My Neglected Challenge

I started this blog to participate in the 25 Motif Challenge, but I've really been neglecting my current challenge. Life has been a bit crazy this year.

My personal requirement this time around was to count only patterns from books, since I have so many books on the shelf I seldom use. I think I've made a few things and not blogged about them, so I'll have to stir through my stuff and see what I have. I know I've mailed some away without taking pictures :(

To get back on track, here is my new favorite bookmark, actually a piece of Edging No. 21 from Die Schiffchen-Spitzen by Eleonore Endrucks-Leichtenstern. Don't you love the block tatting? All the tricks I came up with for shaping block tatting for my critter patterns were just re-discoveries of techniques she used decades ago, and I have only just discovered her.

I have rewritten this pattern in the modern style to be shared soon in the Online Tatting Class.

So, since I can claim an edging posted last July as also part of the challenge, this brings me to number 5 of my challenge.

Sharing

I want to share with you my secret... my secret for finding books. How often have you looked in vain for an old book; how often have you bought one only to find it cheaper at another dealer? Yeah, me too. That's why I am grateful for Bookfinder.com. It searches all the book dealers and gives you the location with price and postage for all the copies it finds. I've used it for both new and used books. I've gotten Beeton's Book of Needlework for a dollar plus postage, and a Jasper Fforde novel available in the UK but not the US. If you keep your eyes open, you might be the first to see and grab a bargain like a Mary Konior for 10 pounds.

A few disclaimers: Bookfinder does not always calculate postage accurately (depends on how the seller's site is set up), so be careful at checkout. Copies in other countries may be listed, but there is no guarantee that they will ship to your country. Bookfinder searches book dealers, but not other shops, so you may find books (especially recently out of print or privately published) in tatting supply sites that Bookfinder doesn't see.

My most recent acquisition was this little gem from Germany:


Published in 1920, it is public domain, so I arranged through Georgia to share it through the "Archive of Tatting Books in Public Domain"

Here it is in two parts:


http://www.georgiaseitz.com/public/eleonoreendrucks-leichtensternschiffchenspitzenbook1920.pdf


http://www.georgiaseitz.com/public/endrucksinsertsdiagrams.pdf