Tatting and a hole

First of all, I was really excited about all that thread Ryan got me, so I made my first tatting motif:

I'm not sure if I'm doing everything right, but hey, it's my first one. Here's where I found the pattern. I'm going to enter the 25 Motif Challenge to see if I can tat 25 motifs in a year. I probably won't make it, but I need a goal to keep me going.

In other news, I found this mysterious hole in my knitting:

Anyone know what I did to make that hole and how to fix it without unraveling all the way back to it? I keep making these holes where I start a new round. If they weren't right in the center of the garment, I might leave them. But they're pretty obvious. I wish I knew how to prevent them.

Roses

My sister-in-law and I have a good thing going. I knit the roses, and she embellishes them. But since I give them to her after I knit them, I keep forgetting to get pictures. So every time I see someone wearing one of them, I snap a picture with my phone. Here are a couple of them:

Here's the pattern.

Ryan's Hat

I made Ryan a hat for his birthday. It's ridiculously soft and made of baby alpaca.

Here's the pattern.

Way Better Than Roses

Ryan got me a bowl of vintage tatting thread for Valentine's Day. Is that not the most beautiful thing you've ever seen?

Half-Done Stuff

A couple of weeks ago, I did a google image search for tatting, just to make sure it wasn't something I wanted to learn. I thought it was an old lady art and that I wouldn't like it. At first, I didn't see anything I wanted to make. But the more I looked at the photos, the more I wanted to try. But I didn't have time because I was frantically trying to finish Sully's blessing outfit:


Yesterday, I found out we're going to wait a month to bless Sully, so I took a break to learn how to tat:

Two petals into the flower, and the drive to learn tatting is out of my system. Not that I'm going to quit on my first day, I'm just going to finish a few other projects first. Anyone want to learn tatting with me? I think this website has a good tutorial, and there are a bunch of youtube videos. It's really not that hard.

Knit-A-Long

I always have a million things I want to knit and a million people I need to knit for. Ok, not a million. But a lot. So I figure charity knitting will have to wait until my kids are too old to knit for and my friends stop having babies. (And someday I really want to make something for myself. I feel so selfish, but how can a knitter wear store-bought hats?) It's just not my season for charity knitting. But I read on this girl's blog about this charity knitting knit-a-long. It ends February 28th, so I'm gonna try to squeeze a baby hat in there along with all the other knitting. We'll see. Or maybe I'll just send the one I made when Sully was born that he has since grown out of.