We are back from our big road trip - we drove from Idaho to Yellowstone to South Dakota (Mt. Rushmore, Badlands NP, Devil's Tower...) and then across the middle of the country to Amish country, New York, DC, the Outer Banks, and then back home via the Blue Ridge Mountains and the St. Louis Arch. A week later, we left to travel to the other coast - Seattle and the Olympic Peninsula.

So here are pictures from the two opposite coasts:

Rialto Beach in Northwestern Washington, and Cape Hatteras lighthouse on the Outer Banks, North Carolina.

Fly doodle

Goofy little doodle; you need one black bead and a remnant of thread. Slide bead onto thread, position on ring thread.

Ring 1:   3 --- 1 --- 3 , slide bead into place (beaded picot), 3 --- 1 --- 3, close ring.

Ring 2: 20 ds, close ring; tie bases together, finish off.

--- = long picot for the wings

In other news, I am getting ready for the most driving of my life - we are taking a mother-daughter cross country road trip! All the way from Idaho to New York, DC,  the Atlantic Coast, and then back home. I am mighty nervous - I hope our car holds out!

I walked out of the bedroom in the dark and didn't notice until I had made it down two sets of stairs that I was trailing tatting thread. I think I got to re-roll about half a mile of thread! :0)

First earring experiment went dreadfully wrong. I'll try again tomorrow.

Buttonfly

You will need three buttons. Start with upper wings. jtb=joint to button, SLT=shoe lace trick. The joining picots between rings on the wings around the buttons can be adjusted - use larger picots for a larger button, small picots for a small button, to keep the wing from cupping.

R 3-3jtb3-3, ch 3-3-3, R 3j3-3, ch 3-3-3
*R3j3jtb3-3, ch 3-3-3, R 3j3-3, ch 3-3-3* repeat
R 3j3jtb3-3, ch 3-3-3, R 3j3j3, ch 3-3-3, join to base of 1st ring
CH 3 jtb, ch5-2-9, slt
R 3-3-3, ch 3-3-3
*R 3j3-3, Ch 3j3j3 (joins are to upper wing) *R 3j3-3, Ch 3-3-3* repeat 2 more times.
R 3j3j3 - one half is finished
Ch 5
R 3-3-3, ch 3-3-3
* R 3j3-3, ch 3-3-3* repeat 2 more times.
R 3j3-3, ch 3-3-3, R 3j3j3, SLT
ch 9j2j5jtb3
R 3-3jtb3-3, ch 3-3-3 R 3j3-3, ch 3-3-3
* R 3j3jtb3-3, ch 3-3-3, R 3j3-3, ch 3-3-3* repeat
R 3j3jtb3-3, ch 3j3j3 (to lower wing), R 3j3j3, ch 3-3-3, tie into base of first ring of upper wing, hide ends.

Antenna:
R 8, Ch however long you want the antenna to be :-), jtb3jtb, ch, R 8, hide ends.

Spider!

Tatted spider - mine was tatted with Turkish Simli thread (black with silver metallic). You will need a 4-hole button.


Wind one shuttle and ball using CTM.

Head:
R 9 ds
Body:
//ch2 then make a really, really long picot - about two feet or so (probably don't need quite that long, but better safe than sorry!). Repeat 3 more times (4 really long picots), ch2.//
Shuttle join to any hole on button.

Chain enough ds to fit around 1/4 of button loosely (mine took 12). Shuttle join to next button hole. Repeat all the way around button, shuttle join last chain to first join.
Repeat section between //
Join to base of 1st ring.

Now cut each of the long picots about 1/2 up the right side of the picot, so you have a shorter end on the right and a longer end on the left. These will become your new 'shuttle and ball threads' (the shorter end is the "shuttle"). Fingertat a chain of 20 ds. Knot the ends and cut off, leaving a bit of thread for "claws". Repeat with each picot to make the 8 legs.

Stiffen and arrange the legs to look "spidery".

                                Basic Heart:

Heart with top:

This is a heart with a celtic style top.

Basic Heart:
R 9-3-3-9, ch 3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3 (eleven picots)
R 9j3j3-9, ch 3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3 (10 picots)
R 9j3j3-9, repeat first chain (eleven picots)
R 9j3j3j9.

ch 4-4-4-4, R 3-2j(to second picot)2-3, ch 3-3
***R 3j(to last ring)2j (to next picot)2-3, ch 3-3*** repeat *** 6 more times.
R 3j2j2-3, skip next two picots on chains, R 3j2j2-3, ch 3-3. Repeat *** 2 times.
R 3j2j2-3, ch 3-3-3-3 (tip of heart)
repeat *** 3 times
R 3j2j2-3, skip next two picots on chains, R 3j2j2-3, ch 3-3
repeat *** 7 times
R 3j2j2-3, ch 4-4j(to opposite chain)4-4, tie into base of center ring.



Tatting the top:

clover: R 3-3-3-3-3-3 (five picots), R 3j3-3-3-3-3-3-3 (seven), R 3j3-3-3-3-3
ch 12 R 3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3 (seven picots) ch 12
clover: R 3-3-3-3-3-3 (five picots), R 3j3-3-3-3-3-3-3 (seven), R 3j3-3-3-3-3
ch 7. At this point, thread the 3 ring elements through the three spaces at the top of the heart, back to front (see picture). Keep working chain (7 ds) in the back. Bring the working chain up over the top of the heart, and shuttle join (sj) to the 2nd picot on the clover leaf.
ch 3-3-3, sj to 4th picot on clover leaf. ch 3, sj to next open picot.
ch 3-3-3-3-3, sj to last picot of middle ring of clover.
ch 3, sj to next picot on third ring of clover.
ch 3. sj to 2nd picot of middle ring.
ch 3-3-3-3-3, sj to 6th picot of middle ring.
ch 3, sj to last open picot of next clover ring.
ch 3 sj to next open picot on middle clover ring.
ch 3-3-3-3-3, sj to last open picot on middle clover ring
ch 3, sj to next open picot on last clover ring.
ch 3-3-3, sj to second-to-last picot on clover leaf, ch7, bring chain back over the top to the back of the heart, join to base of clover, do not cut thread
For Stem:
ch 7, sj to joining picot between top center chains of the red heart.
ch 28, sj to same picot, ch 7, tie into base of beginning clover.

Hope you can make sense of the directions!

Ambitatterous did a fabulous version with the top in two colors! Check it out!

Peacock heart

R=ring, - =picot, ch=chain, j=shuttle join, J=regular join


Center Clover: R 6-4-4-6, R6J6-6-6,R 6J4-4-6
ch 6-6-6-6, j middle picot first ring, ch 6-6,
j middle picot 2nd ring, ch 4-4, j to same picot, chain 6-6,
j to middle picot of last ring, chain 6-6-6-6 join to base of clover.
2nd round (can be done without cutting thread if you leave some space to tie into at the end):
ch2-2-2-2 j 2-2-2-2 j 2-2-2-2 j 2-2-2-2-2-2-2 j 2-2-2-2,j to bottom picot,
chain 2J2-2-2-2-2,j to same picot,
ch 2J2-2-2 j 2-2-2-2-2-2-2 j 2-2-2-2 j 2-2-2-2 j 2-2-2-2,
Tie to base of clover.

This was done in Victoria Clayton's hand-dyed silk perle, which sadly isn't available in a lot of colors any more.

Tattingchic  made some beautiful examples of this one!
 Tatskool made a whole bouquet of them!