Hearts and Flowers

I went to sleep last night thinking about a snowflake with a rose centre surrounded by points with hearts in them. I mentally kicked around several ideas then I pulled up the drawing program to see what it might look like. It kind of looks like this.

Then I sat down and started tatting it. The rose looked like a rose and the hearts surrounded it but when I added the chains around the hearts it looked like petals, not snowflake points. So I added a row with inward and outward facing rings that gave it points. After tatting the first arm it looked like crap. I kept on tatting and amazingly, it looks like a snowflake!

Complete with pattern of course.

Uh-oh BRB

I'm back, did you miss me? I just realized I didn't label the rows, so I had to stop and fix the pattern. Then I realized I'd missed the stitch count for the chain on either side of the dimpled rings. I wanted to keep the lines around the hearts clean so that the hearts would stand out. Although the design is mostly chains the snowflake still holds it's shape, which is good because I hate wet noodle tatting.

Back to roses and snowflakes

A basic rose plus another row made a cute 2.5 inch snowflake. Simple, quick and easy both in tatting and in drawing. No splitz just shuttle and ball, it just falls off the shuttles.

Wet noodle tatting

I finished another snowflake. I'm not sure if I can say anything about it. It doesn't have an attractive profile and worst of all, it's limp. I don't like designs that don't hold their shape. When I was tatting this one I started with a central ring with large picots, but If I were to tat it again I'd do it with small picots. I didn't join the small rings on the last row, but if I were tatting it again I would join them to give the design more stability. As it is, this design has as much structure as a wet spaghetti noodle.

I'm calling this one a fail  and I won't be writing out the pattern for it.

Revised:
After asking which of the 26 designs the public liked, this one, that I called a fail was surprisingly popular. The tiny picots weren't joined on the original design, I just knotted them together with sewing thread to see what it would look like. I re-tatted it, joining the picots and making the picots on the central ring smaller.

It's still kind of limp but it does have the spiky outline of snow crystals which is what I'm guessing people like about it. So, seeing as I've re- done it, I've also done the pattern for it.

A first for December

This first design for December starts with the same daisy flower and outline row used in the November 27 snowflake. After I got to that point I decided I wanted another row of chain which I tatted forgetting that I needed some picots on it to attach the next row, Then I added the picots and another row with rings joined to those picots and chains from petal to ring to petal. Which put too many stitches in place so I cut it off and started again and the next try wasn't much better.

Then I opted for the simple ring and chain arrangement which also looked like it was going to ruffle. On the next row I just tatted two rings joined side to side to pull things in and I think I finally have a design that I like. It didn't look too promising until I blocked it pulling out the picots on the sides of the points.

Would you like the pattern? Of course you would. So it's here:

That makes 7 new designs so far this season, not counting the little flake that's just the inner part of another design. Maybe I'll go for an even 10.

It's really simple - or really hard

The comments of newbie tatters always hit home. I learned to tat sort of by accident. I had no idea that you needed a shuttle to tat with, I'd never seen tatting and was totally clueless. Then when I'd finally managed my first ring that closed, I had no one around me that tatted and no pattern books. Which is why when I began teaching I came up with a chain only bookmark that can be done in size 10 thread. It's something that a beginner can do in a short amount of time that results in something useful. For your edification I've included it here:

Those of us who shuttle tat know that it's easier for a beginner to work with chains using 2 colours of thread. The different colours make sure that you know when your stitches have been flipped. If it's the shuttle colour, you goofed. If it's the ball colour, all's right with the world.

So, I thought wouldn't it be a great idea to design a chain only snowflake for beginners? This is where theory and reality hit head on.  If you're designing something with the idea of it being a simple beginner's pattern you don't want to muddy the waters with teaching a bunch of "exceptions to the rules".

I thought I was being clever but tatting with just chains makes for some other complications. To begin with, there's no starting ring so right away the novice tatter has to learn how to tat a mock ring. Then to keep the picots space from closing, they have to learn about a lock stitch. And then of course all of the joins are shuttle joins rather than the normal type. To top it all off, every round is cut and tie, unless the tatter knows how to tat split chains which brings everything full circle.

I though I was being clever making a chain only design- never mind. Let's just forget about it. I guess that's why I never did get this one drawn out--- until now.

I took the time to draw this one out and you can do it chain only, although this sample obviously starts with a central ring. And, of course, every round ends with a split chain climbing into the next row. I have shown one pathway through this maze of chains, but of course you can tat it any way you want. You can ever forego the split chains and cut the thread at the end of every row. Unfortunately that will mean about a bzillion ends to hide.

Anyway, here it is the really hard - simple chained snowflake.

The attention span of a gnat.

It was my intention today to draw out the pattern for the 8 sided motif above, but I posted the pictures of some of the recent snowflakes to Facebook and one of the comments was "I am still learning wish I could do this" which is kind of heartbreaking. For a rank beginner split rings and split chains are just a bit beyond their grasp, but any of the recent designs could be done without using either technique. Split rings and split chains make it EASIER to move from one round to the next without having to cut tie and hide ends, BUT what a lot of beginners don't know, is that cutting, tying and hiding ends makes those techniques unnecessary.

Generally in a concentric design like a snowflake or a doily, the split chain is going to come at the end of the row making it possible to "climb up" into the next row. The solution is to finish the row, cut the thread and start the next row where you left off. That's a generalization and I'm sure that there are exceptions which I'll think of just as soon as I hit Post.

