so here is my collection of one photo from each month.

January: Bobbin lace bookmark, pattern designed by Jenny Brandis.

February: Earrings in progress from "Tourmaline" hand dyed thread. (Actually, I don't remember finishing the pair, so I'll look for them!)

March: Heart Ukraine, pattern designed by FairyLaceAndMore

April: Commemorative shuttle displayed over my hand dyed thread, a happy memory from my trip to the Finger Lakes Tatting Conference for their 25th anniversary gathering.

May: Crocus in needle lace, my own design and a learning experience in trying needle lace.

June: Bag with tatted letters which accompanied me to several protest rallies. The tatting pattern for this alphabet style was designed by FairyLaceAndMore.

July: I opened an online shop on Goimagine, originally as a protest against some of Etsy's violations of their own policy guidelines, and now just enjoying having a 2nd shop with lower fees. I wish Goimagine would expand beyond the USA, maybe someday they will.

August: Shell earrings from a pattern I teach in a Craftsy class.

September: So exciting to see my own tatting displayed in Tiny Studio magazine, issue 28.

October: A lovely autumn day walking past all sorts of wild aster flowers inspired the dye batch "Asters".

November: My fiber art "Exuberance" was displayed in Artistonish magazine by Biafarin.

December: My free original pattern "One Small Candle" as a tree ornament.

A pretty good year

2 necklaces from the "Duchess" pattern in my "Boutique Tatting" book. The green is the original from 2008 in a size 10 thread of a brand I can no longer get. The black is Lizbeth size 10 tatted in 2024. I've learned the difference!

Bobbin lace Dragon designed by GaliciaBee. In 2024 I made progress in learning bobbin lace, which I had been curious about since the 1970s!

Peace symbol in tatting and wire wrapping. We always have hope! 

In 2024 I finally wrote up the pattern for this tatted belt, which I experimented with since 2014.

In 2024 I heard a concert at Carnegie Hall in New York City! 

Someone asked for a Menorah tatting pattern, so I designed this one, inspired by the branched candlestick by Elgiva Nicholls.

My watermelon pattern came next, either a symbol of summer picnics or support for Palestine.

My largest project in 2024 is the "Leaves of Lace Garland". Currently in round 1 of the jurying process for an exhibition. I'm hoping it gets in!

Brought out my pattern for a "Dissent Collar" again. Yes, I'm a liberal, as most artists are.

I love this bobbin lace pattern by GaliciaBee for which I used thread purchased from her Etsy shop!

Wishing you all a very happy, safe, and creative 2025!

 

Dragon and flower and towels and more

 

It was fun making this dragon bookmark designed by GaliciaBee! Her bobbin lace patterns are beginner friendly and are an excellent way to learn basic bobbin lace techniques.

Because I still need step-by-step guidance with bobbin lace, I also purchased GaliciaBee's Dragon 1 Video Course and followed her demonstration while making my dragon. 

Wow, wow, wow!!! I love the tatted flower pattern "Broosh Karen" from FairyLace. I chose colors that remind me of springtime for my brooch. It's a challenging pattern for advanced tatters. This project certainly provides plenty of practice with using a picot gauge. 

These colorful tea towels (aka bar mops, artsy rags) were all woven from the same warp. Finished after 2 years on the loom, since I don't weave very often.

An example showing 2 different brands of thread that were both labeled "size 10". Yes, both in the same pattern (my own "Duchess" necklace from "Boutique Tatting". The green was Hakelgarn brand, the black is Lizbeth. Well, fortunately the pattern still works with the larger thread, though I replaced the 2mm beads with large hole rondelles.

Finished a bracelet from my own "Heart Aglow" pattern in hand dyed thread. This item has been listed for sale in my Etsy shop here.

The picot comb, new eyeglasses, and metallic thread fire test

 

"Linnea" bracelet in progress

The large Clover picot comb comes in handy for measuring picots that will have beads placed over them. I'm not one to use a picot gauge much at all, but the Linnea pattern has a lot of picots that will be covered in size 8/0 seed beads in the next row. Too many for the paper clip method of holding beads on temporarily. I found that 2 bars of the comb made the picots the right size!

