Tatting Tuesday - First project

Tatting Tuesday starts today, direct from my husband, Larry.

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For the first Tatting Tuesday post, here is my first completed tatting project.  Before this, I made a bunch of practice rings.  And knots.  Lots and lots of knots.

First Tatting Project - Christmas Tree

The pattern came from one of the books (Tatting, by TATSY/ Carol Winandy) that I got from my grandmother, who (at the age of 103!) got me started with tatting.  Each level of the tree is worked as a separate piece, joined as you work to the previous piece. Then a chain is made around the edge of the tree, up one side and down the other, and the trunk is made as another separate chain.  Finally, the sequin-and-bead ornaments are sewn on at the end.

As you can imagine, all these pieces with their starts and stops makes for a lot of threads to finish off at the end of the project (or you could do each one as you finish each piece, but who wants to do that? lol).  Seems like there should be a better way to work it as one piece, going back and forth as you work up the tree, but I haven't worked that out yet.

I finished this project last year before Christmas, and gave it to my grandmother as a present for getting me started.  It now resides in a place of honor on her wall, pinned where she can see it easily from her favorite chair.  She shows it off to anyone who will listen.  It gave me good experience with basic rings and chains, which came in handy on my next project.  More on that next week.

Larry