Likewise on this type of design a split ring is usually the first part of a new row which is often placed in the middle of the chain on the previous row. That's because connection points from row to row are typically at the midpoint of a chain. So when you get toward the end of the row you are instructed to tat a split chain which moves your threads from the end of the chain, to the middle of the chain. Then a split ring is the first thing you tat which brings the threads up from the tip of the ring to the base of the ring and positions it in the normal place to keep tatting.

To avoid the split ring just finish the row in the usual manner, cut, tie and hide threads. Then tat the split ring just like you would a normal ring because once you've cut the thread and started again, your thread s are already in the right position. It sounds complicated, but it isn't. The simplest way to think of it is just tat what you need to tat to get to where you want to be.

Thinking of making things simpler I remembered a snowflake that I had designed some time ago but never got around to drawing out the pattern. So when I got stumped trying to draw this 8 sided design I put it aside to go looking for the chain only snowflake I created. Look at what I found! These are some of the snowflakes that I've created over the years. There are more somewhere, but I haven't unearthed them. A lot of the things I've created have been one of a kind snowflakes that I designed and immediately gifted to someone so they're gone out of my possession forever and I don't always remember to take a picture first.

I also found the Elephant Flake.

This is a snowflake that I started, but it kind of grew to a huge 10 inches across and I never did write it out. I'm thinking that I should draw it one of these days..... where was I? Oh yeah, drawing out the pattern for the 8 arm snowflake. See? what did I tell you? The attention span of a gnat.

Here's the pattern for the snowflake with 8 arms, which of course, means that it's not a snowflake at all, it's an 8 point whatchamacallit.

Trying to draw this design so that it is reasonably easy to follow and get the stitch counts in, especially along the chains that are joined to each other had me scrapping and restarting this drawing about 5 times. I finally started saving it in pieces so that if I lost or messed up part of it, I'd have backups to work from. I think I got it all in. If I didn't, let me know and I'll go fix it. The pattern starts with a central ring with 7 picots and a mock picot. The mock picot is secured by using a lock stitch, that's an un-flipped half stitch followed by a normal half stitch. Make sure to keep the picots around the central ring both large (double the height of the stitches) and uniform. The large number of stitches on the central ring and the longer picots are what make this design work instead of  having the rings overlap.

Row 1 and 2 end with split chains, but if you don't know how to tat split chains just tat the row like normal cutting and tying the thread at the end of the row. Then start the next row tatting.the rings and joining to the picot in the middle of the chain on the previous row. After that just tat around the row ending with a chain joined to the base of the starting ring. Cut and tie again then start the next row.

By the way, if you haven't seen my blog previously, take a look at the links list on the right. All of the patterns should be accessible by clicking on the Pattern label. The explanation of the legend symbols I use is listed there, as is the link to the tutorial on how to add thread. Since almost everything that comes off my shuttles is a new design, I end up cutting off and starting again lots of times. As hiding a zillion ends isn't my idea of fun, I use this relatively painless method for adding in thread that simultaneously adds in new thread and locks it in tight.

One stitch makes a difference

Right at the outset I have to say the perle cotton I've used for the past couple of days, is really crappy to work with. It's some old dollar store thread I have in my stash and since these 8 point designs aren't going to graduate into being anything other than experiments, I figured I might as well use up the garbage thread. The up side of the equation is that I use up the crappy thread, the down side is that it's hard to work with, it splits like mad, and it's really hard to maintain an even tension when the thread is so squishy.

That's right, I re-tatted the 8 point design with a larger centre. One more stitch between the picots in the starting ring so it's 4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4. This time it took very little persuasion to lay flat. The rings don't overlap and the points of the design are fatter and more spread out. You can see the difference when the 2 samples are laid side by side. The first one has narrower points yet the overall size of the motifs are almost the same.

You can see the difference when the 2 samples are laid side by side. The first one has narrower points yet the overall size of the motifs are almost the same, both being about 3.5 inches from point to point. I was thinking that I might tat this design using multiple motifs joined together doing row after row of motifs in different colours. That's not going to happen because I've already fallen out of love with it. Told you. I have the attention span of a gnat.

I have another snowflake on the shuttles, but I guess I better take out enough time to get this one drawn out so y'all can tat your own.

It didn't work- yes it did

I added 2 repeats to the November 8 snowflake to see what it would look like. I started with the same ring with 2 more picots and went from there. It looked ruffled when I was tatting it and the ruffles didn't come out when I stretched it. I did a quick blocking, pinning just the outer picot of the points and sprayed it with a shot of alcohol to see if it would pull into shape. The alcohol works the same as water, but dries quicker so that I could see the results.

The finished motif is about 3.5 inches across done in perle cotton size 8 and some of the rings overlap. What do you think? Still ruffled isn't it? I might be able to tweak it possibly by changing the central ring to 4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4, but I don't want to spend any more time on it, since I don't think it's going to work out as I'd imagined.

The good news is, there's another snowflake off the shuttles. This one looks more like a snowflake, it keeps the daisy centre, so maybe I need to call it a "flowerflake" like Muskaan suggested. It's light and airy and fairly quick to tat resulting in a snowflake that's about 3.25 inches point to point done in size 20 thread.

Row 1 ends in a split chain and Row 2 uses lock joins to connect to the first row. Row 3 uses the second shuttle to throw rings off the top of the chains to make the points and that's as complicated as it gets as you can see from the pattern.

