Tatting the Afternoon Away!

Per my new work schedule, I'm off on Wednesday afternoons.  The trade-off is that I work Saturday mornings.  "Someday" I'll be eligible for Saturdays off, but it's going to be quite a while.  In the meantime, today being Wednesday, I came home after my co-worker (she's my backup and I'm hers, and we can't both go to lunch at the same time) got back from her lunch.

I've been tatting and watching Downton Abbey - Amazon makes it available for free for their Prime customers (along with some nifty other benefits) and it's cheaper than Hulu Plus (nyaaaah, Hulu!).  Today I tatted one of Mary Konior's crosses.

This is Mark My Words, found in A Pattern Book of Tatting.  I fudged it a bit; if you look closely, you'll see that it's not exactly as written:

• The center rings in the trefoils aren't as large as given in the pattern; I only tatted 4 DS between the join to the previous ring and the first decorative picot, and there are only five instead of seven.
• The outer rings in the trefoils aren't 2-6-8; they're 2-7-7.  Same overall DS count for the rings, but I think they fit better at the joins this way.
• The long chains are now lock chains (first half flipped, second half not flipped); the equivalent of nine DS for each chain, and they're nice and straight.
• I started with the third ring of the top trefoil and worked around to the other side of the trefoil - after tatting that ring, I tatted a split ring to exit from the top; I'm working on the chain now, and haven't decided how to finish it.  I can do a tassel or a mini-cross (and have ends to hide) - and I'll need to decide soon, as I see that I'm running out of Scottish Thistle on the blue shuttle.

I like to pair up unlikely threads, just to see how they look together; these are Sea Island Citrus and Scottish Thistle.  I rather like them together!  I realize now that black, while it makes colors "pop" in real-life, can increase glare in a photograph.  I'm planning on tatting another of these, and I'll try to get a better picture of it.