Tatting and Round Robins

My Bible story round robin has been framed! When my piece came back to me I thought seriously about what I wanted to add as I had sent it out nekkid. I had a shell necklace that had been given to me and I don't really wear necklaces so thought this would be a good one to take apart and use some of the shells. I added 5 shells at the "seaweed" in the lower right hand corner and I must say that trying to figure out how to add them posed a bit of a problem. As even my #12 quilting needle would not go through I decided to try some of my hubby's fishing line but couldn't remember where it was so I took a piece of my "SuperFloss" which worked beautifully. The only problem there was I had to unthread and rethread my needle each time I entered the fabric. Voila! Finished product and one happy camper!

Here is a piece of two-toned tatting that I've entered into my 25 motif challenge on my HBT group. I used #50 DMC Cordonet in both ecru (for the rings) and white (for the chains). Using these colors together gives a very rich look to the finished piece. This pattern is typically used for insertion but I plan on using it on my crazy quilting possibly as a seam embellishment but perhaps as a fabric enhancement instead. I'll play with it for a while before deciding.

One of my favorite butterfly patterns is shown two ways and is also entered in my 25 motif challenge. The original pattern calls for a bead or pearl for the center but I have made it also without the bead/pearl to show my beginner tatting students that a successful piece may be worked with as well as without beads. These butterflies were tatted with #30 crochet cotton.

My No.1 Son often comes across vintage threads as he shops for me on e-bay and the mauve butterfly was stitched with Belding Bros. & Co. Special Twist Tatting Silk ...... a dream of a thread to work with. The finished butterfly is about 3/4" minus antennae. It almost gets lost between the fingers.

A swap going on in my CQ4Newbies group is the Food Fight and my block - Grandma's Pumpkin Pie - is finished ready to be mailed this week. Some of the seam embellishments and fabric stitchings don't really show up here and you can barely see my tatted pumpkins but it does look nice "in the flesh". I used several ideas from Carole Samples' Treasury Of Crazy Quilt Stitches. I'm really getting into that book more and more.

I'm doing a round robin with a few special friends that are not into crazy quilting. It is a band sampler round robin. Although the exquisiteness (is that a word?) of the band doesn't really show here I found it pure pleasure to stitch my bit.

It is hard to tell exactly what I stitched but I started with a row of back stitch and then two rows of herringbone with a squared Palestrina Knot within the formed diamond area and finished the band with another row of backstitch. The middle row used a long arm insertion stitch which I reduced so that the star shape would be more pronounced and stitched this band with Wildflowers 'Sunset'. The top band is a modified version of one of the patterns found in Carole Samples book. I was having so much fun with this sampler that I didn't want to stop and hope my Aussie friend Christine likes what I added.

After finishing the Bible round robin I jumped right in onto another round robin with that group. This one is a basket rr and the owner put a crocheted basket in the center, so I added a couple of flowers figuring the rest of the group would like to add some to that basket. I also added a tatted basket of flowers on the gold fabric. For the black segment I buttonhole stitched around the imprinted flowers, added outline stems , some butterfly charms and sent it on its way.

The very first Yahoo group I joined was the Crazy Quilting Hearts group and I have not made hearts to swap for quite a few months ..... really not since my hubby's death .... but felt the urge to get back to that wonderfully supportive group. I don't usually post the hearts on my blog but because a couple of them included tatting I decided to share the photos. And also more of Carole Samples seam treatments.

My focus here, besides the tatting is a counted cross-stitch violet, buds and greenery. I also dyed the fan and used more of Carole's seam treatments.

Some more tatting here and the medallion is from Carole's book.