Nearing the Finish Line

First I need to ask if anyone has heard from Tatskool lately. I talked to her a bit over the summer when I ordered some of her threads, and she sounded like she was going through a rough time. Then I e-mailed her last week just to ask how she was doing and haven't heard back from her. Tatskool, if you're reading this, could you let us all know if you're OK?

Here's my progress on "Emily".

The one on top shows round 6. On the bottom one I have just started round 5. I decided to tat rounds 5 and 6 together because you can climb into round 6 without cutting the threads. Of course, this does mean you have to put a massive amount of thread on shuttle 2, whereas if you cut between rounds you wouldn't need a second shuttle for round 6 at all. On the upside, I learned with the first one just how much thread it takes, so hopefully I won't need to add any more on the second one.

If you look closely at the top one, you'll see little gaps at the base of the 3-ring clusters in round 4. Those definitely weren't there when I tatted it. They appeared when I blocked it, and I really didn't feel like I was stretching it that much. At least it happened evenly all the way around, so a non-tatter might think it was supposed to be that way. Now I'll have to try to make it happen the same when I block the other one.

There are seven rounds in all, so I am fairly close to being done.