Christmas Ornament

This festive crochet covered ball is one of two that I made and gave to my friend Jan. 

I have just 2 more items to finish and this year's ornaments and gifts will be completed. I plan to have everything done this weekend and will then have over 2 weeks to enjoy the sights and sounds of this Christmas season. 

Tatted Ornaments

Today I finished the last of a set of Christmas ornaments I've been working on. The large ornaments are made with lots and lots of beads using the pattern: 

Tatted Beaded Ornament which was published by Be-stitched. I used size 40 Lizbeth thread for these. 

The smaller ornaments are snowflakes that I already had and were awaiting starching. Instead of starching, I chose to put them on a ball. 

The ornaments are displayed on my coffee table and make a pretty Christmas arrangement. I used alphabet and number beads to indicate the year and the initials of the individual who will be receiving these. The beads hang on the side of the large ornaments and from the bottom of the small ones. That's why the small balls are slanted. They don't sit straight with the beads on the bottom as the lid they're sitting on isn't deep enough for the beads to hang down. 

Crochet covered Christmas Ornaments

Can you tell I'm behind on posting photos and projects. We've been traveling and some of the time we did not have access to Internet. It's been a busy month as we've been to Oklahoma for a family reunion and followed that with a trip to Alaska. Both were great trips!

For these ornaments, I used a pattern called "Elegant Ornaments" that I downloaded from Annie's Crafts. There are 6 patterns in this set of directions. These balls are the first ornament in the pattern set. My balls were smaller than the specified 2.5" so instead of using #10 crochet cotton, I used size 20 and it worked for my balls that were closer to 2". 

New Christmas ornaments

I've completed 2 ornaments made from this week's online tatting class lesson. Both have seed beads added so they'll make lovely Christmas ornaments.

This first one is tatted from size 20 Flora, color 57. The pattern is a star from The June 1925 Comfort Magazine. I suspect that the designer never dreamed that the pattern would be used so many decades later. It's a lovely pattern. On the rings, I started and ended with 1 des with 1 des between picots. Since all my red beads were on my shuttle thread, I used the shoelace trick before and after the outer rings, thus putting the red beads to the outside of the motif.  With the variegated thread and the beads I used, I'm calling this Peppermint Star. It reminds me of peppermint candies. Size of this ornament is about 3" across. 

The next is a snowflake from be-stitched.com. I tatted it with size 12 DMC  perle cotton. It measures 2.75" across. 

Both of these still need to be starched and then they'll be ready for hanging on the tree.  Easily done in time for Christmas!

More Christmas Balls

2 more Christmas balls were finished this week. I finished the green one last night. I adapted patterns for 2" balls from Festive Tatting as the satin balls I had we're bigger than.

Blue Christmas ball

This is a 3" satin covered ball with tatting that I completed this week. The pattern is from JoAnn Sterns' Glass Christmas Balls. The thread is a 30 coats crochet cotton. 

Another Christmas ball

I made another Christmas ball: 3" satin ball with tatting using size 30 thread. The pattern is ball 2 in DMC Festive Tatting. 

Christmas balls

I finished some Christmas balls this week. A couple were started last month while on vacation and got put away. So I got them out and now those 2 plus another one are finished. All are tatted using size 30 thread and patterns from DMC Festive Tatting. 

Tatted angels

This week the Online Tatting Class studied a pattern for a small angel designed by Kathy Hodge. This had a center ring and lots of chains and 2 options.  I have made 2, the first (option 1) in size 30 blue Cebella DMC and the next (option 2) in white size 30 Coats crochet cotton. The pattern called for seed beads at the top of the head which I did on both angels. The white one was option 2 and had overlapping chains at the bottom of the skirt, a very interesting feature. On this angel, I chose to add beads to the wings and skirt bottom in addition to what the pattern called for.   I'll use this pattern again. With a little fabric stiffener, these will make lovely tree ornaments.