The next idea I tried went nowhere fast, so I'm thinking of going back to the rose I started with and see where I end up.

Close, but no cigar

The phrase, and its variant 'nice try, but no cigar', are of US origin and date from the mid-20th century. Fairground stalls gave out cigars as prizes, and this is the most likely source, although there's no definitive evidence to prove that. -and why should you care?

I started with the failed design from November 12th because I really liked the reinforced daisy shape, but I could tell the the arms had too many stitches to fit in the available space and rather than waste any more tatting time I cut off the arm and started back at the second row. (I'm not counting the starting ring as a separate row.) After the central ring that daisy shape is made by chains joined to each other and the last petal of the daisy is a split chain allowing the second row to wrap around the top of the petals. Muskaan should love this design since she loves to pick out the flower shapes in her tatting.

Row 3 has short side chains that join side to side and 3 little rings joined into the space above the lock join. I showed that little spot which isn't a picot as a tiny circle where the 3 rings join. Row 3 also ends with a short split chain. Row 4 is ring and chain with a ring thrown off the top of the chain at the tip of the point. I realized as I was writing this out that I had forgotten to shade the ring at the tip to show that it's done with the second shuttle. Of course that meant that I needed to show a second shuttle in my "legend" which I had also forgotten.

In addition to the central daisy, I also like the filigree effect of this design although the rings at the tips seem too small, but I like them anyway. Only, it's not very snowflake-y AGAIN. A perfectly lovely design, just not what I was looking for. I've been on a roll designing and drawing 6 designs in 20 days, but none of them were what I was hoping for. Close, but not quite. So I have the next rendition already on the shuttles.

I'm not sure it's going to work either, but I think I'll give it a break and go back to the November 8 Snowflake as I want to see what it looks like with 8 arms instead of 6. If it sits right and looks good I'm thinking of doing a multi motif design in different colours, but that will depend on how it looks, what colours I have available in the necessary quantities.

And why should you care that it was close, but no cigar? I titled this post, which I had written previously in Notepad but not saved because it was just a short post. Then it occurred to me that such idiomatic expressions don't make sense to international readers so I Googled it to find the source, for your edification. As I was holding down the CTRL key after copying the meaning of the idiom I switched screens back to the unsaved Notepad file which I had previously highlighted to copy it. At that point I accidentally hit the letter T and deleted the whole post!!!

And the whole point of this saga was to provide you with the pattern for the above snowflake, which is posted here:

Unimaginative Snow 11-21-2018

I decided to re-tat the cut out snowflake and see if I could tighten it up and make it more snowflake-y.  An extra outward facing ring at the tips of the points did give the design more of a snowflake shape. The finished flake is about 3.25 inches from point to point.

The unconnected rings with the chain between them still resulted in a big hole in the middle of the grouping. It could probably be covered by a bead, but I wasn't looking for a beady design. I included some insets showing split rings, split chains and directional arrows that will hopefully make the drawing clearer. In order to tat it in one pass begin with the central ring and use a split ring  to climb out. Then tat the short connecting chain to the next 3 ring grouping. The 2 rings of the first grouping thrown off the top of the chain don't get tatted until you finish the row.

It's not what I'd call a successful design, but it's done and it'll look OK hanging on the back of the tree. Since I already had it half drawn anyway I finished the pattern and it's posted below if anyone is interested in this insipid design.

Onwards and upwards, hopefully to something I like more. I picked up the snowflake with the daisy centre that I started November 12th and cut off the offending bits and started again. So far I'm liking it.

Decisions, decisions

I went back to the drawing from the cut out snowflake and made another attempt at executing it What and ugly mess. I stated out with unconnected rings which looked pretty. When I tried to climb into the next row things just didn't want to work, mostly because the design required the unconnected rings to be connected. That's the point at which I decided the the drawing while possible to tat, wasn't going to look any good.  So I cut off the second round and went for something different.

At the end of the third row I ran out of thread so I just cut it off. After hand blocking it, otherwise known as pulling it out by the points, it exposed a lot of bare threads and I'm not sure I like the look of it. Shall I scrap it, or re-tat it and see if it's winner.?

The alternative of course is to pitch it and start over. I still have to work something out for the failed daisy from November 12th.

TA DA! my December 2018 snowflake

I finally got the December 2018 Snowflake drawn. I've designed so many snowflakes that I've started naming them by the date they were created. On the original design I started with a central ring of 2-2-2-2-2-2 and normal size picots, but as you could see when I posted earlier it made for a scrunched up snowflake. I tatted it again with a central ring of 3-3-3-3-3-3 and picots twice as long as normal which made the circumference of the central ring much larger. In case you are unfamiliar with tatting a flat rose, take a look at the links on the right side of the page where I've included a tutorial on how to make them. When making roses try to keep your tension even and make sure you snug up the chains before you make the lock joins.

Even with the larger centre the finished snowflake looks very crumpled, although it did block out flat to a snowflake about 3 inches across. The first chain of Row 5 was 12 stitches, but I changed it to 6-6 with a very small picot on both side of each arm, then joined arm to arm which made the snowflake pull into shape better, made it easier to block and made it look better over all.

Showing those 6+6 chains was a bit of a problem, so I showed the stitch count with little arrows where they ought to go.

That means my Christmas snowflakes are done and dusted and now I can go back to that pattern drawn from the snowflake cut out and play around with it a little more. I think I'll just use a central starting ring this time and not get too creative Until I see where this thing is going. The problematic row should be left ring, right ring, split ring down ring, then chain, up ring, chain and repeat, but getting to that point may be a stinker.

