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! 

Challenge 17

Yeah, yeah, I know -- it was supposed to be DONE in one year not two or even ...ahem... three.  Finally made it to Seventeen though.

Last May (yes, May), I made these green snowflakes from the Ariel pattern in The Tatter's Treasure Chest.  They've been waiting until this week for the center bit and for getting stuck onto the Styrofoam ornament.  My dad's been visiting us so it was a golden opportunity to tat and chat -- I tatted and chatted; dad just chatted.  I made up the middle, and it didn't work quite like I envisioned, but I like it well enough not to take it off and start over!

Challenge No. 16

Wondering what happened to the little butterflies from a few posts before?  They got made into this Easter Egg Ornament.  I used those three and a bunch of smaller butterflies (some of which are adapted from Jane Eborall's great butterfly pattern).  I pinned them to the satin egg with little gold applique pins stuck through powder blue seed beads.  I'm counting this one as number 16 for the 25 Motif Challenge.  It's destined for a long trip half-way around the world as a gift for a good friend.

It's making a stop at the County Fair before being shipped away, though.  It's got a first place blue ribbon, a high blue (considered for Sweepstakes) and a Judge's Choice ribbon.  A big ribbon...greedy me, I like big ribbons.

Challenge No. 15

Number 15 for my 25 Motif Challenge (which I've missed by, oh...a good 9 or 10 months, and which I miscounted, but I still don't think I'm going to get 25 before the end of this year either *sigh*).

This one is a top and bottom copied from one of my old ornaments, so I have no idea of its origin.  I made the top and bottom to try lacing them together after a discussion with to MSquared.  This was not what I had in mind so I just dropped in my finished tatting drawer and moved on.  When it came time to enter the fair I scrabbled around in the drawer looking for something I've made within the last year (fair years run from August to August) and re-discovered this one.  I decided that the fastening thread made an interesting zig-zag after all then dropped it in with the stuff to go to the Fair.  Apparently, the judges liked the zig-zag lacing it together, as well, because it's got a blue first place ribbon, too.

I do wish I'd taken a picture of it before hauling it out to the fair -- because what ever that is on the shelf below the ornament looks ...um... somewhat inappropriate for a G rated blog.

25 Motif Challenge Numbers 12 and 13

Halfway through my ornament challenge...any the year is almost up. Ah, well, I may not make it -- fortunately there is no penalty. :)

These two are adaptations of Mary Konior's Spinning Wheel Glass Mat. One ornament is 2.5 inches and the other is about 1.75 inches in diameter. Both are made with white perle cotton and lots of little green glass beads. Just to be different, I pinned them to the ornament with sequins under the pins. I'm still deciding if I like that or not. I do think the pattern looks really good wrapped around an ornament. I might have to make more.

25 Motif Challenge - Number 11

This is one of those .75 inch ornaments that I thought would allow me to get through 25 for the challenge very quickly. Well...that didn't work! These tiny ornament covers take just as long because to make them look good I have to use smaller thread. This one is my Lock Chain Ornament Cover using only 3 repeats with DMC size 80. I did use the single ring with sufficient picots to fasten it on -- that worked a treat.
I've stalled on these again. I'm working on a few things for the fair and I've only got a bit over a week to get them ready!

25 Motif Challenge - Numbers 9 and 10

Two more bring my total to 10 -- still behind, but gaining! Again, made from Lizbeth 40 on 1.5 inch glass ornaments, these two are a pair in different colors. The pattern is Ruth Perry's Celtic Snowflake 2008. I had to use just five pattern repeats instead six so it would fit the ornament. The bottom is the first round of the snowflake with that lovely Celtic twist Ms. Perry does so well. These are laced together with a single strand of the colored thread to hold them on the ornament.

25 Motif Challenge - Numbers 7 and 8

See? I might actually get 25 done if I can keep up this momentum! Another pair made from the same pattern, but in different colors. This one is also my own pattern, but uses only four repeats. Both are made with size 40 Lizbeth (the size of the thread also dictates how many repeats are feasible. These were actually made before Mike gave me his suggestions for fastening onto the ball. The beads at the joining point of the top and bottom are being used as a knotting point. The thread runs in and out of the bead as it joins the picots, and there is a BUK (big ugly knot -- don't like to say that too loud) tied, tucked and hidden by the bead. I thought about tatting them together -- but having tried that once, I'm not anxious to try it again!

25 Motif Challenge - Number 6

TA-DA! I did it twice. Now I've got a matching set. This is the same "Lock Chain Ornament" pattern as the green one -- it's just made with red instead. See? Much easier to get these smaller things done, because I only use four repeats of the pattern instead of six. It's finished off with that same single ring with all the picots, too. Oh, this is also Lizbeth size 40 thread.
I don't think the pattern actually shows very well in the picture, because you can see the other side through the glass ornament. It looks really pretty hanging on my metal tree thingy, though.
I've decided to make a bunch of these for a present, so I've ordered a metal tree (actually, it looks like a naked branch) for them. This way, I'll get my challenge done, and have something useful to do with the results. Of course, once I give 'em away, they aren't my storage problem any more, right? That means I can add to my stash. Oh, yeah!

