Unbreakably Beguiling

After my disastrous experience with embellishments the other day, I pulled out what was left of my stash of doodads and selected all of the ones that could work with the "Beguile" earring pattern. I found four, so that's how many pairs of earrings I made.

First, the one made with the same thread I was trying to use before, "Helm's Deep" by LadyShuttleMaker. I think what upset me most about the broken doodads was the loss of so much precious HDT.

This time I used a hammered pewter circle with a bronze-tone finish for the center, with beads and findings to match. No way these things could break just by having tatting joined to them.

The next pair also uses a LadyShuttleMaker thread, "Hosta Leaves". This is such a lovely, soft combination of green and lavender.

These earrings use wood centers, but just plain circles, fairly thick, completely unlike the fragile things I tried to use before. The beads are a very pale lavender in a satin finish. I usually prefer to connect the tatting to the earring wires with split/jump rings; I think they hang better that way. In this case, though, the best color of wires I had on hand for this thread were these niobium ones, and I didn't have any split or jump rings to match. There's nothing worse than mismatched findings, so I just attached the wires directly to the tatting.

Next up is Yarnplayer's "Stardate" thread. This colorway is also essentially green and purple, yet it is in a way the complete opposite of the one above. I find this a very exciting colorway.

This thread is size 30 instead of 20, so I used it with a pair of slightly smaller doodads. The beads are a very dark gray, almost black.

Finally, I used Krystledawne's "Of Berries and Fairies", another favorite colorway.

These doodads are just like the first ones, but with a silver finish. The beads are a very pale blue.

This is a nice pattern in that it is very easy tatting that only takes an hour per earring, yet the embellishment in the center makes it look very special. I also like that you can make that top ring that it hangs from as an SSSR so that you don't have to hide the ends.

I almost forgot to say that the pattern is by Marilee Rockley, from her book Up and Tat 'Em. There are also matching necklace and bracelet patterns which are a bit more complicated.