Tat Along - one complete

I finished the first of my efforts at the Tat Along Project. This is the one with the Flora #213 flowers. The thread looks purple in some light, rather blue in others. I ran into the same problem that many others did as I was tatting the leaves and adding the flowers. I haven't read enough of the other blog posts about it to know how others have resolved the issue. I had already decided that if I saw the same spacing issue developing for me, I would rearrange the elements into a triangle--leaves to the center, flowers to the outside. Here is what it looks like. I confess I flipped the final flower motif before making the final join, but this one is for me and I will enjoy using it anyway. It will sit on my desk at work. (By the way, the dark spots are just water. It wasn't quite dry, but I wanted to get this post done before other events of the day crowded it out of my priority list.)

Let me say that I love the two motifs, leaf and flower, that Ruth Scharf designed for this pattern. The flower was quick and easy to tat. While the leaf pattern was a bit harder because of the need to pay close attention to stitch counts as you went, it was still a pleasure to tat and looks terrific. I will definitely use it again. In fact, I have two more sets of blooms that need leaves!

The problem seems to me to be where the leaves join to each other. If I understand Ruth's instructions correctly, they are to join at the base. Adding a large picot to the base of the first leaf that could be used to join the remaining leaves might help, but, because of the shape of my leaves, I would have exposed picot thread between the leaves. I'm thinking that with the next effort I might add another 2-2 to that last round to let me move the larger parts of the leaf further from the join. I'll make that first leaf's picot larger to accommodate the joining of the other leaves. I'm also going to try to keep my joins looser. The leaves in Ruth's picture look longer and much less dense than mine.

I'm going to try to finish my TIAS this afternoon before I start my next effort at the Tat Along. I saw that goats are still arriving so I don't feel quite so bad about finishing late.

Happy Tatting, Everyone. Thanks for reading my ramblings.