Saturday, November 24, 2007

Butterfly Five

Still not even close to using up a whole ball of yellow DMC Cébélia size 30 -- I did another couple of practice butterflies. Had the first one been a sentence, it would have been overly wordy. Once I could see it wasn't going to properly behave, I stopped and cut off the thread in frustration. On to the second trial. Yes, that worked much better. Being pleased with it, I made the smaller one in Coats pastels quilting thread. I left it for a long time thinking it was done and started working on another pattern. Just about the time I was going post it as butterfly four, I decided it was too square.
The next incarnation was made in Coats jewel tones quilting thread -- it's wings are slightly different from each other. It looked more like a water skeeter to me, but not disgustingly so. In fact, I liked it so much I just went on and did the next one with a few additional modifications. The final one I like quite well -- even if it, too, has a small waist and looks a little skeeterish. Maybe these will have to be butterflies 5a and 5b -- because now I've decided I like the square one after all. One thing I will have to do for this pattern is get a better picot gauge for the antennae. I used a package of needles and the cardboard was a little mushy. Might just as well have eyeballed 'em, they're so uneven!
The next job is diagramming what I actually did instead of what I thought would work for at least four of the five butterflies. My working patterns have more scribbles than even I can read. Might be best to just start over with new diagrams!

5 comments:

Lace-lovin' Librarian ~ Diane said...

I really like the way the Coats jewel tones tats up... I may ask for some for Christmas! I love the butterflies!

Tattycat said...

More beautiful butterflies! I wish I could design my own work.

Marilee Rockley said...

Wow! These are great! You are a creative butterfly designer -- so, um, when can we expect the book to be available?

Marty said...

A book?!! Unlikely. I'm not much of a hand at writing patterns. If I get the diagrams so they work for me, I might just post them and let everyone write out their own.

Sherry aka Celtic Dream Weaver said...

Hi Marty, I just spent some time looking at your blog. You have so many beautiful things that you have tatted including some of your way cool looking designs. I love the tie dye with the tatting shirts a whole lot.I might try doing that myself someday. It is a real neat idea. I also have Jan's book and am constantly drooling over what is in it...but haven't tatted anything from it yet...right now I am just trying to get Christmas exchanges done.
Thanks so much for sharing. Love your stuff!!