New Snowflakes

This is what I've been doing lately -- my latest homework from Sharon Briggs' Design-Tat course. (This is just so much fun!) She found this image for us to use for inspiration. To me, it looked like a blurred paper-cut snowflake, so it took me a while to see anything else. Then it took time to figure out how to connect all the little rings I stuck on the picture. Everybody's work looks different, and mine look a little different from each other.
The first one is from my original drawing and is made in two rows. Made with size 50 Omega thread, it is 4 inches (10.5 cm) across. It's actually the one I made last, because the pattern looked too round to be a snowflake. It might make a good beginning to a doily, though.
The pink one in the middle is the one I did first. By leaving out the center ring and changing one element of the top, it looks quite different. That change also allowed me to start at the outside of the first round and complete the entire thing in one pass. It is made with size 20 Lizbeth thread and is 5.5 inches (14 cm) across. I thought maybe the center was too unsupported; it seemed a bit limp. Sooooo...
The third one has a more dense center, but is still able to be completed in one pass. I changed some of the stitch counts, so it looks a bit more relaxed than the pink one, which had to be severely blocked to lay flat. It is 4.5 inches (11.5 cm) across and is made from "Singing the Blues" thread (hand-dyed on a size 30 Cebelia).

Back to School

I'm involved in Sharon Brigg's Design-Tat course, and am thoroughly enjoying it. We have homework! First time in my life I ever really, really liked homework. The first two lessons were back to rings and chains -- building blocks. How to get different configurations of rings and chains by changing the stitch count or where and how connecting picots are used. It's not something I consciously think about when working someone else's pattern -- but how essential to making one's own!
The third lesson was to take a round 8 ring and 8 chain center and build a second round with some interesting negative space connected to only 4 chains. All of this cream-colored Opera size 10 thread was just crouched under my bed waiting to grab an unwary ankle. I wrestled some into submission and wound it onto a couple of shuttles (that size 10 stuff is big and tough!) and came up with this:
Hey, I like it (but you should have seen what I threw out!). Today I had to go get the oil changed in my car so I took a bit of thread and a couple of shuttles (well, of course!). These bits of orange and blue ombre size 80 went meekly into my bag and onto the shuttles. It looks different in two colors, doesn't it?

Interesting scale as well. These pieces were scanned side-by-side. Maybe I should have posted them the same way -- or how about this:

Design Challenge 3

Late in January Sharon Briggs posted a new design challenge -- to make something based on a rose center. I've never made any of these rose motifs before. They always looked like a lot of bother. It surprised me to find they're not all that difficult or fiddly!
It took me this long to think up something. I'm not certain this is recognizable as a shamrock, because when my dad saw it on my lap desk he said he liked the "little green thing." Okay, it is a green thing and it measures 2.25 inches (5.5 cm) across which isn't very big. It's made with DMC Cébélia size 30 thread.
This is the first time I ever tried pearl tatting, too. I'm not certain I have it right, but if not, it was ...um... intentional, yes, that's it.

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!

Challenged...

Sharon Briggs issued a challenge in her July 3, 2008 blog entry, this stuff is my response. The idea was to use the either the blue or the white shapes in the first image to create a snowflake. The second image is the pattern I came up with. Just like war where plans never survive an encounter with the enemy -- first patterns don't survive an encounter with the shuttle. At least, mine don't. The yellow red and green thing is an attempt to follow the pattern I outlined. None of the "repeats" are the same, rather, thry are a succession of variations. I quit when it looked like something that I might be able to actually build on (and ran out of green thread on the shuttle). The fourth little image is the complete snowflake -- which needed some adjustments because the mock rings really needed to be closed better. (Looks like gaposis has spanned the oceans...) Finally, the last image is, well, final. I didn't write down the pattern, but one of these first days (as soon as I can find that ever-elusive round tuit) I'll make a diagram that actually shows what I did, instead of one that shows what I thought might work.

This was a fun challenge. Sharon is good at thinking up those -- keeps the tatting community on its toes (or firmly attached to our favorite tatting chairs) participating like mad. I don't know about other tatters, but these challenges are good for me. They keep me tatting, and for the first time ever -- designing (which I never thought I could do).

July Snow

Jon Yusoff's new Tatted Snowflake Collection is a wonderful book. I like all these little snowflakes with clear directions and comprehensive diagrams. They work up so prettily in any thread. These use size 12 DMC Perle Coton, Coats Dual Duty Plus button cotton, Oren Bayan gold metalic thread, Gutterman sewing cotton and Signature machine embroidery thread, and Coats quilting thread. The largest is 3 inches (7.62 cm) in diameter and the smallest just half that. There are more in the book -- I'll get them all eventually. I've taken a break from them to work on Sharon Brigg's blog challenge (from her July 3, 2008 entry). I don't know if what I came up with looks at all like the original shape, but it's been fun getting where I am so far...

Spring, Please!

Pink and green! Shouldn't that inspire a bit of Spring weather instead of snow -- in May?? Perhaps, because the last couple of days have been very pleasant, even with the rain. This is "Betula" from Iris Neibach's Tatting Fantasia. I couldn't face the dreaded yellow DMC size 30 Cébélia, so I scrabbled around in my bin for something more cheerful. (Yes, I know other people think yellow is cheerful. I think it looks jaundiced, and makes me look that way. Go ahead, tat with yellow claw-like hands...) This little motif is so elegantly simple, that it made me figure it must be snowing outside again when the "magic thread" broke instead of sliding the ends inside. Fiddle, had to stitch the ends in. Still, I liked the motif and so did my 6-year-old niece. I borrowed the main motif to make this necklace for her...hence the button closure. She can do it herself! I still had some of that springy green and pink on the shuttles, so I opened up Sharon Briggs' Transitions in Tatting and scanned over the first few beginner pieces. Lovely, just what I needed, a new bookmark. This one is the Daisy, but I added a couple of little rings as pretend leaves and a little clover end instead of a tassel. Everything needs to be pressed or blocked, but I haven't bothered with that little detail yet.
I've still got pink and green on the shuttles and am working on another piece from Fantasia 2. Meanwhile I'm contemplating beads and whether or not I can get away with using size 30 thread for Jane's new TIAS. I don't own any 20, and won't be able to get to the store to get any -- certainly not three different colors. Hmpf. Maybe I'll just cheat and use the 30 and pretend I couldn't read the numbers on the label. I'll have an MTIAS (misshapen tat it and see). :)