I've got to stop tatting things that will get songs stuck in my head. This time it was "Black Magic Woman" by Santana. The pattern, of course, is Mary Konior's "Black Magic" from Tatting with Visual Patterns. Thanks to Jeff for illustrating how fabulous it can look in a variegated thread; I might never have done this if I hadn't seen his posts. I used Lizbeth color 644 Boysenberry Dark on the shuttle and Lizbeth 137 Berry Burst on the ball. It was sheer luck that the colors worked out so symmetrically, but I do love it when that happens. For the tail, I wound a second shuttle and tatted a combination of zig zag chain, split rings, and Victorian sets, ending in a motif that matches the bookmark. To make this motif, I transitioned out of the tail at a point where the variegated thread on shuttle 2 matched the solid on shuttle 1. This allowed me to unobtrusively turn the center ring of the motif into a split ring, making the split at the last set of stitches. I then climbed out of it with a mock picot and continued tatting around the center ring as if it were the one of the ends of the bookmark. Wasn't that clever of me? (She said very modestly.) I actually finished this bookmark several days ago, but couldn't get it blocked until today. I can no longer block anything on days that I have to work, owing to Squijum's pin-munching habit and the fact that there is no longer anyplace in the apartment that he doesn't know how to get to. When I switched to this new background, I had to go back to a 2-column layout. Does anyone know a way to get a 3-column layout in Minima template? Also, does anyone have any idea why my Google Translate gadget has disappeared? It's still there, right under the Search This Blog gadget, but you can't see it (or at least I can't). Any help would be appreciated!