In any event, here's the part you were waiting for, the finished snowflake and of course, the pattern.

If you have any problems with it please let me know, as I dashed the drawing off in a hurry.

Something is better than nothing

I started tatting my Christmas snowflakes, and as Muskaan mentioned, the inner part makes a nice little snowflake all on it's own. Here's what it looks like after the fourth row.

Cute, isn't it? This little snowflake is just over 2 inches across from point to point. It's nice, but not as large as what I was looking for, so I added the 5th row. I managed to draw it up to the point of this little flake, but trying to get the stitch counts in where the chains are lying against one another is giving me problems so there's no pattern yet.

Actually, that's not true. There is a pattern for the the inner part of my Christmas snowflake which I've called Little Flake. That part of the pattern is included below.

Hopefully, I'll get the rest of if drawn out soon.

I think it'll work...maybe not

My frustration level is getting pretty high about now. Hubby's making noises about sending out our Christmas cards soon which means I need to get a on tatting tear and start whipping out snowflakes.
That's hard to do when you can't even settle on a design. GRRR!

Since things aren't flowing smoothly I thought I'd go back to where they started going off track and resurrected my second try to take another stab at it. I knew the inner section needed to be larger so that the next rows didn't overlap. I began by making the inner ring larger and making the picots longer That made the chains on the subsequent rows correspondingly longer. After that I followed the original design and I think I have a winner. The finished snowflake is 3 inches across from point to point which is what I was aiming for.  You can see the first attempt at the design and how  the final version came out.

There aren't and split rings or split chains to slow me down and I have a pretty flake that flows off the shuttles easily. I just have to sit down now and tat like mad. Then all I have to do is draw the pattern out, but that might take a while.

Hubby has the camera attached to the car and now has to run wiring from the front bumper to the dashboard. A backup camera is wired to the back up lights and it only engaged when the backup lights come on. Since this camera is being wired to the front of the car, the camera would be on all the time unless it's wired to a switch so that it's only on when needed. It needs wire going to the switch and wire going from the switch to the battery as well as wire going to the display. Running wire through tight spaces needs smaller hands, namely mine. Consequently I'm going to be spending the next little while with my hands covered in black grease.

Black grease and white thread don't make for good bedfellows when you want pristine snowflakes.
Wish me luck.

Back to the drawing board - again

I posted the snowflake cut out that I was using because I though others might want to use it to create their own snowflake. I created a quick sketch to play around with. I drew over top of the paper cut out like the picture shown here. 

Then I deleted the paper cut out and was left with just the drawing and I proceeded to tat it.

I anticipated that I'd have to increase the size of the rings on each row, so I started with inner rings of 5-5 I expected a big hole in the middle of the design because I wasn't starting with a central ring, but I though it might look really cute with long woven picots in the middle so I started with long picots and ran into my first snag. If you want to weave the picots they need to just touch the edge of the ring on the opposite side of the motif, but it's hard to know how long that distance is when you haven't tatted it yet. so I took a guess. I was using a sort of unconnected cloverleaf with the inner rings at 5-5 as mentioned and used 3-3-3-3 for the side rings ending in a split ring up to the next round.

That's where things got squirrely, or I got tired. I needed 4 connected rings of graduated sizes, joining to 2 more larger connected rings. I tatted it, undid it, tatted it again, undid it again, looked at the drawing and reasoned it out and tatted it again, and again. Then I got fed up and cut if off.

At least now I know how long the central picots have to be. Of course I'm obviously NOT using this design which might work when I'm  more alert to figure out what I need to do. But I've decided that since the dozen split rings I'd need to tat would slow down my tatting speed and I either need to rework the design or scrap it altogether, I am once more going back the the drawing board.

The computer ate my homework

I thought I'd get back to something simple and see where it lead me, so I started with a simple ring in, ring out design, except that half way through the first round I could tell it was going to cup horrendously, so I cut it off and started again.

This time I went with ring chain, thrown off ring and it looked too simplistic, so I cut it off and started again.

The next  design looked like it was going to work, but after the second repeat I realized that I had intended to have a starting ring, work up one side and come back down the other side to a second inner ring. I lost track of what I was doing and instead of a second inner ring I attached to the second picot of the first ring. There's no way that's going to work. So it's time to snip again.

Since just tatting without any pre-set plan wasn't working I thought I'd start with a paper snowflake template and use it as a basis for a design. Ages ago I designed a bunch of cut outs on the snowdays web site and saved the images for future reference. I grabbed one of the images, pulled it into my drawing program and began laying out rings following the outline of the paper snowflake cut out.

Before I could plot out the placement of the chains and how to tat the design it created, hubby decided we had to rush right out before the store closed to get some nylon screws for the front bumper. He's putting a camera behind the front grill so that he can see how close he's getting to the curb. The front hood of the car is really long and sloped in such a way that you can't see how close you are to the curb in the parking lot and several times we've gotten out the the car and realized that we're not close enough, or we've gotten too close and scraped the bumper. He removed the grill in order to mount the camera and realized that when the car was repaired after a little fender bender, the shop had remounted the grill and broke off the supports so that the only thing holding it on was the license plate.

That was just about the point where I realized that the new set up of my drawing program had defaulted to an inappropriate drawing platform. When what you are trying to create is lace, an electronic diagram template, just won't do.

