Bookmarks from the Lace Group Exchange

Some days I have to stretch to find a post topic, but today's is easy. Last night I went to the West Michigan Lace Group meeting at the Byron Township Library, and we had our bookmark exchange.

Here are all three I took: "White Diamonds," "Rainbow Wave," and "Brown Leaves". The knitted bookmarks were both made of linen, and the tatted one is made of Coats machine quilting thread I bought at (yes) Wal-Mart.

We did our exchange in a different way, and I admit I was a bit uncomfortable with it. First all the bookmarks were numbered and pinned up on a board, and then we were supposed to pick our first and second favorites. Oof. I can be a competitive person, but I hadn't been making exchange bookmarks with any kind of competition in mind. And I felt a bit embarrassed when "Rainbow Wave" got the most "votes".

However, since the "prize" was the opportunity to be the first to pick from the bookmarks that everyone brought, I didn't kick too much.


Here are the three I brought home in exchange. At the top is a bookmark with two butterflies facing a flower tatted by S., who is fairly new to tatting. I like the tail of this bookmark. Then a tatted lavendar bookmark by P., and at the bottom, a needle-tatted heart bookmark made by J.

One of my favorites was the knitted bookmark made by my friend tatt3r. But since I knew where to find the pattern for that one, I chose the heart bookmark instead.

It's an interesting pattern. Each heart is an individual motif. And the thread is size 70 or 80 tatting thread. Very often needle tatting is immediately obvious to me. If the thread size is not matched to the needle, the stitches look different than shuttle tatting. This one I would not have picked out as made on the needle, except that I know the maker only needle-tats!