Gift Ornaments Five and Six

Lock chain ornament in yellow and red DMC size 30 tatting cotton on a yellow satin ornament. The top is the same as the pattern on this blog (September 25 post), except it repeats only 5 times because of the size of the thread. The bottom is a long stretch of lock chains between sets of rings. When it's hanging, it looks a little bit like a hot-air balloon. This one also went to a friend in England. Her favorite color is yellow, so I hope that's yellow enough for her.





Ornament Six is another of my first pattern, but this one is done in DMC size 80 orange tatting cotton with clear yellow beads, also fastened to a yellow satin ball. This one went off to Minnesota. Even though it's not traditional Christmas colors, this is one of my favorites. There's something so cheerful about primary, crayon-bright colors. The orange on yellow doesn't contrast very well in a photograph, though. It's probably my picture-taking ability (or lack thereof) again.

Gift Ornaments Three and Four

These two ornaments are both made from my first ornament pattern (well, the first one I ever wrote down, anyway). The green and red one is made with red DMC size 80 tatting cotton on one shuttle and machine embroidery thread in a variegated mix of bright colors backed with white sewing cotton on the other shuttle. There are red seed beads scattered around at the picot joins, and it's pinned to the ornament with gold pins. I was concerned about the variety of colors with the red, but decided it looked really good and made the cut to to be sent off as a gift. The blue one is covered with Signature machine embroidery thread in shades of blue backed with white sewing cotton. I know it looks yellow, but it's not. I'm just not much of a photographer. There are silver beads at the picot joins on this one, so I used silver pins through a silver bead to fasten it to the ornament.

Heather's Hand-Dyed Thread!

It really pays to read tatting blogs -- really it does. Know why? Because so many of the blog writers are so generous. I know this is true because I was reading Heather's blog the day she put up a photograph and offered her hand-dyed thread to whoever guessed closest to what it was. I suggested frozen mud. That was close enough to get me these:
Isn't that great? Talk about generosity. I was thinking some little samples or one skein. I've got six (yeah -- 6!) full-sized skeins of thread here. I'm thinking pigs for the size 10 "cotton candy" pink and dragons for the size 10 "blue jay" and "blue raspberry" -- I just acquired Karey Solomon's "Here Be Dragons". The size 10 "licorice" is going to become fall leaves, I think. I might do a frilly decoration with the size 30 cammo to "girly" up my niece's cammo pants. Even though Heather says the last size 30 is "over the rainbow" I'm thinking Christmas red, green, gold and silver -- so that's destined for ornaments.

Gift Ornament Two

Size 80 DMC green variegated tatting cotton and red seed beads -- very traditionally Christmas. This one started with the large rings at the top of the middle band. It looked too big so I added the row of small rings and chains at the top. The bottom band is more compact than the top one. After I got the wild idea to "celtic twist" the chains leading to the clover, I wished I'd done the same on the larger middle band. I made a second one doing just that, but the thread I used is an unfortunate greeny-yellow color and not nearly so attractive. That one didn't make the cut for mailing -- it's hanging on our Christmas tree.
I don't have a written pattern for this one, because every time I make it I change something. I like it, though, so need to get it at least diagrammed.

Gift Ornament One

Now that my gifts have wended their way across the oceans and been opened, I can show them off here.
First, a lot of split rings and some chains in variegated red and green quilting thread with a backing of white sewing cotton. This one also has red and green seed beads at most of the picot joins. The central band of split rings is not attached to any other part of the tatting -- it's just floating there. The pattern was accidentally adapted from another of my ornament patterns. Hey, I made it up, I ought to know how it goes. Nope. This worked out really well anyway -- once that central band was added.
The tatting is pinned to the green satin ornament with gold pins passed through a red seed bead. I used to lace the tatting onto the ornaments with gold or silver thread, but had a hard time getting them straight. Pinning works better for me.

Busy, Busy, Busy

Doesn't look like I've been busy, since I haven't posted since September! I have been, though. Work (such an icky word, spit, spit) has been more work than usual, and I've been making Christmas gifts. Those I can't show -- don't want to let the cat out of the bag, you see. However, these two were birthday gifts for a friend who decorates her Christmas tree all in white. The first one is my lock-chain ornament cover with a different sort of bottom. Held up it looks a bit like a hot-air balloon. I was concerned about white on white, so I added gold beads. This one was made from 1 strand of Gutermann white cotton sewing thread and 1 strand of Signature polyester machine embroidery thread. After finishing I thought maybe it was too much color for her white tree. The second one is my first original ornament design. Wanting the design to stand out, I used size 20 Cebelia for the second one and added a very few silver beads. She likes them. I think they need COLOR!!

Lock-Chain Ornament Pattern

One person expressed an interest -- that's quite enough for me. Here's the pattern I created for the Design Challenge 2. Click on the image to get a larger size...or check the HBT file section or Etatters, because I'll post a .pdf file in those places.
[PS -- thanks, Jane Eborall for introducing me to lock chains. I'd never neard of them before your hippo TIAS]
Here goes (oh, and keep in mind, nobody's test-tatted this thing):

Materials:
2 colors size 80 thread
Two shuttles

Techniques:
Split Ring
Self-Closing Mock Ring
Lock Join

Abbreviations:
- or p = picot
— = double-length picot
—— = quadruple-length picot
lj = lock join
RW = reverse work
SCMR = self-closing mock ring
Sh = shuttle
SR = split ring
vsp = very small picot

Begin at SR A: [Sh 1] 4-4——4 / [Sh 2] vsp 5-5 (the vsp is used attach the final lock chain)