That's not a problem, all I had to do was bring up a lace drawing, erase it, paste in my partial new drawing and save it under a new name. Easy peasy. It was at that instant that the computer locked up so that I couldn't save anything, couldn't change screens, couldn't close down any of the five programs I had running, couldn't change to a different drive and in fact couldn't do anything except pull the plug. Pulling the plug meant that anything on screen was lost. Gone! Tonight I get to start again.

And after all that, the store we rushed out to, didn't even have the nylon screws we needed to put the grill back in the bumper.

Look Ma, it's a dud!

I liked the daisy shape on an earlier design so I thought I'd try it again. After completing the daisy I didn't really want something that used a lot of split chains so I thought I'd just outline the daisy shape with more chain. I like the effect and started to create another row that would bring in the snowflake shape. I didn't like the effect I was getting so I undid what I had started and began again. I didn't want a lot of rows so I thought I'd do something that went out instead of around.

Once I had completed one arm I could see it was going to start bunching up again so I quit before I got too invested. This is another dud although I may keep the first rows of chain and revisit the design at a later date. I've already got the next one on the shuttles, but I'm not sure I'm going to like it any better that the first few.

Maybe I'll go back to the original design. I liked it but it was too time consuming, only at this rate I may spend all my tatting time creating and throwing out designs as not suitable and still not have anything ready for the Christmas cards.

I had the same problem the first year I did snowflakes to send out and ended up doing a whole bunch, all different. That would have been OK if I'd remembered to write down what I sent to who so that I could rotate them for the next year. Since I didn't keep record I had to design an all new snowflake, which started this whole thing of sending a different snowflake with our Christmas cards.

I guess I'd better get cracking as the mailing date will soon be upon us. Of course if the post office is on strike, the cards aren't going to go anywhere anyway!

Third try

After not blogging for ages, it looks like I'm on a roll and you can probably look forward to more updates as I'm currently in snowflake mode. This is the third snowflake and I like the design, just maybe not as a snowflake. It begins with a central ring with 5 picots and one mock picot. I normally make my picots so that they're about the same height as the stitches, but since I didn't want the centre all cramped up I made the picots on the central ring about twice the size that I normally do. The daisy shape in the middle of the design is made with chains of 6-6-6-6 The chains forming the petals are joined side to side and the last petal ends with a split chain, putting the shuttles in place to begin the second row.

The chains of Row 2 are likewise joined side to side as are the chains of Row 3, again ending in a split chain. But you can see that for yourself as I've included the pattern below.

I've taken another look at the 2nd snowflake. I had to straighten it out to scan it and I wondered if blocking might work so I pinned it out on my board and left it over night. It might not need a lot of coaxing to fix it. It might just take longer picots at the start. I won't know for a while as I'm on to design number 4 and if we watch a movie tonight I may have another pattern to post tomorrow.

Another failure

My goal is to create a snowflake that's roughly 3 inches across that looks pretty, works up fairly quickly to insert in the Christmas cards for my family and a few other select individuals. The one I showed yesterday is pretty, but not really quick to tat.

On the next one I started with a 3 round centre to save some tatting time and used the same kind of idea and the previous snowflake for the next row, but I wanted the arms to be more pronounced, which they are. However, there are too many stitches too close together so the whole thing ruffles. The ruffling wasn't too pronounced until the last row. While the design worked up more quickly and had some redeeming features it's not going to lay flat without some aggressive blocking. I might fight with one snowflake, but if I'm going to do a bunch of them I want them to cooperate and lay flat right off the shuttles so I'm calling this one a fail. I'm not going to tweak it to make it work and I'm certainly not doing a drawing for it.

So I'm on to the third design which so far I kind of like, but I'm thinking I might want to do it again as an eight sided design instead of a 6 point snowflake. It isn't snowflake-y enough for my taste so this next one probably won't make it as my Christmas design either, but it probably will get drawn out.

First snowflake of the season

I started this snowflake yesterday but when I went to whip out the drawing for it I came to a complete standstill.

I upgraded my computer this summer and a lot of my old software doesn't run on Windows 10 so when Hubby asked if I wanted it installed, I declined. I like having all of my old software, but tweaking it so that it will run adequately on Win 10 is a pain in the butt and I'm not even the one that has to struggle with the stupid thing. But you can't create a drawing without the software so I finally asked my sweetie to install it. Which he did and after it was adequately blessed (or maybe it was cursed) I don't know I left the room, it finally worked.

Some things don't seem to work like they used to, or maybe it's that I've been away from using drawing software for so long, but I finally managed to create a reasonable facsimile of the finished lace.

I'd been playing around with some designs that start with a basic flat rose so that's where the snowflake started. It's a rose plus 3 more rows using a basic shuttle and ball of thread and it's pretty straightforward except for the split chain at the end of row 6. Seven rows seems like it ought to be big enough for a doily, but it's just 3.25 inches from point to point. done in size 20 thread. It doesn't work up quickly enough to use in our Christmas cards so I've already stared on another one, which doesn't look like it with suit either so there's bound to be a few more coming off the shuttles.

Assuming that you'll probably want the pattern, I've already included it here.

Enjoy!

