Interlocking Ring Success (I think)

Success...!

Right??

Some Little Nothings

Sometimes I'm too busy to tat, to blog, or both...recently it's been kind of both, but (besides my birthday cupcake) I have been pegging away at a few projects:

This is an antique motif (Snowflake) from the most recent Handy Hands newsletter, tatted in size 20 and kind of fun to execute:

And here are my attempts to learn interlocking SCMR rings (a BIG thanks to all of you with online tutorials for these techniques!!!! SCMR: Jane E and the Shuttle Brothers; Interlocking Rings: Umi & Tsuru, Muskaan, Kathy and God's Kid) in anticipation of joining the challenge to make Jane McLellan's magnificent "Under an African Sky" doily...

Size 20 (ecru), then size 30 Cebelia

Here is my best so far (for the first time all the rings interlock correctly, but of course I ran out of thread on the VERY LAST RING!!!):

Oh well...more practice :)

I have also been plugging away at a flowery Jan Stawasz pattern, one which made the rounds of Facebook a few months ago (and unfortunately seems to be readily available online in illegal .jpgs...boo to that.) Buy the book, people, it's totally worth it!

I'm actually having a bit of trouble with this pattern--tension trouble. Le sigh. I thought I was past this!

So, what's a girl to do but wet the offending doily down and pin it into submission!?

Bad doily! Stop cupping!!!

So, we'll see...

I did double-check, and I'm pretty sure I executed the pattern correctly, so it's probably more of an "I tat too tightly" issue rather than a pattern problem...??

Two rows to go, and hopefully no more tension troubles. *Hopefully.*

Finally...here's a really cool tatting-esque shirt I saw the other day--I didn't buy it (but I kind of wish I had...it's really cool!) Maybe I can figure out the pattern and make myself something similar instead...maybe!

Eh, we'll see! :)

A "Ring" Around a Bead and Motifs 12 and 13...

 Well, I figured it out...kind of:

This is irrefutable proof that I was able to put a "ring" around a bead, something that had not made sense to me before viewing Marilee Rockley's excellent tutorial over this past weekend (and thanks to Jane's TIAS I already understood the concept of an SCMR, or this would have been MUCH harder!).

Now if I could just figure out how to do two in a row without leaving a bunch of space (gaposis, I hear it's called) in between, that would be great...I found another tutorial from Sharren that addresses that issue, so hopefully I can get it all figured out sooner rather than later...

Meanwhile, I decided to use yesterday afternoon as a "shuttle cleaning" day and made two small motifs:

Motif 12: Antique Pattern "Plain Square Medallion" from Tatting by Adeline Cordet -- Book 5

Motif 13: A shuttle-sized version of "Bookmark" adapted by Kendra Goodnow (I would have made it longer, but this was all the thread I had left on my shuttle!)

 I now have six (6!!) empty shuttles! Amazing. I haven't had that much free real estate for quite some time...I guess I'd better get back to work filling them again! :)

I'll leave you with a look at last night's beautiful sunset from our new view of the bridge.