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...

And...One More Time!

There. I think I'm done with this pattern for a while. After fussing and fiddling to eliminate those three rounds of chains this is what I ended up with. The chains and I just couldn't get along -- they looked like a pile instead of elegant lace when I did them. However, I'm still not satisfied with the last round because it's too big. It required lots of finger manipulation to get it to settle down this flat. Made with DMC size 30 Cébélia, it measures 8 inches (just over 20 cm) in diameter. The big question now is -- what am I going to do with it? It's sitting in a pile with some other things about which I am undecided. I keep wondering if there is a home for purple and green doilies (or maybe just a "Home" for the people who make them). Given that minor worry, I'm moving on to something else. Maybe I'll revisit it again sometime in the future. I can see it now: I go up to the fence at the purple-and-green-doily-home and say, "Hi, doily," then wander away knowing it's doing well and is as happy as can be expected.

Tag, someone else is IT!

Sapna tagged me to share 6 unimportant things about myself based on these rules:

1. Link back to the person that tagged you. [Yup, did that]
2. Post the rules on your blog. [Oh, yeah -- here they are!]
3. Share 6 unimportant things about yourself. [That comes after #4]
4. Tag 4 people at the end of your entry. [These lucky people are at the end, like it says]

Unimportant things...that's difficult. Everything about me is important -- most especially my modesty. Maybe I can think up some though...like

1. I am a packrat. I keep all manner of unimportant stuff. I find a nice, memorable place for it (or a reasonably flat surface on which to stack it) then can't ever find it again -- or it turns out to really be unimportant so I forget I've got it. This results in stacks of things I can't bear to even think of looking through. Just as an example -- here's a bit of my desk:

2. I collect stegosauruses and frogs (which, in turn, collect dust) -- like so (and yes, I know that one is the Starship Enterprise, not a stegosaurus):
3. I don't mow my lawn, and haven't for thirteen years. No, it's not xeriscaped or zeroscaped or weedy. I have a lawn service.

4. I got on the music train via the way-back machine in the 1920s and got off in the early 1970s. Don't ask me about anybody making or pretending to make music since then. I don't know 'em -- except for Dana Owens.

5. I like mechanical pencils. I buy lots of them. If I see some in interesting colors I buy them. I don't care if they can be refilled or not -- I just buy them. This is part of my stock. I think I need more pencils.

6. I talk to all the other drivers on the road -- all the time. I tell them they have ugly cars or picked a bad color (like NO color: black, white, gray, "silver", various shades of brown or olive drab) -- my car is blue. Blue is a good color. Sometimes I tell them they are deserving of their ugly car because their driving is equally ugly. I tell them to get off my road if they can't drive. I sometimes even tell them their taste in music stinks (it doesn't fall in the 1920-1970 range), especially if their base is trying to blow the doors of my car. When there aren't enough drivers to talk to, I talk to the pedestrians. Mostly I tell them they have bad taste in clothing, or they need glasses to find the crosswalk. I tell them how creeped-out I am by their tattoos (they have to be done with a NEEDLE! -- another reason I shuttle tat). Occasionally, I do tell somebody they've done something right or they've got good taste in clothes. Nobody listens.

Now I want to hear some unimportant things about:
Dantatter
Omon
Jeff Hamilton -- the Bridge City Tatter
Clyde -- the MadTatter

Isn't She a Doll?

This is my punk Betty Boop -- maybe Batty Boop? With her bright green lipstick she really should have had shocking blue hair. I learned a lot doing this TIAS from Jane Eborall. For one thing when she says size 20 thread, she means it! So, poor Batty Boop has a balloon skirt instead of a nice neat bell. I could go get some 20 thread, or maybe I could just make her again using some smaller beads. But, I'll keep that in the thinkin' stage for a while. She deserves some unique time!

A Bit of This and That

Marilee Rockley's "Dreams" again -- this time in purple DMC Cébélia size 30 with a button closure for my 12-year-old niece. As I had so much trouble counting to 5 to make a zig-zag chain, this one is made with spiral chains of 25 second half ds separated by small split rings. I put the beads on picots off the split rings. That seemed to work pretty well for keeping them on the outside of the chain. The drop beads are just clear teardrops, but they are what she liked best.
Using that same purple and some mint green Cébélia with some shades of purple and green seed beads I'm making another bald doily. I like the center of this pattern really well. It's when I get to those three rows of chians that I choke on it. They just don't work for me. This one is now in the "thinking stage" -- I figure if I think about it long enough, I can come up with something that will suit me, and let me use the outer row -- which I find very attractive.
Finally, I've got Jane's TIAS3 up to Day 9. Poor, sad thing -- I think it's waving me off with a little misshapen hand. I do believe the beads were too big and inconsistently sized. I'm not too certain about the colors either. That pretty pink button is starting to look orange to me.
Now, I have to leave town for almost the entire month of June -- and my little old laptop doesn't have any capacity for wireless or high speed internet connection. I'll have to see if I can catch up on the weekends -- either that or start over. That would work, because now I know where to put in at least one set of magic threads! I'm wondering if three strands of quilting thread might equal size 20 thread (since I don't have any size 20 this one's all done with size 30). Maybe better thread and bead sizing would get it to shape up a bit.