Clover picot comb in use.

Picture of me in my "studio" wearing my new eyeglasses.

New multi-focal glasses for me now that recovery from cataract surgery is done! Everything is so clear and bright now. Ordinary reading glasses work okay for close work like tatting, but I prefer to not have to put on glasses to see close, then having to take them off to see distance, so the multifocal glasses are perfect for me. My distance vision isn't quite 20/20 anyway so they have just the right amount of correction.

Recently I watched someone "melting" the ends of Liz Metallic thread and got overly excited about it. I do have some experience melting the ends of nylon macramé cord which works well and I had all sorts of dreams of easy finishing of Liz Metallic projects in the same manner. At the Tollway Tatters zoom meeting on Saturday I was offered some really helpful advice : experiment first on a practice piece! So I did and here's some photos.

Yes, that's a scary flame!

The side of the lighter extinguished the flame, but...

That candle-like type of flame is not what I've experienced with nylon cord. Also the knot did not seal, it came apart. So, I'll just stay with sewing the ends in to finish them, as with cotton thread.

I still love working with Liz Metallic thread! Here's my current bobbin lace project in progress using the colors of "Seafoam" and "Sand Dollar". The lace collar pattern is "Pareis" by Colette Varet. I've made this pattern before in Liz Metallic "Bright Gold".

Bobbin lace "Pareis" collar in progress.

Lilac Sea and Sea Green plus lace jewelry

 

Hand dyed "Lilac Sea" is a pretty sea green with purple. I took the dye for sea green, added a little bit more dye to make the color slightly richer, and did a few solid color skeins in size 20. Actually, I was trying to match a batch from years ago that I'm using in a current project, but the thread in my project is a little darker. So, next time I'll add a dash of black dye powder to darken it, hoping to not add too much! But the current skeins go very nicely with the "Lilac Sea".

A couple of pendants currently listed in my Etsy shop: the blue and white is from my free pattern "Star Capella" and the red is from a pattern in my book "Up and Tat 'Em". I added beads to the outer picots and a curled ring bail at the top, but otherwise it is the same as the "Five Petal Pendant" pattern.

Mélange earrings in Liz Metallic bright gold with red beads

"Loopy" earrings with Liz Metallic Iridescent and Lizbeth Christmas Delight size 20.

That's me wearing a bobbin lace collar made from Liz Metallic, with the sweater I knitted last year. ☺

Currently no eyeglasses since I recently had cataract surgery. I've been using reading glasses to see close work. Prescription bifocals will be next. I do notice that colors are a lot brighter now! ♥

Pattern for Victory necklace and more Snowflake

 

The story behind this necklace is that I saw a picture of a vintage tatted collar (I think it was from the 1940s) and decided to embellish it. I'm sure that I've seen other variations online based on the same collar pattern, but I think mine is different enough to call my own. Someone actually asked me to write up my version of the "Victory" pattern some time ago and I'm sure the message is somewhere in the vast array of messaging services we have these days but I couldn't find it. Anyway, the pattern is done!

The pattern is listed in my Etsy shop so you can read all the specifics there. Although I use size 20 thread to fit with the beads chosen, of course any size of thread can be used without any beads, the tatting will just turn out larger or smaller. 

In addition, I posted a video on YouTube demonstrating putting a bead in the center of a ring, showing how it's done in the pattern.

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New batch of  "Snowflake" hand dye thread just listed in my Etsy shop also.

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In bobbin lace, I finished my first try at a pattern I'd been wanting to figure out for years! It's from a French book Bijoux En Dentelle by Colette Varet and the pattern is called "Pareis". 

The original in the book was made from wire. I made mine using Liz Metallic size 20 and some Lizbeth size 20 thread. My collar has flaws but it's wearable! I learned a lot from working the pattern. 

I used Google translate to understand the little bit of written instructions that were in the book. The diagrammed pattern is excellent, but since it showed just half of the collar it needed to be photocopied from the book with the 2nd half reversed and put together to prepare a printed pattern. I think I enlarged my copy 104%. I'm pleased with the results and the Liz metallic is nice and stiff so it seems almost like wire. Now I have the pattern so I want to make another!

