Butterfly Edging

There are a lot of tatting projects that I need to get done now that I’m back from Palmettos Tat Days.  I knew about them before I went to Georgia but didn’t have time to do them, so it was rush, rush, rush when I got back. I did get two of my projects done, two more to go before the end of October.

One project I finished was an edged doily. Our church participates in an auction to raise money for a local retirement home, which is supposed to be a ‘basket’ of items that we donate. This year, it’s not a basket at all, but several items of a theme that we’ll bundle together. I try to include something tatted every year, and this year I planned a doily with a tatted edging.

Our theme this year is butterflies, so I envisioned a doily with a tatted edging of butterflies. I had an idea of what I wanted and got started without a pattern. While on Craftree I found an edging that was exactly what I wanted: Mary Konior’s Butterflies from her book “A Pattern Book of Tatting.” I don’t have the book and I don’t know the stitch count of her pattern as I made it before I saw a picture of it. As it is so close to her pattern if you want to make it, check out her book.

I loved the butterflies but thought the edging needed to be a bit wider, so I added another row. The result is more suitable to what I planned for the doily.

At this point, I didn’t have a center for the doily, I made the edging first 🙂  I had time to tat but not the time to cut and sew the doily center. With the edging done I had to figure out a way to get the center the size needed and found a paper plate worked out nicely. I miscalculated a bit by not making the seam a tad bit wider (making the doily diameter smaller), but it still came out okay. Finished size with edging is about nine and a half inches across.

These are the items we put together for our auction ‘basket.’ We had members of our congregation add the butterflies to the grapevine cross.

This is one project down out of four that I want to have done before the end of October. I have one other completed that I’ll post about later. Now on to the next!

“The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.” Rabindranath Tagore     https://brainyquote.com