Hairy and Bald

A bunch of us at ETatters have been doing a tat-along -- working on this same pattern. My first one follows the pattern (except I had to add more ds in the chain rounds because I work too tightly -- relax, relax). This is worked in shades of green in size 70 thread. It was a very old ball of "Star" tatting thread I got somewhere or other -- and I had only the one ball. I used my one and only picot gauge (a tiny little dowel that was gifted to me). It was not best suited to this particular piece. I needed an even tinier little dowel. The beast turned out all hairy. I looked at and despaired of ever getting it blocked. I did block it, but certainly not properly. It's got bent picots everywhere.
I started over using the same thread, leaving out all the picots but the essential joining ones. I like this one much better myself. That chain row is still not to my liking, I think I put in too many ds this time. The last round has about eight joins. I ran out of thread and was having to scrounge from the bits I pulled off the shuttles and piled to discard. Sometimes being a pig is a Good Thing...the pile hadn't been removed from the arm of my chair when I found I needed it. If I do this again, it won't be in "Star" size 70!

Fantasia 2 again and Day 6

Finally! I made these two versions of Anemone Sylvestris from Iris Niebach's book Fantasia 2 during the past month or so. Both are from more of that stash of pink and green size 30 DMC Cébélia. Somehow I couldn't seem to stir myself to block them. They weren't horribly deformed, just rumpled looking. I'm so used to dampening things and using a zillion pins (stainless steel dressmaker pins!) I didn't think. When the light dawned, I dampened them and took 'em to the ironing board with a bit of clean, white cloth. Wow. Ironing works! The first one I made was the one with the five centers. I hadn't intended to do five -- just four. Uh-huh. The pattern required and odd number of centers, and it says so quite plainly. Five worked very well though. Reversing the colors, I worked the square one around one center. This one was actually harder to figure out and I had to watch the diagram much more closely. I started the same place -- with a chain off a paper clip. However, that didn't result in a simple ending the way the five center one did. I was doing a quite a bit of shuttle maneuvering, and had to (ahem) retrotat one of the elements about three times before getting all the picots properly joined. The final join is, as in the first one, rough. I need to work on that kind of chain join. There's gotta be a smoother way to work it.

DAY 6 -- and, yes, I did day five...just didn't scan it. Well, it's no longer Kokopelli on a unicycle but what it actually is, I can't imagine. Luckily, I don't have to because Jane knows! It's certainly fun to do this way.

The other thing I'm working on should be finished today. It's a Pretty Doily Tat-Along from Etatters. I worked it once, but found it too...er...hairy because I made all the picots too large. This time its totally bald -- no extraneous picots at all, just the joining bits. I'm not even certain I can ever block the first one -- way too many picots to manage quickly and I don't like it well enough to spend a lot of time! Ah well, it might look a lot better than I suspect if I do block it. I'll put that one in think-about-it mode. You know -- if you think-about-it long enough you never have to DO anything!

TIAS and more

Here's my version of days three and four of the TIAS. I did day two (else I couldn't have done three and four, you see), but didn't scan it. As to what I'm tatting, haven't a clue (unless it's Kokopelli on a unicycle). It's so fun that way!
The pink ring is my trial Josephine Ring using Jane Eborall's alternate technique shown on Day 4 of her TIAS. I wanted to make certain I had it figured out before actually doing it on the real thing. I do believe the first pink "trial" came out better than the green one on my TIAS-in-progress. Rats. In between things, I did this green "Yorkie Dimple" with a bit of left over thread. Wow. Great technique Sue Hanson! Thank you Sherry Pence for the video (May 14th blog post) and Jane Eborall for the written instructions. This one is closed tighter on one side than the other, but--hey-- it works!
The other things I've been working on need blocking before I drop 'em on the scanner. That means I've got to hunt up my round tuit again.

TIAS3 - Day One

I've done the tatting -- you do the seeing. What is it? Yes, yes -- I know it's a button, some thread, beads and a safety pin. All I can make of it so far is that it's going to be interesting! This is another "Tat it and see" from the inventive mind of Jane Eborall. Personally, I'm hoping for something I can wear. A beaded bikini? NO -- I can't wear that!

You want to play, too? Start here:
TIAS Day 1 and keep up with everything here: Tat It and See