More Sequins

After I did the sequin bookmark, Fox and I had a couple of emails about using sequins in tatting and I thought one possibility might be a an amulet bag. Fox dared me. So I did.

The start of it was the sequined flower, which I suppose might just be used as a simple pendant, but I was aiming for a bag, so I wanted rectangular. I started with the flower shown in the previous post.

I drew the pattern SmartDraw. I use Serif's program because it's free for the design class, but I've been using SmartDraw for years and I just stick with my old version 4 program. I prefer it's preformatted curved line that I can drop and drag, to the straight line you have to add nodes to, in a lot of other programs like Serif. Once I had the basic shape I tried several methods of adding chains in order to give me the rectangular shape I needed. Then before going to sleep I printed it off and tatted the first row.

As I was nodding off to sleep I started thinking about tatting a back for the bag and how I might attach it to the front. I thought that the back could be quite plain and rows of ring and chain would do the job. Then I thought a row of split rings in the shape of a rectangle around the flower, would frame the flower and give me a base for attaching the back to it.

So when I woke up, I cut off the chains I had added around the front and just tatted a long string of split rings. I laid them around the flower, tying them where the frame and flower touched and when I knew what I needed, I cut off my trial bit of ring and chain and did it again, joining in the appropriate places.

When it came to doing the back I thought about adding more sequins and what I was hoping for was loose floppy sequins that shimmered together in rows. I went looking for sequins with a single hole along the edge, instead of the ones I have with a hole in the middle, but I couldn't find any. So I had to use what I have. Pinned in the middle, these sequins don't shimmer and shake. Since my foundation frame row was in split rings, it just seemed practical to continue that way and I very carefully tatted my first row, starting at the top.

About 2 rings in it occurred to me that if the sequins needed to be hung from the top, then I'd be doing joins and adding sequins at the same point which might be awkward and difficult. So I retro tatted everything and started again at the bottom. Of course the bottom of the bag has to be attached as well, so that just made the first row that much harder to do. I was being very careful not to repeat the same mistake I made on the bookmark so I was quite particular as to which side I was spearing the sequin on so that they all laid in the same direction.

When I hit the end of the row, I needed to join to the bottom, join to the flower frame on the side, add a sequin and, of course. climb out right where the sequin was, to the next row. I was adding the sequins in the same way you'd do a bead join and it needed a stitch after it to hold everything in place. There ISN'T a stitch after when you are climbing out. So I removed a stitch before the sequin join, made the join and added the last stitch. Which means that the sequins where I climbed out aren't exactly in the middle of the side of the ring.

As I was doing the next row, I realized that I could either do a lock join on the split side of the split ring, or I could do it the normal way. The lock join on top of the sequin looked ugly, so I went for my normal join. Several times the split rings snagged and didn't want to close. It might have been the sequins or it might have been the thread. The Mocha Brown Lizbeth is the first Lizbeth thread that I have had that has slubs. Most of them have been tiny loose excess bits of fluff along the thread, but a couple of them were bigger and made for less than smooth ring closing.

After I'd done a few rows, I noticed something. Not all of my sequins were facing the same way. I think it was when I had to climb out through a split ring while adding a sequin that threw me off, or maybe it was tatting in the dark while watching TV, or the fact that my little container of sequins got spilled all over the couch. After the first backward sequin, 2 rows back, I stopped caring. I just wanted this thing finished. When I got to the end I decided I wanted a little something along the top of the bag to cover over the picots that were folded down to make the sequins lay over the rings. So I added a row of chains along the top and a long row of split rings for a hanging chain.

I could have re-worked the front so that there were brown rings connecting the flower to the frame, but I'm done with this so I cut a length of ribbon and tucked it in the bag. If I were going to use it to hold something I'd sew the sides of the ribbon closed, but as it is, I'm done. Nothing left but to sew in ends and scan it.

Here it is, front and back.

That's when I noticed THIS.

Give me a break. What is a pink sequin doing in a container of yellow ones? And why didn't I notice it until I was scanning it?