I received these shuttles yesterday from nina Libin.  She's the one from the Beanile tatting style.  The shuttles are made in St. Petersburg, Russia from multilayered wood.  They're so pretty, light and specially designed to hold tons of thread and beads, as is required for the Beanile technique.  They came in a pair 'cause usually the Beanile patterns are worked with 2 shuttles.

I haven't use them yet, but I bet that today I'll fill them with beads and thread and will make a Beanile pattern.  I love beads in my tatting, tho is so tedius to thread all the beads and I always have to place extra beads because I keep miscalculating how many beads I threaded and run short of them, or keep making mistakes.  Ugh... 

I order this small shuttle from Tat's All in Canada.  It's a shuttle made of Corian and measures about 1.5".  It's very light and I have to tat slowly until I get the rythm of it.  I love it.  It's small for my hands but don't let the size trick you.  It can hold a lot of thread and the thread doesn't unravel like with other shuttles.    I just love it!!!  Thanks Gale!

What I'm tatting is a snowflake from Karey Solomon book Tatting for the Tree.  The thread is a sample that Gale included on the shuttle.  I'm not sure if it's the "Mirage" (a rayon thread) or the "Silco" (a cotton thread).  But I can assure you that it tats beautiful!  One thing, if you're using thin threads like this try not to make mistakes that later you'll have to undo.  It's a headache doing it without frying the thread.

As soon as I finish the snowflake I'll scan it.