Speaking of Split Chains

You can't imagine the delight I felt in figuring out this split chain thing.  I could do them, but I didn't like it -- and only knew one way to make it work so sometimes half my chain was front side and the other half was back side (weird looking). 
I sat down with a shuttle and a bit of left-over thread and made this string of stuff all hooked together with split chains.  Then I hunted up a couple of other shuttles with more left-over thread and made this interesting little motif.  I was disgusted to run out of thread and not be able to find the ball of thread to add more (that pink and blue stuff is here somewhere!). 
Next, I wound on two colors of Sulky and started again.  I did more rows than the first one, but it lost it's definition and started to look very cramped.  I ran out of thread then. Very likely a good thing, because I'd tatted myself into a corner, so to speak, and the rounds were not ending in good places to start a new one.
Somewhere around here is another start but with changes which have, so far, left a bit more defined negative space.  I'll post that another time.  Maybe I could actually write down a pattern instead of just going around and around where ever the shuttles feel like going.  Nah, prob'ly not.  Hmmm...but maybe that second incarnation, as a single motif, would be possible.

Split Chain

If you need to know how to do one, do it well, and do it easily click on over to Le Blog de Frivole!  She has posted two videos of Marie Smith's method -- one for regular tatting and one for fs/bs tatting.  I tried both last night.  Oooooooh, WOW!   This is hands-down the neatest, easiest method I've ever tried.  Even I can't tell which part of the chain was the direct-tatted side on my own work!
Thanks so much for posting this, Frivole, and even more thanks for sharing it, Marie.

Shuttlebirds Class

Actually I took five -- classes that is.  I learned something in all of them -- sometimes it was that I'm all thumbs or can't count or don't know what tension is or that I was wearing my brain backwards (apparently).  What fun! 
Sherry Pence is so patient -- she explained how to make Ruth Perry's mock hairpin lace strip a number of times, and in enough different ways that it finally sunk in.  Mine was just not working out.  Yup.  One of the non-counting moments.  Once I got down the 1 and two and 1 and 1 and two ... or was that three?  Whatever, count correctly, put the picot in the right place et voilà!  Putting the strip into a round shouldn't have been at difficult as I made it.  Again -- a non-counting moment -- I missed putting one of the down picots in the center tie.  Had to cut that out and re-tie it.  When I got it all finished, I decided I should probably have either loosened the tension on the outer round or made the picots a bit smaller.  This is as it came off the shuttles.  It might look better if I blocked it.  It's an interesting technique, so I've been thinking about another way to use it.  That's just in the thinking about it stage -- not the doing it stage. 


Krystledawne was such fun as a teacher.  She told us this was an embarrassingly easy pattern.  It turns out looking like something really complicated and so pretty!  I don't have the one I made in class.  It was pink and blue and made for my youngest niece.  Sometime between when I left home, spent a weekend in Spokane and arrived back home, she's gone from the pink phase to the purple one.  *sigh*  I cut all the pink and blue off and made this bracelet from her selected purple -- the same one I used for the mock hairpin lace.  Krystle also told us that picots or beads could be added for a little extra pizazz, so I added these size 11 purple beads so the sides for my niece.  I was lucky to wangle it away from her for the photograph.  She's in the kitchen doing her math homework right now -- and the bracelet is around her ankle.  :)

These little grapes were another real ah-ha! moment.  It couldn't really be that easy, could it?  Nah, it couldn't.  The concept is remarkably easy as Karey Solomon explained it.  She was using a size three thread to show how it worked.  Looked simple for her.  I started over once, and there's a couple of these that are joined a bit oddly, but, I can't tell you how delighted I am with them.  They're grapes -- really! -- don't they look just like grapes?  I don't think I attached the leaf quite correctly, and it, too, might look better for a bit of blocking.  I can see all kinds of applications for this technique.  Isn't it interesting how one person can know making wheels and the alligator join and turn them into this and another person can know the same thing and never put that together?  Aren't we glad there are designers out there?


The fourth class I took was one of Dale Pomeroy's snowflake classes.  The first picture is the one I completed from class (another victim of a person who can't seem to count) and the second one I completed at home.  I really liked the look of this snowflake and wanted to play with those bugle beads.  There were interesting techniques used that I hadn't tried before -- like putting the beads on the thread and sliding them into place then working under the bead for a join that appeared to be a picot join, but which put the bead higher out of the tatting.  Just to see the difference, the one I did at home I did as a regular picot join with the bead added at the time of joining.  It's a very pretty snowflake -- and once, again, would benefit from blocking!

You can see the benefits of my last class with Jessica Spaulding:  Photographing Tatting.  Yup -- not a single one of these was thrown on the scanner and none were taken inside.  Outside in natural sunlight.  Jessica looked at my poor point-and-click camera and said I'd have to do the best I could on automatic.  No f-stop settings or whatever for me.  That's okay, it's what I can afford right now, and it does have a macro setting -- that was good.  She also showed us how to make a light box -- a really inexpensive one with a cardboard box, tissue paper and a piece of poster board.  I haven't done it yet because I'm waiting on a suitable box.  After Christmas we threw out all the spare boxes -- so we could start collecting new ones.  When a good one comes along, I'll save it from the recycling bin and be in business.