*Lock Chain : 4-3-3-3-3-3

Inner Ring B : [color 2] 6 (+) 6-6 (on subsequent Rings “B” join to free p of previous ring B, shared join with lock chain between Rings H and I)

Lock Chain : 3+3+3+3+3+4

SR C : 4+4-4 / 5 — 5 (to quad-length p of Ring A, after twisting the p 3 times)

Lock Chain: 6

SR D: 4-4-3 / 5

Chain: 6-6 RW

Ring E : 6+3-6 (to free p of Ring “C”) RW

Chain : 6-6 RW

SCMR F: 8+4 (Ring f 8-8) 8 (to free p of Ring “E”) RW

Chain : 6-6 RW

Ring G : 6+3-6 (to free p of Ring f – the ring thrown off the SCMR) RW

Chain : 2-2

Ring H : 6+8-4 (to free p of Ring G)

Chain : 2-2 lj to free p of Ring H

Lock Chain : 6 (lj to free p of Ring B) 6 (place size 30 thread or fine paperclip to create a joining space for Ring I) and continue with

Chain : 2+2 (join to free p on the Chain between Ring H and the Lock Chain) RW

Ring I : 4+8-6 (join to space created by thread or paperclip in previous chain) RW

Chain: 2+2 (to free p on Chain between Rings G and H) RW

Ring J : 6+3-6 (to free p of Ring I)

Chain : 6+6 (to free p of Chain between Rings F and G) RW

SCMR K: 8 (Ring k 8+8 [to free p of Ring J])4-8 RW

Chain : 6+6 (to free p of Chain between Rings E and F) RW

Ring L : 6+3—6 (to free p of Ring K) RW

Chain : 6+6 (to free p of chain between SR D and Ring E)

SR M : 3+4-4 / 5 (to free p of SR D)

Lock Chain: 6†

SR (A) : 4-4——4 / 5 (+) 5 (to free double-length p of Ring L)**

Repeat from * to ** 4 times and from * to † once; end with lj to vsp at beginning. Cut and tie ends, hide with magic threads

TIAS4

I have been working on Sherry Pence's TIAS while I've been fiddling with Sharon Briggs' Design Challenge. (Aren't they nice -- to give us such interesting things to do?).
I had to start over after day five, because I got the colors backward. I suppose I could have cut day five off and just redone that -- but I decided I didn't like the colors anyway, and I was having difficulty getting the rings fastened to the sides of the block tatting on element two. The first set were done using Jane Eborall's new method of block tatting (the one on the right in each picture). I don't think I've quite got that mastered, so I did the second set using the more traditional method shown in Iris Niebach's Fantasia. Hmmmm...I still need a lot of practice. The two colored element three looks more like one and a half color. I also noticed that the "traditional" ones were a lot shorter than the others. I hope they work anyway. Those threads sticking out of the second set are not unhidden thread ends -- they are the ends of the hidden threads I haven't trimmed yet. I trimmed the ones on the first set and drat if I didn't pull one completely out and have to hide it in one of the pink rings -- since it was less than a quarter inch long and was a bit frayed at the end, I didn't really think it would stay hidden.
I do know what we're making -- although I can't figure out how I'm going to use fancy-dressed caterpillars.

Design Challenge 2 Revisited

I just couldn't leave this one alone. I was not satisfied with the green and yellow one (it might have been the colors). This pink and purple one is more like what I wanted -- that larger gap between the large rings and the attached small rings on the outer edge. It's made from DMC Cebelia size 30. I even wrote down what I did! It needs a diagram and the instructions transcribed from the pencil scribbles, but then I can share it if anyone is interested. It does make a peachy Christmas ornament. I made this red and green variegated one from DMC size 80 tatting thread. Right now it's just pinned on my testing ornament for pictures. I'm thinking it might look better sitting on the ornament sides instead of top and bottom.

Design Challenge 2

Sharon's second image from the Design Challenge proved to be quite a challenge for me. The first one I made is just over 1/6 done -- with weird threads sticking out here and there. I was trying to use extra long picots by wrapping specified numbers of times around my one little picot-gauge-dowel. Talk about stringy -- besides it was yellow. Yeah. I pulled that off my Aero-style shuttles with a satisfying zzzzinnnng. I was running out of thread on the shuttles anyway. It's sitting on the arm of the chair looking forlorn -- and I don't care.
Starting over with DMC size 80 with plain red on one shuttle and a red variegated on the other shuttle, I thought maybe beads would cover the deficiencies in those long picots. Not quite, the yarn stitch holders I used were way too big and left too much bare thread. At that point, I lost track of the challenge image and wandered off somewhere into the ozone layer. Oh, well. This one would no way make a 6-sided snowflake anyway. It's not even an attractive 5-sided star. Poor limp thing didn't even want to settle into any proper shape on the blocking board. But here it is in all it's ...er... oddness.
Stubborn (me or the motif? -- could be either or both), I started again with green and yellow size 30 DMC Cebelia. Instead of regular chains I made lock chains to separate the repeats so they wouldn't try to curve. A few other minor changes in ds counts and picot size resulted in what I'm calling my (ta-da!) finished design. Those knobbies around the edge are an ...ummm... embellishment (yeah, that's what) to the challenge image. The large rings at the top of the lock chains need to have a bigger picot for joining so they're not so stressed when blocked, but it's done. The only really nifty thing is that it's all done in one pass so there's only one set of threads to hide at the end. It bears a passing resemblance to the challenge image ... doesn't it?

Now I have to go dig out my threads and extra shuttles for TIAS 4 -- thanks Sherry!