nuntium sexagesimum sextum (66th post) Blatt blahs

Tatting- I love it and sometimes hate it.  I've been doing some- yay!  But I've had some weird luck.

First the edging, Mary Konior's Bridesmaids.  I was so pleased because I'd tried that SCMR for the corner and it worked.  Yay!  Here's the first round:

Then I started the second round:

And realized this:

Clearly not enough thread...

What to do?  How about white?  It's going on a white hanky, why not?
Here's why not:

It just doesn't look right.

So I rustled around the Aunt Rose-E thread and found another ball but I don't think it's the same manufacturer.  Why am I not sure?  Because the first (very full) ball didn't have the paper in it!
What do you think?

Even in direct daylight, we think it's okay.  (Yes, I've asked everyone in the house and others, even poor Cindy Bluebird.)  But there's a problem.  It's very old thread  (the tag says 15 cents) and somewhat brittle, I can close three or four rings but then it usually breaks.  I'm open to wisdom on this- please!!!

So why the title of this post?  Because I've also been working on the Tat-along TischBand.  Long ago, I'd made similar flowers because of Aunt Rose-E so I did those just fine- mostly.

But that leaf!  The LEAF.  First I read where others had difficulty, then where someone like Frivole was struggling with putting it together so I delayed.  Then Cindy and I had a bonus tat-together last weekend and we tried it.  The leaf was just okay but maybe... good enough.

experimenting and using BIG thread to see it.

 Then we swtiched gears because for some reason I really wanted to learn to tat on a ring, so we tried that.  Success!

same giant thread, no pattern but it's still cute.

Then Frivole posted a video about how to do the leaf - isn't she wonderful?  So I watched at school (shame!) and then yesterday Cindy, my daughter and I got together for our usual Twin Cities Tatters.  We watched the videos again but strangely my ipad wouldn't show the text from the video.  (Good thing, I'd watched it the day before).  And the leaf made sense!  So I tried it.  But in my excitement, forgot where I was.

So - start over.

Perfect going.

Then I ran out of thread on the shuttle:

grrr.

Reloaded the shuttles and tried it again last night.

By now I was way over-confident.  Goofed up at the end with too many chains.  Tried to take it out and the thread split.

double grrrrr

Now grades are due tomorrow and  there's ironing.  Tatting to the back burner. 

I might get to it tonight.  sigh.  I love tatting-mostly.

Latin for today:  ad astra per aspera - to the stars through adversity.  : )
(Good thing this is my idea of adversity- pretty good life if you ask me!)