Evolution of a Butterfly (Pattern)!

I really should go ahead and tat the five bookmarks in the navy and green - it's a falling-off-a-log easy pattern, and she wants them all identical, and she wants the green for the rings and the navy for the chains (my eyes are grateful!)...but instead, I've been working on DeeDee's Butterfly.

It started with this butterfly - I used to have a wee bit more time than I do now, and I would "doodle" with shuttles and thread.  If I liked the results, I'd make some notes and later write them up.  I liked this one, and remember writing up the pattern - but can't find it anywhere! 

Back to the drawing board. 

I tatted a model by the picture and sorta liked it, but something about it just made me want to "fix" it.  I wanted to streamline it and make it easier to tat.  So - I worked on it and came out with this model, from which I wrote a pattern.  The small ring in the center is replaced with one big one, and the two stacked rings thrown off the chains are now just one ring each.

I can't leave well enough alone - I kept tinkering with it and came up with Revision 1.  The big center ring bothered me - it seemed to "ruffle" because I tat so tightly.  I thought about Jane Eborall's Double Double Stitch and decided I'd use it.  It takes up a lot more thread, though, and the ring is a lot bigger - so I just tatted the second half of the stitch as a DDS.   Much better!

Now the wings seemed kind of - angular.  I tried one with all the small rings the same size.  Much better!  But there's still something that's not quite right...

It was the other two big rings that bothered me -- they both were showing "ruffle" tendencies, so I'm doing the half DDS on them as well as you can see on this butterfly in progress.  I think we'll call this one a keeper.  If you're keeping score, the final version is Revision 1.3.

I'm planning on loading shuttles to tat later on today - hopefully I can get a few of these done and ready to mail to DeeDee.  That's the goal - Monday's outgoing mail!  I want to spend some one-on-one "just us girls" time with my granddaughter today; it's a little cool outside, so I'm thinking McDonalds (she's a big Mickey D's fan!) for something to spoil our supper!