After setting up this blog yesterday and posting a rather lame opening post, I explored a little bit and figured out a bit more what a blog is (I kinda knew) and how to run one (I kinda knew). Although I am the family techie, the shorter and younger folks in my house know much more about these sorts of things than I do. They may not know anything about how a computer actually works, but they understand blogging!

After my exploration session, I feel a bit less uninformed.

I decided to join the 25 Motif Challenge as a way of challenging myself. In the past, I have been quite involved in tatting - designing, writing, communicating online with other tatters - but have been forced away from it by life. Life, of course, must intrude once in a while. The last three years have been very intense, work-wise, with two different jobs with the same school division. The last move was a definite upward step and required a BIG step up in learning. Now that I am more comfortable with my job, I have a little more time for contemplation.

And that, dear reader, is a very important thing for me when it comes to being creative. I need time to mull things over, to muse, to consider. Ideas come to me when my mind is in neutral, like when I'm sitting on a bus on my way to work and have forgotten to bring a book with me and find myself staring out the window. The last few years have been very short on that kind of time for me, but now things are slowing down (just a bit) and I need to get back to being creative.

This challenge came along at the perfect time!

The challenge is to complete 25 motifs within a year. I intend to design 13 original motifs and complete 12 motifs from other people's patterns. I am not limiting my own designs to size, shape, or style, but will post whatever happens to come from my shuttles.