Tat's Heaven

I enjoyed making this snowflake but not so sure I am going to actually complete this challenge.  I don't understand how some of the future ones are tatted so might have to send a few e.mails to Jane and shout for help! Also I thought you might like to see the winning scarecrow that two children made it is The BFG.  It was 100 years this month that Roald Dahl was born and in this country we are celebrating this important centenary of a very famous British children's author.   

This snowflake is not very inspiring either to make or to look at, but then it had a hard act to follow after the third day!     It could have also done with a better press but was in a hurry. So just to add a little more interest here is a picture of one of Saturday's scarecrows.  A lace maker, I did not take this photograph myself, too busy unfortunately.  If I had would have managed a closer picture of her lace making.   She was so cleverly made sitting in church calming creating her lace. Now back to the snowflakes!

Now this is the only snowflake that I really wanted to make from the book, it was hugely popular at one time on blogs and I thought it would be really hard to tat, but it wasn't! As you can see I have chosen to go for a little colour as it would be so boring for me if I tatted every snowflake in white. The Scarecrow Festival is almost here and the weather looks fine for Saturday, no more snowflakes for a few days...........................

The Second Day of December So far the challenge is going well, although have to admit the 'First Day' took a bit of working out, forgot to mention that in my last blog post.  This one though made me have yet another go at a split chain.  I am not fond of split chains as they take so long to achieve, but my determination to crack on with this challenge seemed to work and I not only tatted one snowflake but two.  The first one was using 20 thread but I had difficulty in getting it to lie flat, pressing helped but not completely happy with the result, plus I seemed to get the count of picots on the last round a bit wrong.      So made it again in 40 and much happier with the result. I am at the moment preparing for a Scarecrow Festival this weekend, this is what someone has kindly knitted for the day.   She has actually made 40 of these miniature scarecrows, but here are just three hanging on the church door.  

I am a bit naughty when it comes to tatting new patterns, I prefer them to be easy to understand with perfect results every time.  A few years ago I bought Lene Bjørn's Snowflakes in Tatting but could not motivate myself to tat any of them, partly because I do prefer patterns to be written out and not visual.    But this last week I decided that I would tat every one of the snowflakes and make sure they were ready for Christmas.  Now it was going to be impossible to start on the first day of December as I know I would not have the time or discipline to achieve one every day, so have started early with the hope that by Christmas Day I will have completed 24. So I present 'The First Day of December' in September! I did mention that parts of our old kitchen were recycled to make furniture for the house. Here is an example.  Just focus on the four drawer unit on the left of the picture and this is what it looks like now. I am not completely happy with the drawer kn...