Small item but how significant
I want to share a story, one that my Guild is involved in. 

For the last 5 years members of the Danish Tatting Guild have tatted these pink bows to support the Danish Cancer Foundation which have a campaign "Support the Breasts" supporting breast cancer research. Guildmembers have tatted them for free and then they are sold for 20 DKR (3 USD). All the money goes to the Cancer Foundation.
4 months ago the Guild had sold those bows and collected more than 60.000 DKR (8925 USD) and now we are aiming at 100.000 DKR (14819 USD).
To the left is a picture of Inga Madsen handing over the first huge check to the Cancer Foundation.
So no matter how small the tatted item is, it can still have a huge impact.
And now I have joined with my first 2 tatted bows - I lost my own mother to breastcancer 15 years ago so I guess it was about time to do it.

Just another big doily

Here is the doily mentioned in my previous posting, just another big doily.

Pattern is from my Guild magazine, threads are various Lizbeths size 20 and the diameter is 35 cm.

The Oval and Shuttles

Now the oval doily is finished. It took a bit longer than I had planned for various reasons.

The diameter is around 37 cm.

The threads are Lizbeth size 20 - the variegated is Scottish Thisle.

It is a bit fiddly to tat because of all those small motifs and they also makes it sort of loose which again requires quite some blocking so it will be flat. I managed to do it but because of those reasons I will not do it again.

On Facebook turned a transparnt shuttle up which was made in Japan. Transparent shuttles are rare I guess and someone started a petition there for Clover to put it into production.
Meanwhile the Japanese maker of the shuttle made it available for purchase and I was able to get a transparent one and a milk white one from them. The first time ever I have purchased anything from Japan and in their currency. They arrived here in only 4 days which is very quickly. And all thanks to the Internet.

I have just finished another doily and is hiding ends so it will turn up here in a day or two. And then it is back to finishing the Renulek 2015 Spring Doily.

A New Challenge
Some time back I gave up the Coats challenge. I then started the Renulek doily but put it on hold because the pattern was changed midways and I have not figured out what to do with it yet. I then worked on another big doily but still have the last round to do because something else have turned up.

Liyarra and I have agreed to do another challenge here during the month of May.
The doily pattern is from the Danish Guilds magazine (an Inga Madsen pattern) and is very much like the Siobhan doily we did years ago, but this one is a big oval one.
I have started mine last week and here is what I had done when I started it. Now I am looking forward to see what Liyarra have chosen to do - her work always look so lovely.

It is fun to be back doing a specific pattern with a good friend. We used to do that a couple of times earlier on when our lives permitted us to do this and it was a lot of fun and inspiration. I am so happy she have joined this challenge and look forward to seeing her doily.

The picture at the bottom is how far I have come today. The thread is Lizbeth size 20.

From a Guild meeting

Both last year and this year I have been lucky to attend my Guilds annual meeting. It is always such a treat to meet with friends sharing the love for tatting that you have not seen for a while.

We always have fun and some good laughs, getting inspired from talking about tatting, attending a workshop and having the chance to get some new materials like threads and shuttles. And the time just flies away and we end the day with coffee and cake and a raffle.

Usually there's also room for displaying members tatting at a table. This year I completely forgot t take pictures but last year I took pictures and forgot writing about the day here. So I have combined last years pictures with the description from this year. This year around 40-50 tatters turned up and what a lovely day with Inga Madsen, Lis, Lene Bjørn, Kirsten Wind and all the others.
I hope to come back next year.

Plans have changed

In my previous posting I was talking about a Coats doily that I wanted to do together with a tatting friend.
This pattern is so incredible hard to read that I have decided to change my plans and stop doing the doily. It is written in a strange way and I would need a fellow tatter to discuss it with. But that is not an option anymore so this is what I have done of this pattern. To be honest I think it is the first time I have given up doing a doily, lol.
Threads are Lizbeth size 20.

But I am still in the mood for doing a doily, so like many others I have started the Renulek Spring 2015 doily. I know I will be able to do this doily and her patterns are not that hard to read even though they are not genuine diagrams. And besides that it seems like we will have an early spring this year after a very wet winter, so what better way to celebrate the light and all the colours coming back than to tat a spring doily, lol. The thread is Manuela size 20 and I will use all the colours I have in that brand. The white is an Aida though.
So far so good - I think Renulek is posting a new round every Friday so  I think it will take a bit of time to finish it.

Going to play with this
Liyarra asked if anyone would want to play with this In Time For Something Big . I could not resist the challenge so I have accepted to go and play with this too.
To be honest it is not a fairly new pattern for me to do because I started this in January 2006 and then it turned into a UFO. In those days I used white DMC size 40 - and there's a picture of it here.
I think I know the reason why it turned into a UFO is that - at least for me - it is so hard reading the instructions on how to join those motives in the center. It was so troublesome then and even today it has caused me problems.
I could cheat and just continue my UFO but I have decided to start it all over again, this time using size 20 and not only a white thread.
These days I am not as quick in finishing doilies as I used to be, but I can feel that I am really in the mood to do this. I also know I have a habit of not always finishing those big doilies, I will try to do all of the doily this time though. But like we all know, it is not always going the way we plan. :-)

Sock Harvest
I do not know if that exists in English (and I am too lazy to look it up, lol), but in the autumn I did those socks in the picture below so I have not been totally lazy while I have been absent.
My phone does not give the socks credit when showing the colours because the second one from the right is actually purple-black and not blue-black. It is winter here so of course I am using them and they do keep my feet warm.

I have been away for some time partly because I have had technical issues regarding entering my blog. But a friend of mine fixed it - NeoCounter was causing problems and is now deleted - and now I am able to enter here again.
So when time permits I will try to post stuff here from when I was away and some that I am working on right now.