Colour this doily done

I haven't been blogging a lot. Boy, is that an understatement! We (that would be mostly he) did a lot of work on the old washer before we finally decided enough was enough and bought the new one. (So far I love it.) For some reason when hubby is working on a project I get roped into holding the light, holding one side of the probe for a continuity tester, holding up the long end of the lumber going through the saw, or just generally being a second set of eyes and a spare hand for whatever he's doing. So while I don't have much to show for my activity, he finishes up a lot of projects. When we bought out new washer and dryer, hubby wasn't satisfied with putting new machines on the concrete basement floor, so he built stands for both to elevate them off the concrete. He lifts, I position. See, I'm just a third hand.

I did manage to finish off a project I started in April of 2017. I started with a handful of colours and and I wanted to make a doily that progressed from one colour to the next and used the 3 solid and 2 variegated colours.

I posted some of the progress as it happened and I took pictures of each section, but I don't think I ever showed the final row.

Part of the delay was that I didn't like how the final row ended. I had 8 widely separated points and while the design was symmetrical I kind of wanted more shallow points in between and then some more rows finishing off with a single row of chain in pink.

I wanted those shorter in between points, but after 3 or 4 unsuccessful attempts, I put it aside. I must never put things aside. Putting them aside means never finishing. If I don't finish it NOW, it isn't going to get finished. Last week hubby finally decided to do his weight lifting in the basement and cleared his weights off the end table. Since the table looked bare he suggested that I ought to put a doily on it. So I pulled out the unfinished doily and took another crack at it. No. Nope. Nothing was working. Then I spread it out and measured it. 13.75 inches from point to point. That's pretty much the size you want for a finished doily. So I cut off the offending short points that weren't working and called it done.

I don't love it and I don't hate it. It did what I was planning on doing and now I can reel the thread off my shuttles, pack these balls of thread away, free up some space in my end table and start something new.

Snowflakes anyone?

Not so clean and fresh

We were out shopping the other day and happened to see Tide in a yellow jug on sale. Normally l like Tide, but I had never tried the Tide Simply Clean & Fresh in the Daybreak Fresh scent, but it was Tide and it was on sale, so it had to be a good deal right? Wrong. I loaded up my spanking new machine and added the recommended amount of detergent. The stink coming from the washing machine suggested that the clothes were really dirty, like stinky, sweaty, stale gym bag, dirty. So I was glad to get things washed.

When the cycle was done I was in a hurry and just quickly dumped everything into the dryer. When I went back to get things out of the dryer I could still smell a horrific stench. As I think I mentioned, my nose isn't nearly as sensitive as hubby's so I grabbed the freshly washed load of laundry and made him stick his nose in it. His response? Man does that stuff need washing, it smells like something died in there. Then I grabbed the jug of detergent and made him smell it. Putrid, stinky, foul horrible stuff.

So both of us concur, this stuff just stinks.

I had to put everything through the wash again with a different detergent and then through a second rinse just to get rid of the stench. I bought 2 jugs of the stuff, because, it was Tide and it was on sale. So having 2 jugs of it I thought maybe I could use it for something that doesn't come near our noses, like kitchen towels. No dish washer, so we do dishes by hand and I just wait until I have a bunch of kitchen towels to do and wash them all at once. I tried it again on them with the same results. When I go to dry dishes, the smell makes me want to gag, making me feel like using the towels is actually putting dirt ON the clean dishes.

So, I won't be using it again. Maybe hubby can use it for washing the car, or hosing down the patio. All I know is that there's no way I'm going to be using it on clothes.

I did write to Tide telling them I think their product stinks -LITERALLY STINKS!! and they responded suggesting that scent is one of personal preference, which I agree. Although I can't imaging anyone liking the smell of dirty socks. They also suggested that I might have used the wrong dosage, although since it's a new machine and I'm being careful to do everything according to the recommendations on the packaging to make sure I don't have any problems, that's not likely. There is also the possibility that the combined scent of detergent and fabric softener, might result in weird blendings -- except I don't use fabric softener. I do use dryer sheets, the unscented kind. They were very kind to offer a prepaid debit card which will cover the cost of the detergent. Which isn't really the point.

At any rate, if you happen to see Tide Simply Clean & Fresh in the Daybreak Fresh scent you might want to just pass it by. Or at least give it a sniff test in the jug before you try it. I don't know, you might like washing your clothes in eau de dirty socks.

Re-visited

I had reason to re-tat a design I created 10 years ago and realized after I did it, that there was a a small mistake in it. As much as possible I try to keep the original sample of the things I tat so I still have the first one I did. I tatted it again according to the diagram, but it didn't look exactly the same so I reexamined the original and counted the stitches in one part at 2-2-2-2 as per the diagram. Then I counted it again at 2-2-2 so I undid a couple of stitches, but that didn't seem right so I added them back in again. I think I went back and forth 3 or 4 times. It's 2 picots, no it's 3, no it's 2...I went with 2 and it worked out although 3 probably would work as well. I did the first sample using size 8 perle cotton and re-did it this time using size 20 Lizbeth. The first one on the right, was 3 inches across and the second one on the left, in Lizbeth ended up being 2.5 inches across.

I like designing, but I'm not crazy about re-visiting old designs. Once I'm done with a design, I'm done, I don't really want to play with it again mostly because I tend to pick it apart and think I should have done this, or that would have been a better idea. Some how the muse that works the first time around just doesn't want to stick around for another kick at the can.

Or maybe it's just that I'm getting old.....Nah, that couldn't have anything to do with it. Can it?

