Catriona

It was my Mum's Birthday yesterday and I was in a panic to finish her present as I had to take a brake for a week or two from tatting because of a swollen finger.

It is yet another Portrait necklace but this time it is in dark purple and instead of using 3mm beads on the chains of the rounds, I used gorgeous Swarovski 10mm Heliotrope heart pendents which are purple but with a blue hue that I don't think these photos do justice.

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I have finished my first shuttle tatted piece. I made another necklace based on the Portrait pattern from the tatters Treasure Chest book for my Aunt.

Can anyone guess which of the two in needle tatted and which is shuttle tatted (bare in mind this is my first finished item with the shuttle and I have been needle tatting for around 6 months now)?

http://flic.kr/p/9PRp5T

here is a close up of each...
http://flic.kr/p/9PRp2M
http://flic.kr/p/9PUgD3 ...

I first picked up the tatting needle in February. When I told my Mum about it she told me she had been given two old shuttles from a lady at Church but she had never figured out how to use them.

So the past 3 weekends when i've visited I had tried to figure out how to actually use them. Then this past sunday I FINALLY managed to do more than 1 double stitch.

So never doing anything by half I bought by first shuttle. I decided to get an Aero shuttle because I found ...

So I thought I would take advantage of my new skill and save sey by making gifts for my nearest and dearest. Although it turns out that when you get into it, making nice tatted pieces isn't as cheap as you might think.

I started with my sister's birthday. She has seen the choker I designed and the slave bracelets I made from TotusMels design and she decided she would like them for her Birthday, with the intention of wearing them at her Anime convention this summer.

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So I discovered tatting several months ago when I stumbled upon TotusMel's Instructables pattern for her lovely mask.. I never did anything about it and then randomly in the new year I remembered the mask and had a look at it again and thought I would like to learn how to do it.

Since it was my birthday coming up and I also had a trip to london which would entail a LOT of sitting about (my other half was getting a large tattoo by his favorite artist) i thought I would buy a book, ...