butterflies

I thought I would have had something designed and tatted with venetian picots by the end of this month, but I haven't. Instead, I love butterflies and the past week I lost all my tatting time to catch two of them!

The first one is the butterfly designed and shared by Muskaan, she asked us to beautify her already nice pattern: https://tipsaroundthehome.blogspot.com/2018/04/make-me-pretty-please.html

That is my version

I added some downwards facing picots, that are explained here:  http://www.janeeborall.freeservers.com/DownPicot.pdf (she has everything about tatting! Thank you Jane Eborall!)
In the little ring for the butterfly, for example, the original stitches count is 6-10, with the downwards facing picot, it becomes: 6ds, picot, 2ds, (seta, picot, setb), 6ds.

The next picture is to scale the butterfly to her real size...

I used a thread that I hadn't tried before, it's Anchor size 70, very similar to a size 80 DMC but much more soft

I hope Muskaan likes how I added the body and the head to her butterfly. The head is a ring (3ds, long picot, 2ds, long picot, 3ds). The body is a venetian picot, I think that is easier than the puncetto tatting that I used to tat for the body of my little butterflies, back in 2011:

(there's a set in Flickr, here is the link: tutorial butterfly on cloverleaf).
But you have to be very careful when joining, in fact you see from the close up picture next here, that the venetian picots own two loops to be taken in the join, unless they unravel.

🦋🦋🦋🦋🦋🦋🦋🦋🦋🦋🦋🦋

The second butterfly is the one shared this week in the Online Tatting Class:
http://www.georgiaseitz.com/2018/patterns/20180422nyh39.html
Pattern is from "Forty Original Design in Tatting by Nellie Hall Youngburg, Novel and Unique Designs with Complete Instructions for Every Pattern Designed and Executed by Nellie Hall Youngburg, Brookings, SD ©1921."

Almost 100 years and still flying! And that is the same age of my granny...

Ciao,
Ninetta