What Have I Missed?

Hello, fellow tatters. I've been out of the loop for the most part since the first of the year. I've missed you all very much, and I'm terribly behind in following all of your creative ideas and techniques.  I'm working my way through your older posts to see some of the wonderful projects you've been working on. I'm also trying to update the Element-al Approach & Techniques documents, but I'm sure to leave something out. I'm adding muskaan's explorations into cluny variations, Diane's Snow Drops, Ninetta's Tuft picots, Usha's Dot Picots, and Carmin's Double Cluny. (Links will be included in the documents when I upload the updates.) Have I missed any other new techniques or applications?

I promise you some images in the next post. :)

Shuttle-tatted Interlocking Rings

If you've been admiring the patterns with interlocking rings, but avoid them because you don't want to use needletatting or fingertatting, you really must visit Kathy Niklewicz's blog post where she has begun a tutorial for making them with the shuttle. I'm sure you can't see the problems in my efforts in the photo below as well as I can, but I'm getting close thanks to Kathy. While the variegated thread shows up better in the picture, the larger white thread has been a better choice for my practice. I'm going to devote my tatting time to working on this technique this morning.

Okay, I'm back with a progress report. I carefully followed Kathy's pictures as I went. At photo 9, Kathy says to keep the shuttle thread behind the closing ring and the first ring as you close that second ring. I tried posting my shuttle through the second ring from front to back before closing the ring and it has made a tremendous difference in the appearance of my finished work. I'm going to go over to Kathy's blog to see if she does this routinely (I know some tatters do so). Below are images of my last effort from both sides.