Button Ornament

I made this ornament years ago, and I honestly can't remember if this is a pattern I came up with, or if I got it from somewhere else. Does this look familiar to anyone?

Easter Egg

I designed this a couple year ago, and it cups too much. I have to retry with different stitch counts, but for now, stiffened and blocked into submission, it doesn't look too bad. For obvious reasons, no pattern yet,

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.