Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Fourteenth Motif


Motif? Yeah, I'm counting it. This is the square doily from Jan Stawasz' Tatting, Theory and Patterns. It's not difficult to tat -- most of it is simple rings and chains. It's his use of negative space I find so beautiful. I didn't do it in the size 20 thread he recommends, and I didn't use his method (which essentially is front side / back side tatting), but I think it turned out nicely. This one is again made with two threads wound on each shuttle (getting addicted to that!): one thread of Coats hand quilting cotton thread in variegated pastel shades and one thread of Signature polyester machine embroidery thread in variegated bright shades. It makes the pastels brighter with just a bit of sheen here and there. The cotton thread gave the polyester enough support for it not to fray. Now that that's done, I guess I'll try some smaller things next.

3 comments:

Tat-a-Renda said...

Hi Marty, this is beautiful. I agree with you about the negative space. It adds much weight to the design just as the tatting itself.

Jon

Jane Eborall said...

One word - STUNNING. Colours are fantastic.
Jane Eb

Gina said...

Lovely! I think Jan uses bigger thread most of the time than I want to and I don't use his technique either but the patterns are still beautiful. I've used the Coates quilting thread on its own quite a bit. If you want to try something gorgeous, combine 2 of the sulky embroidery threads. A single thread tends to break but 2 together is strong and the colors are to die for!
:-)Gina/Tattinggoddess