Too little time, too much to tat

On my Spanish-speaking tatting group where are making a challenge for this month to make a floral design doily. I chose this one by Jan Stawazs. Boy! I think I'm over my league!!! The center is pretty easy. And the rest of the doily looks too. But I complicated my life wanting to do it in different colors.

Here is the center of the doily. I wanted to give a brown center to look like the dirt. then a round with green to look like grass. Up to here was a "piece of cake".



Now comes the nightmare! If you're familiar with Jan's patterns, you know he has his own tatting method. It's a front/back look. I'm more of the "traditional" tatter and don't use this front/back tatting method a lot. Only in some projects that are simple enough. So I keep getting confuse with the ds counting on the pattern. Add to this that the doily have gazillion of picots! May be is that my brain is not in the "tatting zone" but I took like 4 hours just to make the stems and flower that you see in the photo. A lot of false starts and retro tat. *sigh* I think I'll finish the stem I'm working on and put the doily away and tat something comforting. :-) May be something pretty with beads, buttons or sequins. Or may be even to accomplish a homework for the Design-Tat group.

Haven't decide yet if I'll make the 18 flowers (yes, there are 18 flowers on the doily) all the same color or use several colors. I was thinking like a rainbow garden but I think I don't have enough colors to make a nice progression.