A Flurry of Snowflakes

Well, that was the plan anyway. A flurry of tatted snowflakes. Ha.  It took me all of last week to get just one snowflake done.  I think I started over about 3 times because I wasn't concentrating.  (I have such limited time to play with tatting that I think I hurry a little too much to get something done without focusing on the technique or the "neat" part.)  And then when I got to the end, it got the best of me. This always seems to happen at the end of a piece.  Trying to join that last ring to the first ring just doesn't make sense to me yet.  I can't "see" how it should go, so I try a couple of things and pick, pick, pick them out.  I'm certain I am making it much harder than it is.  Even looking at examples online, like here, and looking back through my T.A.T. binder, it frustrates me every time.

I was feeling pretty smug and thought it was looking very nice.

After that join made me crazy, apparently I lost track of where I was in the pattern and messed up the rest of the end too.  If you can't see it, I'm certainly not going to point it out, but here's the final product.  Harrummmpph.

I wanted to find a snowflake pattern that I can use as a cap on a Christmas ball, and I found this snowflake motif in my DMC Festive Tatting book. There are ornament covers in there, but I thought this one looked the easiest and prettiest for a beginner like myself.

And after a week and all that frustration, I'm not even sure if I think this snowflake covers the ball enough.  I used size 12 cotton perle on this one.

I have this collection of satin balls that I've squirreled away for years with intentions of making some ornaments.

My plan is to accomplish at least 4 ornaments to go with these cute bags I made and use them for Christmas gifts.  I found this cute little friendship bag tutorial here.  (And here's a variation.)

Unfortunately, at this rate I'll be lucky if I can complete a flurry of two snowflakes!