Yet Another Mask

Progress has been made, but not until after some serious fail and we'll start there. So I'm happily remaking some small pendants. I even get new pictures of one of them to replace the sad ones I had been using. Then I take  bit of a break from tatting to get the Wunderkammer scheduled and waste some time online. After that I start to remake a bracelet. Three motifs in, I realize the centers are all wrong, so I cut my losses and start again. Three motifs into the second try I realize that I messed up the second two motif, so I cut those out. At this point I've begun to start reading and tatting at the same time. Apparently the Wunderkammer landed on some Steampunk blog list that scored me a review copy of a book. So I feel I must read it quickly and you know, review it so perhaps I will get more sweet free in the future. Anyway, I'm reading and tatting and I make yet another mistake that cannot be easily corrected. This is when I give up both pursuits, toss on a movie to watch instead and turned my attention to the mask. That bracelet clearly did not want to get made.

So to the mask. The first different thing about this one is the eye wires. I adjusted their shape to have a more cat eye shape and tried to keep them pointed up at the corners just a bit. Then I added the center motif though the eyes weren't pulled up in the corners as much as I wanted at this point.

Next up is a second row based on the same one I used for the Masquerade masks. I knew I needed to modify that a lot to get the point, but I opted to just start working on it and make it up as I went. The problem I faced was the tips were going to need wire to stand well and though I had anticipated that I was not ahead of myself enough to have tatted it in on the first side in all the places I did on the second side. I worked something out that will be just fine, but the second version of this mask will definitely be a little prettier on the back side.

I still need to cover the eye wires and then decide whether it needs some crystals and embroidery or not. Part of me wants to make it the little sister to the Masquerade masks with similar embellishments and a much smaller price tag. Then there is the other part of me that just wants it to be done. I suppose that when I finish the wires I'll make that decision or maybe I'll ask twitter or facebook for their opinions later. Either way, that's the only tatting task on the agenda today...I think. I have almost recovered all the energy I lost over the weekend so I guess I'll try to get in some speed reading too so hopefully I'll be able to post that book review on Saturday once I figure out how to properly write one...I hope there are no rules I'm unaware of here. Well, off to it then.