Oops, What Challenge?

I started this blog way back when to participate in the 25 Motif Challenge.  The idea of the challenge was to encourage people to keep actively tatting and show 25 pieces of tatting made within a year.  After my first few times, I started assigning myself extra guidelines to make it more interesting though that has also made me more likely to miss the year's deadline when I got sidetracked.

My current personal challenge is to make motifs from vintage publications.  I got off to a good start, and then got distracted, as usual.  I'll have to go back and count motifs to see where I stand.

But anyway, I remembered to make a few, misplace them, and find them again.

These are from Priscilla Tatting Book No. 2, from 1915, one of my favorites.  These particular motifs are from a table cloth with many motifs around panels of linen.  This book is available for free download from the Antique Pattern Library, or for sale from Dover Publications under the name "Tatting Patterns by Julia Sanders."  You can also download from Georgia's Archive of Public Domain Tatting Books, but her version is a later edition which is much shorter.

So what am I up to lately?  Not a whole lot of tatting.  I've been seized with designer's block, so I've made lots of little false starts, cut them off and threw them away.  I've diverted lots of time into a foray into vegetable gardening.  I planted seeds! They came up!  Nothing will be ready to eat for a long time.  The ensuing combination of hope and patience will surely be character building.