A Gift and a New Challenge

My friend Ridgewoman recently surprised me with a gift of this book, Spitzen Ideen by Susanne Schwenke. Since many of the patterns have block tatting, she said it made her think of me. It is is a delightful little book and I am very grateful to have it.

It is a German book, but it is very easy to understand. There are clear diagrams for each pattern, and there is a German/English glossary of tatting terms used in the patterns, which are written short hand style. It has edgings and insertions, snowflakes, and Easter eggs.

This is my favorite pattern, which came out around 5 inches diameter in size 30 thread.

I made this snowflake next, chosen for the pretty block tatting in the design. I an sure I will be making more designs from this book in the future.

On another note, most of you are probably aware of the 25 Motif Challenge. Sharon began this a few years ago as a way to encourage tatters to see if they could finish 25 pieces in a year. She and her team post pictures of everyone's progress. Viewing that blog is always interesting, and has led me to meeting new people and learning of patterns, threads, and books that I "must" have. The basic guidelines are here. She lets each person define what a motif may be, which has ranged from a single earring to a large doily. Some participants choose to further refine their own challenge, for example, to make 25 animals or snowflakes. I am ready to begin again, and for this time around I will count only motifs made from books. I have some new books and some old ones that have been neglected too long. Don't worry, I'll still be making fun stuff from online patterns, and designing some of my own, but only patterns from books will count toward my challenge, to make it more, er, challenging. So these will be the first two for the new challenge.