In a Whirl

The Spinning Wheel glass mat is finally complete. I got distracted by baby bunnies for a few days (we have 7 new ones!), but managed to finish last night. This pattern was just rings and chains, nothing fancy, but there was nothing simple about it. Mary Konior's Tatting with Visual Patterns has proven an invaluable source beyond the patterns it contains. Her "Know How 2" instructions (especially the tip for opening a closed ring) are wonderful.

As mentioned before, I used the sample spool of thread from Handy Hands, "Jewels" (Lizbeth #113) in size 20 to create this piece. The last round was a little interesting to finish, but I really appreciated the straightforward joins, instead of having to do the flippy, avoiding-a-twisted-picot joins that so many patterns require. I used my larger Lacis shuttle, but had to renew the thread on the last round, which is even less fun when using the Continuous Thread Method. Next time, I'm going to over load the shuttle just a bit and should have enough to complete the piece without needing to add thread. It measures 4 1/4" in diameter and will be Motif #3 for the challenge.
Even though the colors are not quite American flag colors, it seems patriotic to me. And I know exactly what I'm going to do with it.