Scenic Stroll

 

The autumn trees with hand dyed thread that they inspired.

New batch of hand dyed thread, inspired by a stroll through the park in autumn. "Scenic Stroll" has been listed in my Etsy shop: yarnplayer.

Hand dyed thread "Scenic Stroll".

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I'm continuing to have fun with bobbin lace. Bookmarks are a good size for practicing and I find that I'm even doing more reading of actual printed books since I got going with this! 

My bookmark based on "Sampler 7" from the book "Torchon Lacemaking: A step-by-step guide"

I've started another bookmark in Size 20 cotton thread using GaliciaBee's pattern with Cathedral Window spiders. Starting the top I used a different technique to try it without the usual little picots and I'm attempting to add "footside" edges. I've done this pattern several times so now am feeling bold enough to experiment! 

Progressing on "Victory" pattern

 

An in-progress photo from my version of the "Victory" pattern. 

Slowly, I've been making progress on writing up my necklace version of the "Victory" pattern, based on a vintage collar pattern of the same name. The vintage pattern can be found in "The Tatter's Treasure Chest" published by Dover. My pattern varies slightly from the original collar and has beads added. Quite a while ago someone asked me to write up my version, so I'm finally getting around to it! Probably several weeks before I have it finished.

My necklace laid over the photo from "The Tatter's Treasure Chest"

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Bobbin lace ornament from a Jenny Brandis pattern

I messed around with a Jenny Brandis ornament pattern that is rather too advanced for me at this time! I like the results, but it bothers me that in order to keep the colored thread separate from the black I tied knots and cut, which seems wrong to me! Eventually I may try again.

Larkspur and a lace bookmark

 

New hand dyed thread batch "Larkspur" is now listed in my Etsy shop. 

The colors were inspired by a delphinium (aka larkspur) flower in my garden.

Obviously not as vibrant as the beautiful, intensely saturated colors in that plant, but I did my best. I ordered new dye colors for this batch, choosing "Intense Blue" and "Blue Violet" from the Pro Chemical and Dye website. I always use fiber reactive dyes for my cotton threads.

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A bobbin lace project completed! The Caneground Bookmark pattern by Jenny Brandis. I really needed her clear, step-by-step instructions and excellent video demonstrations for every little bit of the process to get this done. I guess you could call it a "bucket list" wish to be able to learn bobbin lace. Some of my size 40 hand dyed thread is in this.

Tatting with gears and bobbin lace progress

 

From my "High Gear" pattern

This pair of earrings was tatted from Liz Metallic thread size 20, color number 311. I made several short videos while tatting this pair. Three of them are on my TikTok profile, and I just added a one minute video demonstrating a self-closing mock ring around a bead to YouTube as a short. The earrings have been listed in my Etsy Shop, and the pattern "High Gear" has been there awhile.

There has been some progress in my new hobby of bobbin lace. The pattern that I'm working on now is by Jenny Brandis. She has many instructional videos on YouTube and a lovely Etsy shop as well.

My first attempt at a Jenny Brandis bobbin lace pattern

I've removed some of the pins in the lace already completed to better see how the colors are interacting with the pattern. Mind you, I was really clueless about what would happen with the colors when I started. They didn't stay neatly in place like the simpler pattern that I tried in my previous post. But, now that I can see the color mixing it's like a painting! I love it! 

I'm using mainly size 40 Lizbeth and some of my hand dyed thread. This is thicker than the recommended thread for the pattern, so I enlarged the pattern to 115% and it seems that's about right. Jenny Brandis includes a lot of helpful information with her patterns, so that's how I learned about resizing the pattern to fit the thread.

Okay, so now I also do bobbin lace

 

Pattern is by GaliciaBee

The pattern is by GaliciaBee and it's so pretty and good for beginners. She also does videos! 

My current work under the pins is from one of her beautiful thread kits. I added some Lizbeth metallic size 20 to it, and I'm loving the combination.

I still do tatting also! Currently I'm in the process of writing up my version of the "Victory" necklace. Eventually I hope to offer my version of the pattern in my Etsy shop.