"Parakeet"

More vibrant than pastel, these bright greens to medium blue are similar to the coloring of some parakeets. Color idea suggested by the president of the Lighthouse Lacers guild, Sue Anna.

My start on "Boomerang" earrings from the new HDT is seen in the photo above. The boomerang pattern is found in "Marilee's Beaded Tatting Finery" book. Georgia Seitz wrote a very nice review at BellaOnline Tatting. I feel so honored!

By the way, if anyone wants to learn how to shuttle tat in the scenic vacation area of Mineral Point, WI area on May 31st, there are still openings in my Beginning Shuttle Tatting Workshop at Shake Rag Alley, but the class is filling up fast. Register on the Shake Rag Alley website.

Hair clips, feathers, boomerangs

 Currently I'm in a hair clip frenzy. First off, I should mention that the flower design for these hair clips is NOT in any of my books. But, similar 3D tatted flower patterns are pretty common on the Internet, so you don't have to wait to get started on your own tatted flowers, should seeing this photo awaken a frenzy within you as well :) 

The flowers nearest the front are in my own hand dyed from the "Roses" batch, the ones to the left are in Lizbeth #100, and the yellow that I've started in the back is Lizbeth #180, all are size 10.

 Eventually this pair of tatted yellow feather earrings will be done! The feather pattern IS in my latest book, "Marilee's Beaded Tatting Finery", although this yellow pair in progress is an elongated version of the book's pattern.

The boomerang pattern is in the book as well. This is a recently completed pair of earrings that's listed in my Etsy Shop.

Hand dyed thread is always on my to-do list, and since I will be moving on to shamrocks very soon, I expect that some greens will be needed!

Event coming up

This coming weekend I'll have a booth at the Discovery World Holiday Artisan Market, details on the flyer above.

I'm frantically working away at more tatted jewelry, such as these boomerang earrings in progress. I also have a couple of hand dyed thread batches in the works, and I'll be selling my books there, too.

If you're in the area at the time, do stop by. It's a fun event, and the Discovery World Museum is amazing to see!

Psychedelic Soft Boomerang tatted earrings

Usually I shy away from multicolored threads when I want the unusual shape of the item to be the main focus, but I'm pleased with how these turned out. I used my hand dyed "Summer Trail" to make them.

New triangle design in progress

The "amoeba boomerang" design in the mid century modern glass (shown in the photo) is the inspiration. I've spent many hours trying to puzzle out how to tat it! Completely nutty idea, I know - tatting doesn't like streamlined shapes, but I'm imposing my will on it :-)

I do think it's starting to shape up into something interesting. Just needs a little tweaking to add stability. I used Catherine Wheel joins to get the smooth curves in the chain. Yes, I know that I need to make a tutorial on how I"m doing those joins, and I do plan to...in the future.

Student work

By the way, the first tatting class series that I taught at Discovery World is completed. Here's a photo of some of the things the students tatted. The bunny is from a free pattern at Be-stitched.com.
They learned to shuttle tat rings, chains, joins, lock joins, floating rings using 2nd shuttle, and in the 4th session they even learned split rings! I am so proud of them! More classes will be scheduled in the future, so if you happen to live in the Milwaukee, Wisconsin area call the gift shop at 414-765-8770 to let them know you'd like to put your name on the waiting list for tatting classes. You'll then be notified when a class is scheduled.

Boomerang earrings

These are fun, but fiddly to make. I want to do more designs with boomerangs, but for right now, I've got to hand dye more thread. The shelves are going empty! That's a good sign of a bright future, though.