40th Wedding Anniversary

Tomorrow, 31st August, is the 40th wedding anniversary of DH and me. Every year he has sent me a beautiful bouquet of flowers, but being on a Sunday this year, I have received them a day earlier. They are glorious, and will be more so as the days go by as there are a number of unopened deep red rosebuds. Looking at our wedding photos and then in the mirror, the years have certainly left their mark, but we have a son and a daughter and three lovely grandchildren, so we are blessed. How quickly 40 years go!

I have been tatting steadily through the Olympics (the paras start on 6th September!) but I am on the outer edges of my centre, and there is not a lot of progress to show. Better that I wait till the next lot of motifs is finished. I like doing large pieces, but this one seems to be taking forever, possibly because I have this week received my copy of Jon's Snowflake Collection, and I'm itching to get into doing some of them.

Olympic Viewing Project

Rather than commence any new projects for "Tatting Olympics", I opted to press on with my current project.

However, the on/off nature of my concentration took its toll, and I had to snip off
a whole row of work. It was only in a small section, so theoretically I could have
got away with it by just re-doing these small parts, but it would have meant 8 x starts/ends to hide, so I opted to snip the lot. I am back on track again, and hope
to be close to the end of the project at the end of the Olympics. No more mistakes, though!

Sunflower Collar & Cuffs

The Sunflower Collar & Cuffs is from the DMC book
"Tatting for Today".

Scalloped Tablecloth Edging

This partly embroidered tablecloth (52" or 132 cm square) was given
to me. I had fun tatting the edging, but now the embroidery needs
to be done

Milo the Snugglepuss

I have been stalking Milo with the camera hoping to get a better pic, but no
luck, so I will have to go with what I already have. Milo arrived at our place
about 2 years ago, stray, and very, very thin; very suspicious, and we think
abused by someone. All attempts by us and the ranger to trap Milo were unsucessful. We caught other cats from the area, but not Milo, who absolutely
refused to come anywhere near the cage once he saw other cats trapped.

Finally admitting defeat, and refusing to use starvation as a means of
entrapment, we decided to let Milo stay. From a semi-feral cat upon arrival,
Milo almost runs the place! Everything is on his terms! I may not pick him up
or put him on my lap, but he can hop on whenever he likes - so he thinks. I
have learned to stare fixedly at my work, and say firmly "No! Mummy's tatting!"

This week that is working. The minute I look into those blue eyes, that is taken

as permission to hop up - or is it that he hypnotises me? I know one thing - shuttles, thread, lace and cats don't mix!

Doiley Project Progress

It's a good feeling when a stage of a project is completed.

Although I tried to concentrate really hard, there was

still much cutting off of motifs joined in the wrong place!

This piece is destined for one of the shows, not to win

(there are infinitely better tatters in our Guild), but to

support the section, which will be cancelled if there are

not enough entries. Hopefully, the tatting bug will be

buzzing around somewhere, and there will also be new

tatters!

Motif Mat

The pattern for this mat was in a country newspaper

and the photo was very indistinct. I like to have a

nice clear photo to assure myself that I am going

o.k., so this one was the first one I had worked

"blind" so to speak. It was interesting to see what

the finished effect would be.