No activity for a while

As I shall be in hospital having surgery to my spine (9th one), I shall be away from my computer for a while. I expect it many be as much a 3 weeks, but you can be sure that I will post as soon as I can!

Tiara motifs

In a previous post I told you about our future daughter-in-law being diagnosed with breast cancer. Well, it was supposed to be good news, as there was no lymph involvement, and she would only have to have radiotherapy after the lump was removed. But it now turns out that she is HER2+, and for those who do not not understand what this means (which I didn't until recently) it is not good news! HER2+ means that she has the most agressive form of cancer and therefore will have to have the most aggressive form of treatment! Chemo, radiotherapy and Herceptin....the whole kit and kaboodle!

She had been growing her hair for the wedding, Sept 4 2010, but of course, will now loose all her hair. She had it cut short last week so that loosing it would not be so traumatic! It looks fantastic and she is so pleased, because by the time the wedding comes round her hair will have grown to this length at least. We have all assured her that we think it suits her better than when it was longer! And....hand on heart.....we all really mean this! It suits the shape of her face so well - it gives her that urchin look!

Now that I've got all that off my chest, the reason for the tiara motifs is this. I was always going to make DIL's tiara anyway, so I thought, to cheer her (and myself) up a bit I would make a start on the design. The pictures show my doodles so far. They are a long way from the finished article - I may not use anything I have done so far! LOL - but any feedback/comments/suggestions from my valued tatting friends and followers would be most welcome. My tentative idea is to make a larger motif for the centre, with smaller motifs on either side, and maybe even smaller again, petering out. I must mention that DIL is only small with a cute little face, so the whole thing has to be on the smaller side. When I get the final design right, I shall be using real crystals, so that it sparkles - it will also match in with the sparkles on her wedding dress. I have several shapes of crystal including faceted droppers. My personal favourite motif, so far, is the centre white one in the top row, but I also love to use clunies. Oh what a wonderful dilemma, I'm loving every moment of it, especially because of the reason that I am doing it! It was always going to be a pleasure, but now its magnitude is a thousand fold!

New tatting demo for absolute beginners

I have put a link in my video section, on the right side bar of my blog, to a demo which is a shortened version of my latest video. It is specifically for people wanting to learn how to do the double stitch with the shuttle, plus a little extra! The longer version can be obtained on computer disc, email me if you are interested.

Revised square motif

I wasn't exactly thrilled with the way the square motifs were joining together when I used the size 20 Lisbeth thread and so have adjusted the pattern slightly to make it lie properly. The picture on the left is the original and the one on the right is the new variation. Can you spot the difference? I'm sure you'll all agree with me that it looks a lot better!