Starting Them Right

Today was the first day of summer vacation for my grandson. Since I semi-retired last summer, I'm looking forward to lots of time with him and his sister this summer. I've been hearing for months that he wants to learn to tat, so we started with finger tatting today. I worked the left hand and he worked the right hand. He caught on to his part quickly. We made his first ring.

Little sister also wanted in on the fun. In fact, she has been very interested in my tatting lately. So here she is playing with some thread and one of my Tatsy shuttles. 

I've been battling a migraine since early afternoon so I'm working in near darkness this evening. Since that is not enough light for good photos, there won't be any visual updates on my tatting projects today. I've already trashed the lasted project which was an expanded version of Mary Konior's Spinning Wheel Glass Mat. I've seen a couple of successful expansions of the pattern to twice it's size by increasing the number of rings per round, but I discovered that there is a definite limit to how far one can take that idea. I tried increasing the number of rings by five which was a disaster. It circles back around on itself too much. If I had thought that out well before I started tatting, I would have realized it without putting the idea in thread. I don't think very quickly or clearly before or during a migraine, so I'm blaming it all on the headache. 

A New Tatter

What is the best thing to do when one finds oneself on a bus full of teenagers headed to a concert? Tat, of course! I carried along those shuttles that needed to be emptied and started making butterflies and other small items as soon as the wheels started rolling. One of the other moms had watched her grandmother tat and wanted to learn, but had never been able to get it right. I handed her the shuttle with the varigated Manuela size 10 and had her flipping her knots in no time. She was making some pretty picoted rings when she gave up the shuttle. The concert was great, too!