Shuttle, Shuttles and More Shuttles, and Cute MicroDragons

My birthday is fast approaching. I decided to treat myself to a few new shuttles which I have been eyeing for a while.

The 1st one I bought off eBay is a handcrafted gourd tatting shuttle with roses created by Alexandra Beatty. It is sage green on top with warm amber beige in colour inside and on the sides and has an original illustration by the artist of pink, white, and yellow roses with leaves. Design is the same on both sides of the shuttle. Measures 3 1/16" in length by 1" in width, by 5/8th in thickness.

Next are a pair of tatting shuttles (pair at bottom of photo) handmade by Jan Stawasz, which I bought from Karen Glass at Etsy. Post-style, approximately two inches long, crafted from plexiglass, metallic silver and gold in colour. Very smooth and nice colours!

Couldn't resist these cuties (top 3 of photo) made by Noreen Crone Findlay: Blessed Bunny Tatting Shuttle, abt 2 inches long & 1 inch tall, Tattie Hedgehog, The Blue Bird of Happiness, abt 2 inches long & 1 inch tall. Very cute and smooth on the outside edge, though the holes have some wood splinters which may catch the thread.

I was offered a 2nd chance at eBay to buy this bobbin-shuttle (2nd shuttle on the right above the namecard) from Hungary. It isn't such a good deal after all. I doubt the shuttle can work - the screw is tight yet the bobbin is rolling freely. I wasn't impressed with the workmanship on the wood either. Well, I have put in one of my favourite working and smallest GR8 shuttles (immediately above Jan's namecard in the photo) as a comparison of the size of the various shuttles.

I'm working on more paper clips, but couldn't resist trying this microdragon by Anne Bruvold. The red dragon was tatted with Altin Basak Simli threads (not too bad a thread if your tension is loose enough to close the rings without snapping the metallic thread). The smaller blue one was done with Omega size 50 (#137 and #138). The colours of Omega threads appeal to me, but luckily I didn't buy more than these 2 balls. Perhaps I'm too used to Flora and Olmpus threads, I didn't like the texture of the Omega thread - I didn't have to retro-tat and it is fuzzy even as I use it straight from the ball!