Out with the old - in with the new

It finally happened. After repeated repairs, we finally decided to call it quits and bought a new washer and dryer. Front loading machines weren't even on the initial list. I understand that for short people they're a great thing, but I'm not, short, that is, and neither is hubby. Why, when you're going to put water in a container, would you put a door on the side of it? It's just stupid. A lot of people I know who have front loading machines end up with leaks, something that rarely happens with top loading machines. If you have a front loading machine and love it, great. I just don't.

Not only that, but the front loading machines need to be dried after every use, or you have to leave the door open for it to dry out naturally. If you're in a small space it just got smaller as you try to maneuver around the perpetually open door. If you don't, the machine begins to stink and the clothes you wash in it stink from the stagnant water that's been trapped in the gasket around the door. Yuck!

Our research showed that machines with agitators get clothes cleaner and that's OK because the old one had an agitator and I wanted an agitator on the new one. I can't see these little impellers in the new machines working all that efficiently, but I guess some people are happy with them.  I went for a new Maytag with an agitator, an extra water setting and a second rinse setting.

So far, it does take longer to do a load of wash but the clothes do seem to come out clean and after the last few months of having to coax the old machine to move on to the rinse cycle and having to just put things through a second wash without soap to make sure that things actually got rinsed, I'm a happy camper.

It does take longer to wash a load, but the machine has a quick wash cycle, so I'm guessing that if there's only a couple of items to wash this setting should work. Hubby uses a half capful of detergent for his "load" of a couple of tshirts and a pair of socks. I KNOW, I KNOW! He says it doesn't get clean if he uses less. He has the nose of a bloodhound and he can smell the least little thing. I brought in 1 tiny stalk of lily of the valley last spring and set it on the table downstairs. He was upstairs on the opposite side of the house and within 5 minutes he was asking me if I'd sprayed perfume! Forget hyacinths or lilacs and I love lilacs but I can't have them in the house or it drives him nuts. Consequently, he puts all of his clothes through the machine twice. Once with detergent and once with just water to get all of the detergent out. I refuse to do his laundry because I refuse to wash such a minuscule load especially with so much excess detergent.

With the old machine, that meant waiting for the machine to finish the cycle and then starting it all over again. I used the short setting of 12 minutes wash before the rinse and spin but he always used the 19 minutes plus rinse and spin. I could do a load of bedding wash and dry in an hour. His "load" of 2 tshirts and a pair of socks or a single pair of jeans took and hour to wash and half an hour to dry. If we both had to do laundry at the same time, I tried to get mine in first so that my load was done and in the dryer before he got started. Otherwise it'd be and hour for the first load and another hour for his jeans before the machine was free to do my 20 minute load.

We were concerned that the newer machines don't really use enough water to really get clothes clean, but this machine has an extra water setting that puts in more water to start with which seems to work really well. I washed 3 regular pillows the other day (I think it's a 7 cubic foot tub) and it took all 3 and sloshed them around until they were right at the top of the tub and full of water. Since the machine has an extra rinse setting we don't have to run down and start it all over again. So all in all, even though a cycle takes longer, with the extra rinse and not having to start the whole thing a second time, It actually takes about the same amount of time for hubby to do a "load".

Last week his sniffer didn't like his sheets so I pulled another set out of the cupboard and changed them, but no, they didn't smell fresh to him either and he was persuaded that the sheets had absorbed the smell from the vacuum cleaner stored in that cupboard. So I switched them for a set from another cupboard. Nope, not fresh enough. So I switched the pillowcases and that was okay enough for him to sleep through the night. The next day I went out and bought more sheets to fit the bed and did load after load of bedding and the pillows, (I bought a new one of those too) until everything was clean enough to pass the sniff test.

It's funny, the bedding and towels which I do with regular amounts of detergent and a single cycle are clean enough to pass his nose test, but he's persuaded that things aren't clean unless he uses 4 times the recommended amount of detergent when he does laundry... In all fairness he sometimes has oil and grease on his clothes from working on the car, or tree sap and stain from woodworking which does take a little more washing. At least he isn't using a capful any more. I think I may have persuaded him that it's OK to use the quantity recommended by the manufacturer. I hope so, or my new machine may end up throwing a hissy fit at all the excess detergent.

I've only had the machine for a couple of weeks and other than taking longer to do a load, so far I like it. Here's keeping my fingers crossed.

Washing Garbage

When I was kid, now admittedly that was a long time ago, I used to open a can, dump out it's contents and throw the can in the garbage. The can, after all, was just a container whose purpose had already been served. So it was open, dump and throw. Back then, microwave ovens hadn't been invented and most people cooked their meals from fresh meat, fish, fowl and vegetables which don't really generate a lot of waste. Meat came from the butcher wrapped in paper and veggies came in whatever natural wrapper God gave them. Potato peels, apple cores watermelon rinds and corn husks all got thrown on the compost heap, which did what compost heaps do, and ultimately furnished rich loamy soil to feed the garden.

Then we got more sophisticated and dinner now comes pre-cooked and pre-packaged to make things more convenient and consequently produces a lot more non usable garbage that we're quickly running out of places to store. The empty plastic and foil containers can't be composted, so now we need to recycle them. Of course gone are the days when you can open, use, and throw. Now after use, the empty container has to be stored for weeks and if you live in a townhouse like I do, there is no room anywhere to store enormous garbage, recyclable, and organic waste bins. There is barely enough room in the garage for the car, let alone these huge bins and smaller bins won't hold weeks worth of garbage. So that means they need to be stored in the house, the only remaining space. To avoid the stench of rotting garbage we have to carefully wash all of these containers before storing them.

