Tatting: Palmetto Tatters Guild

Today Gerard and I went up to the big monthly Palmetto Tatters Guild Meeting and we had a blast!!! It was SO fun! We both tatted up butterflies last night to turn in for our membership which we did too!
I got to meet several ladies who are in Yahoo Groups with me including Charlene who is a very sweet lady! I was so thrilled to meet her! It is always wonderful to put a face with a name and it was a real treat to meet someone I've known over the past year! You can see Charlene's tatting blog Here.
I also got to meet the youngest member of the Palmetto Tatters, Violet, who is 6 years old! Full of energy, amazingly smart and can tat very well! It was a real treat to meet her too. She is Marie Smith's granddaughter!

I got to learn so many new things!!! I sat by Pam Freck, who showed me all sorts of things, and made sure I learned many new things! Take a look at these "heart" rings! One is the normal method for dimpled rings (right) and the other is the "cheaters way" (left) but I think it is it's own creation and should be called the heart ring! LOL It's so much easier and I think prettier than the old version of dimpled rings!
How you do it is when you get to the spot where the dimple would be you work 4 first halves of the double stitch then you work 4 second halves of the double stitch and then you continue on with the rest of your double stitches. Then when you close the ring it will pucker, you might have to help it get into place a tad but it's so simple!

I had this motif all ready to learn how to do the folded join, so I asked Pam about it.
Pam and Marie Smith taught me how to do the folded join! What a relief to finally understand it! I learned Marie's way which she called a front fold folded join.

Pam also made sure that Marie taught me how to do split chains the method that Marie created that is so much easier! Marie taught me how to do it in both directions, meaning to give it the look of traditional tatting and for Front Side Back Side tatting.

See this adorable tatted ribbon hair pin? Pam made that and gave it to me to give to Alece! What started it all was thread colors she had seen the pink and purple thread combo that Alece had chosen for her bracelet and then she whipped this out for me! I never really considered tatting with ribbon...I'm going to have to give that a try!

And check out this lovely flower! I was admiring it in Marie's box of tatting and asked to see it and then when I was looking it over, Marie said I could keep it! What a treasure! She is so sweet! She is just as sweet in person as she is chatting online! So giving and so sharing!

She also gave Gerard this cute caterpillar bookmark! Isn't it just the cutest?! Gerard says he's going to use it in his daily Bible!

And now to brag on my wonderful Hubby! Look at this!!! He made a Tatted Fern frond from the patterns that were given out today! It's not blocked yet but when it is it's totally pretty! Now I'll have a nice piece of lace to use in my CQ bouquets from my Hubby!