This eigth post will not share the same fate as Henry’s eight wives. Rather, it was more of a King Arthur day, complete with a dragon.

At the apprenticeship fair (way back at the beginning of the semester; gosh that seems like a long time ago) I showed off Anne B’s Minor Norwegian Dragon, as a sample of one of the many things you can do with tatting. Well, ever since then, one of the girls has been obsessed with making a dragon. That dragon has some teeth, though, and her skills aren’t quite up to dragon slaying yet. However I think I found a way around that.

Anne B’s tiny tiny dragon! It has split rings, but that’s not a big deal for needle tatting. I offered the pattern to the class, and several students seemed interested, though as soon as I mentioned that they would need one more technique, that is only a tiny, tiny bit more than what you already know, and not even difficult, I promise, they all backed off. Except the dragon lady. She and I worked on it together and she got about half way through by the end of class, and pronounced that it was “HARD!” I perssonally think the only hard part was, that it wasn’t a butterfly.

Here is the tail of her tiny dragon.

Oh, and there were fish. Oh, my goodness there were so many fish. I brought in a tiny tatted fish doodle pattern, and I guess it looked easy enough because they all gave it a try.

Here is one of the fish.

The boys showing off their fish.

I am finding it interesting to teach needle tatting for the first time, and remembering how to do it for the first time in a decade. I find myself often saying, “take the shut…I mean needle.”

One more fish, except the tail. At least there was a break from butterflies.

Nevertheless,

Celebrate the butterfly!

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