This week again I marvel at how far we've come as I wash out cans, bottles and tubs, literally washing garbage before I pitch it out.

I'm all for protecting the environment, but I wonder if governments were really sincere about reducing waste if they couldn't find some way to reduce the garbage at the source. You know what I mean. Every time you bring something home from the store it's wrapped up like a mummy. Component parts are wrapped in plastic bags and then fitted inside protective styrofoam blocks with cardboard spacers holding things in place inside the cardboard box, which is inside shrink seal cellophane. Overkill much?!!??

A long time ago, when a lot of the jobs went overseas because of the cheaper work force, one of the ways a manufacturer could still claim the product Canadian made was if a certain percentage of the product was made here. In practice, that meant that it could be identified as Canadian, even if the only thing Canadian was the packaging, as long as the Canadian content dollar wise, met the threshold. Guess where some of the excess packaging started coming in?

In all fairness, since most of the manufacturing jobs have gone overseas, the products that we use every day have to come back from overseas to be sold here and in all that travel you don't want something like a large TV to get a hole poked in it just because it wasn't sufficiently protected.  But somewhere, somehow, there has to be a happy balance.

In the interim, I'm stuck here, washing garbage.

High Efficiency - NOT

After many many years of faithful service it's about time for my old washing machine to be retired. It washes clothes perfectly in a very short amount of time but lately it's been getting stuck now and then and when I go to throw things in the dryer, the machine is still full of water. It takes a little nudge before the machine will go into the spin cycle and empty out. It's a small irritation, but it's prompted me to look for a new machine.

I loathe front loading machines. I'm tall enough that I don't have a problem reaching down into a top loading machine and I've always considered front loading machines stupid. It makes no logical sense to me to have a door where the water is. In my opinion it's an accident looking for a place to happen. IF there's a leak in the door seal, there will be water all over the floor, which is never an issue with a top loading machine.

A couple of years ago one of my sisters, (I have 5 of them) replaced her old machine with a front loading model because she's short and another of my sisters recommended it. Ever since I've been listening to her complain about how inferior her new machine is, how it doesn't get the clothes clean, and it takes so much  longer to do a load of laundry.

Knowing that I might have some issues, I started doing some research. I discovered that in addition to being a dumb idea, 20% of front loading machines develop issues with mold, mildew, bad smells and clothes coming out of the washer dirtier than when they went in. That stupid front door seal needs to be carefully and thoroughly dried after each use, or the build up of stagnant water just stinks and gets dumped into your next load of laundry. Really impressive. Front loaders were never on my shopping list, but finding out about that little problem would have permanently removed them from my wish list if I had been looking at them. I know another alternative is to just leave the door open and let it air dry, but that means the door is permanently open where you can trip over it and if you do frequent washes, the fold over gasket that's used on some machines can still trap water that doesn't fully dry out.

Another thing I discovered is that most top loading "high efficiency" machines don't have an agitator, even when agitators clean better. One of the reasons I was given for not having an agitator is that it wears clothes out. Nonsense. I've always used a machine with an agitator and I have clothes that are older than my machine that are still going strong after hundreds of washings. I've seen dozens of reviews where people have complained that there clothes end up in a tight ball, and badly wrinkled due to the constant spinning of the non agitator machines.

It was at that point that I discovered the new "high efficiency" machines take about 50 minutes to go through a normal cycle. Really? 50 minutes?!?!! My old machine takes about 20 minutes to wash a load of bedding. The delicate cycle takes about 7 minutes. The dryer takes about 30 minutes to dry a load of bedding, maybe 40 minutes if it's flannel sheets. Which means I can wash and dry a load in less than an hour.

The comes the kicker. The longer 50 minute cycle, because it doesn't use enough water will probably not actually get really dirty clothes clean. They'll probably have to go through a second cycle if they're really dirty. So, my old machine can take badly soiled clothes, like the things hubby wears to work on the car and have them clean and fresh smelling in 20 minutes, but a new "high efficiency" machine will take 50 minutes to go through a cycle, but probably it will take 2 cycles to actually get the clothes clean, or nearly 2 hours.

I asked the sales people to explain to me how that was more efficient. Nobody had an answer, so I went back and did some research. It turns out that what the new machines are more efficient at is using less water and less detergent. They're not really more efficient at all, when efficient is measured in terms of cleaner clothes, less use of electricity, or more important to me, less use of my time. In a small household, we still have a couple of loads of bedding, a couple of loads of towels and 3 or 4 loads of clothes every week. I can't imagine how a large family copes with the issue. Especially when you're trying to fit that in around the less expensive hours of electricity consumption.

So, the so called high efficiency washing machines, use less water and less detergent to do a less effective job of cleaning clothes. Some machines reportedly don't use enough water to even get all of the clothes wet. Without an agitator, they ball the clothes up in a knot leaving them badly wrinkled. Supposedly, these high efficiency machines spin the clothes so well that they need less dryer time which is where they save on electricity. Except that the new dryers now have a steam cycle to put moisture back in the clothes to take out the wrinkles that the washing machine put in!!!!!!

I think I'll just get my Mr Fix It to replace the worn parts on my old machine so that I can efficiently enjoy really clean clothes in short amounts of time.

An extra note: I heard several sales people telling me that people are adding a wet towel to their wash which adds the water in the towel as well as increasing the weight of the load to trick the machine into adding more water. Which is probably good for most things, but some items are liable to come out with a lot of extra fuzzy bits from the towel.