Pearl Butterfly

 Fox is right, this is tortuous tatting! You have to keep your wits about you. I considered doing the wings separately and then joining them onto a body, but in the end went with doing them in one pass, with no body.  That was because I could, and because I think it would've been difficult to get the angle of the wings right. Perhaps I should do the two sides separately? That's a possibility.

Day 10

In real life, the colour of the wheels matches better with the mustard of Jess's key lime raspberry parfait thread. I thought I was very clever to pick up one of the colours like that, but on my computer it looks quite different! Oh well.....

Pearl Tatting

I've done pearl tatting before, but it wasn't until I saw Iris Niebach's recent post that I realised it could be used for more than a narrow braid. Rings can be thrown off the braid in both directions. I've just seen that Gunhild has been inspired by Iris too. Directions for doing pearl tatting can be found on Jane Eborall's technique page here. I made a loop at the beginning of the centre thread on the motif above, so that I could close it like a Self closing mock ring.

A frog and a leaf

 A lady in town is interested in hooded towels. But she wants them much smaller than the ones I made before. I bought a 'bath sheet' and cut it in half. I made a frog to begin with,simplifying the original pattern because the hood is much smaller. What to do with the other half? A leaf is green. I appliqued a flower onto the hood and then machine embroidered lines on the towel to simulate the veins of a leaf. Voila.

Day 9

 Phew. I really didn't want to have to add in more thread. Luckily I just made it, by finger tatting the last 2 sections. Just as well the Catherine Wheel join uses the 'ball' thread. Now I must hide the ends.

Pay Attention!

 I was so excited about getting day 8 of the TIAS done that I twisted a picot and joined the last split ring in entirely the wrong place! Oops. Thank goodness I now know how to open split rings, so I could just undo the ring and join correctly. No, I don't know what it is, but below is day 8 done correctly  (I hope).

Folded Rings

Thanks to Jon Yusoff  for pointing the way to Martha Ess's tutorial about folded rings. I accepted my next challenge! I've changed direction in chains before, for instance in Victat's rose pattern, but I didn't realise it could be done in rings too. Clever.