Whew!  I really had a great time and feel like I learned a lot of new stuff.  Y'all should come next year -- wouldnt' that be great?

Shuttlebirds Fun!

Yeah, it really was.   It would be more fun if it was longer and I got to take more classes.  It's great to learn things -- either a new technique or an old one used a new way or just a really nifty pattern.  The people in Spokane really know how to put together an event.  I know it was a lot of work behind the scenes, but everything ran so smoothly from my perspective -- they made it look easy.  Thanks so much for all your hard work, you Shuttlebirds!

The Retro-tat was fun.  I wasn't signed up, but someone that was couldn't be there, so there was an extra piece to undo.  I'm slower than seven-years-itch, but everyone was slow compared to Jessica!  I didn't do the Tat-off.  I like to stop and admire what I'm doing and stretch my fingers too much.   In other words, I'm a slow tatter.  These are some of the people participating -- they can chat and tat and still work fast. 

This year's theme was "Tatting on the Wild Side" and there were a lot of really great entries in the theme contest.  They had four categories: Animal/Original, Animal/Published, Color/Original, and Color/Published.  Everyone was allowed to enter two things in each category.  No everyone did that -- but I did, however, I only made two new pieces for the contest.  Everything else I entered was something that's already been posted here.

I was most pleased with my Utahraptor.  I found a picture on the 'net and put it under a piece of tracing paper then made some rings and chains and split rings and SCMR and stuff like that on top of the picture.  I tatted it about half way around -- well, up to the neck.  By that time, I was back home (I started while visiting my dad), so I scanned the picture to the computer and drew what I had done to that point on top of the picture with PaintShop.  I tatted it again -- all the way to the back leg.  Then I drew some more.  Next I tatted the whole thing and decided it was what I wanted, but I was using ecru cebelia thread.  Well, ick.  But, it worked and was made in one continuous round -- except where I had to add thread -- there were only two ends to hide at the end of the tail.  Finally, I tatted the whole thing in a nice dinosaur-ish green size 20 Häkelgarn, and this is what it looked like on the display table.  There now, isn't he charming?  (Okay, I'm through bragging for a minute.)

The winning entry for the Animal/Original category was Jean Reeves "Wild Thang".  Can you imagine a baby shuttle-eating monster?  She did!  That was the cutest baby monster I ever did see.  He was all covered in green scales with big black eyes and sharp teeth -- his rose ended tongue made him a little less scary.  :)
Tucked inside the tatted clasp purse was a little white shuttle.  Little monster -- he ate it!

Delsey Howard won the Animal/Published category with her Peacock.  The colors she chose were perfect and her tatting was so nicely done.  I'm just tickled that I've purchased the same book she got it from, so I can try it myself.  I just hope I can do it justice, like she did.  It was absolutely beautiful -- and I thought the peacock looked happy.  Happy tatting is good.

Sherry Pence's interpretation of Jane Eborall's Patchwork took top honors for Color/Published.  Such a pretty thing, and the colors she used are perfect together.
I took a class from Sherry, and she's not only a wonderful tatter, she's a really nice, funny, person and a very patient teacher!  That mock hairpin lace very nearly wrapped my brain around a corner, but she persevered and we all got it.  I've got a finished piece to show for it -- but it's not nearly so nice as Sherry's.  I'm going to try it again, 'cause I think I've got it.  Once I get pictures of the stuff from the classes I took, I'll post those and tell you again what a good teacher she is!

Oh, yeah, and I won, too!  (This is the more of the braggy part, so you can skip it if you want to.)  I got the prize for Color/Original for this "Fantasy Tree".  That's the good name for it, my niece calls it a "blobby tree" -- that doesn't sound as good.  I was fussing about getting my entry done when I was working on the dinosaur, because I did unpick and change and unpick and rework until I wondered if I would ever get it figured out.  Patti left me a comment and said just do a free-form piece, then there's nothing to unpick!  Okay.  That's the tree.  I started with a ring not quite in the center and just kept going.  I changed threads here and there -- this is all Sulky blendables with two strands wound on the shuttle at the same time, but not always the same two.  Again, I got to the end and just had two tails to hide because everything else was hidden when I changed threads.  So it goes around and around and back and forth and up and down...


I've got more to say about the Shuttlebirds Workshop, but not right now!

New Motif

This is a pair of motifs I've been working on for a while.  I drew it all out on the computer first, then tatted it in size 10 thread.  By doing that, I found out there was one place where I had to change the direction of the chain, and a number of places I had to change the stitch count.

Tatted again in a size 20 I had on a pair of shuttles and found a couple of other tweaks needed.  Finally, I made this pair from two colors of Sulky blendables I had on the shuttles.  I would have done more, but I couldn't remember which colors they were!