25 Motif Challenge - Number 4

"Ice Crystal" by Blomqvist and Persson's Tatting Patterns and Designs is a beautiful piece worked in two continuous rounds (only one set of threads to hide if started continuous thread method). I modified it by using only six repeats of the pattern instead of eight. That made it cup nicely around the ornament. For the bottom I used the diamond motif made by the pattern, but used six repeats instead of four.

Lacing the top and the bottom on is just a trial and a pain. I thought I'd out smart this pair and just tat it right on the ball. Oh, yeah, that was clever. It worked, but it was worse than trying to lace the pieces together. It slipped all over and trying to get the final join done took me about 20 minutes. I was certain the thread was going to pop before I got the last ring to close. Finally!

I don't think I'm going to try that again. In fact, the next one is still in the thinking stage.

I've been working on a pendant for an exchange, and making some earrings for my niece's art night auction. I can't show the pendant, and the earrings are just same-old, same-old.

25 Motif Challenge - Number 3

Ta-da! I'm now caught up to the second week of February. Unfortunately, it's the second week of March. *sigh* No matter, I'm plugging away at it. I tend to get obsessive about deadlines and keep reminding myself I need to relax. If I fuss about this challenge I'm not going to enjoy my tatting, nor am I going to take time to tat other things.

This one is made of really inexpensive size 30 crochet thread that used to be dirty white (we found it in a box in the basement). My sister was trying out new dye colors, so I let her use some of the thread. (Yeah, I'm nice like that!) This is what she calls "Flame" in shades from deep scarlet to bright yellow. I love the color, I extremely dislike the thread. It's got odd little slubs in it here and there which made some rings very nearly impossible to close. Perseverance was the key -- okay, it was really, fuss, cuss, pick, pinch, pull, cuss, and slide one stitch at a time!

The pattern is my own snowflake -- the one I designed for Sharon Briggs' Design-Tat class. I made two then laced them to this matte-gold ornament with a single strand of gold thread. The beads are inexpensive clear glass. I don't know how Christmas-y this is, so maybe it's a Halloween ornament. :)

25 Motif Challenge - Number 2

Would you believe it? Now I've got two done. Amazingly quick, huh? W'azzat?

Oh. You noticed.

Yes, I admit it -- it is exactly the same pattern as the first one. It is the same adaptation of Iris Niebach's "Beatrice" from Tatted Doilies. Well, the top is the same. I had intended to make two identical pieces and fasten them to one ornament. I finished the two pieces but they wouldn't fit on one ornament -- too much overlap. That's when I decided to make two ornaments out of them and just do different bottoms for them.

If you look closely, you can see that the bottom on this one includes some long lock chains and a different arrangement of beads.

Once again, I've reaffirmed my opinion that satin covered styrofoam ornaments are the way to go. Pinning the tatting on with decorative pins makes it much easier to get it centered and even. Quite frankly, this lacing it on with beaded thread is an exercise in frustration for me. I'm not going to tell you about that blindingly brilliant idea I had for fastening on the bottom after doing the first one -- because it didn't work. Turns out I'm no so brilliant as I thought. How very lowering.

25 Motif Challenge - Number 1

At this after-Christmas sale I bought 24 unbreakable (uh-huh, it means plastic) ornaments for $2.50. About two weeks after that I bought 6 bigger ones for $1.00. Now, with a total of 3o ornaments (12 gold, 12 red, and 6 blue) sitting in the middle of my bedroom floor, I thought I'd better get busy and use them. That's when I got this really bright idea. (Rather, more like the Grinch's idea -- a wonderful, awful idea.)

In January I re-joined the 25 Motif Challenge. I challenged myself to cover 25 ornaments in the next year. That would mean I'd have to do two ornaments a month. Rrrrriiiiiiight, as if! So far I have done a grand total of (hmmm....let me count) -- it looks like ...and it is!... a total of one. This one. That means I'm two behind already. I may have bitten off more than I can chew. (But really, who eats plastic ornaments anyway?)

Be that as it may, this is an adaptation of Iris Niebach's "Beatrice" from Tatted Doilies. It is worked in size 20 Häkelgarn in a very dark green. The bottom is very loosely based on the center of the same doily. I fastened it together with strings of beads. After it was done, I thought of a better way to do it. But it's done, and I'm not taking it apart. I'll save that great thought for another time.

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.

Starry, Starry Night

Motif number 36 from Tatting by Myra Piper is a star instead of a snowflake. Stars just cry out for gold metallic thread, don't they? It would be nice if gold metallic thread scanned as pretty as it looks -- instead of scanning as a weird mustard yellow. Still, the pattern is a pretty one and very simple.
I'm posting this because I've reached dither-point. There are too many things I want to do! I was having such a difficult time deciding that what I actually did was another "Cornelia" by Iris Niebach in KingTut quilting thread. I left out two repeats so that it curves around a satin-covered styrofoam ornament. Now, I'm trying to make something for the bottom that will match.
Once that's done, I've got an idea for Sharon Briggs' latest challenge...

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!

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).