Each motif builds from the center in one continuous round using split rings.  It could make a really handsome mat.  Maybe I should work on it some more -- in another color, or at least in colors I've written down!




 I think Jon is right about connecting two rings to join the motifs -- it would made a much stronger connection.  Once I got looking at that option, I thought maybe joining them across all the rings would be interesting.  This is what my computer thinks it would look like:

Another Sternenhimmel

Tricky little thing, this Blogger.  I can be out of town and still post something here.  It's amazing that I'm bothering, though, since I don't post when I'm in town.  I've left the rest of the family home to muddle on without me while I whoop it up at Shuttlebirds.  

In the meantime, this is a star-shaped motif from Susanne Schwenke's SpitzenKreationen.  It's made with two strands of Sulky blendables thread in green shades.  I don't have that fancy color chart Lace-lovin' Librarian has, and who cares what number they are?  I like this pattern as well as I like the others.


Yup -- SpitzenKreationen went into the pile of "on the plane" things!

Shuttlebirds

Packing for Shuttlebirds has been interesting -- sort of, "Hmmmm...if I wear the same sox two days in a row I can fit in this extra ball of thread. WHAT?  No, no cleanliness is important, buy some thread when you get there!"  Since I decided to fly instead of take that 11 hour drive I've also been worried about what the TSA is going to take away from me.  Can I take a size 16 crochet hook?  Do I dare take the new Quad hook pen I got from LadyShuttleMaker?  Are they going to say I can't carry on all this stuff?  I'm trying to pare it down to minimums, but my minimums are rather maximum.  If I can decide on one good-sized project and just take materials for that everything will probably fit.  I worry about deciding part way there that some other project would really have been a better idea.  *sigh*

 

Aside from that, here's another of those "Sternenhimmel" motifs from Susanne Schwenke's book SpitzenKreationen.  I really like the way this one creates that little central star as well.  I remembered to make all the joins on this one -- there's one sitting on the arm of my chair sadly misshapen from a missed join.  I'll be making more of this design in a nice plain thread so the pattern stands out.  Hmmmm...maybe SpitzenKreationen should go to Spokane with me!

Sternenhimmel

This is one of the motifs I made on International Tatting Day -- and scanned tonight.  Nothing if not timely, eh?  It's the first "Sternenhimmel" pattern from Susanne Schwenke's book SpitzenKreationen.  

I have to admit my German isn't good enough to translate Sternenhimmel, but I don't feel too badly, because Google translate couldn't do it either.  Yahoo Babel Fish says it's "starlit sky"; Babylon says "the starry sky" and Microsoft says "sky".  I think they're stars (ones with 5 points) and snowflakes (the ones with 6 points).  They're all pretty though.

I've got others tatted, but they don't have all the spare threads tucked neatly away.  This one is made with size 10 Lizbeth "Wildflower" thread.  I think it works for stars -- stars are lots of colors.  I made three false starts on this one and I'm not telling how many times I unpicked various bits of it.  I like the look of the pattern, so I'll be making more.  I'll be paying better attention, though, and using not such wild thread.

Challenge 18 to 25 Plus One

Happy International Tatting Day.  I did my tatting for the day between midnight and 2:30 in the morning -- I've actually got some, but I don't have pictures yet.  So far during the waking hours today, I've cleaned up a lot of tatting stuff and rearranged my closet, thrown out a bunch of junk and moved things from the closet to the donation box.  Once I finish this post I'm going to go back to tatting.  But for now...

Finally!  These have been done for a while, but it took me forever to get a picture.  This is actually three views of the same nine ornaments.  All the red and green ones are made with the snowflakes from Jon Yusoff's book Elegant Tatting Gems shown here, here, and here.  The final one is "Ice Crystal" from Tatting Patterns and Designs by Blomqvist and Persson that I made and posted here.  It's the "plus one" since it's so old.  Of course, so's my challenge!  I didn't manage 25 motifs in a year, I managed 25 ornaments in about three years.  It's a sad thing! 

Thank you, Jeff R.T.!

This is a public thank you to Jeff R. T.  He does numbers like nobody's business.  I don't know if I've mentioned it, but I work for an oil and gas law firm.  We do mineral title opinions.  I'm pretty good with tract numbers, but get really confused doing unit numbers (doesn't matter).  I have a history degree for a reason!  Jeff has twice in the last few months sat down with me to go through weighted royalty rates and other parts of the unit calculations.  He is a genius.  When we get through everything adds up to 1.  One is a good number. 

These two pendants are in the way of a more substantive thank you than the fervent one I blessed him with when we finished the last round of numbers.  His lady friend likes blue.  Isn't it nice of him to think of her?  I didn't know which he would like so I made both with the same thread and beads.  The thread is Oren Bayan variegated gold metallic and the beads are size 15 glass seed beads.  My thanks don't go as far as chains. 
The patterns are from Jon Yusoff's Tatting with Rings.  The first is Kerosang, but I adapted the top to make a ring for the chain to go through.  The second is Permata -- it still needs a jump ring for the chain.