It just kept growing

Want to see what's been taking up all my tatting time recently? This started as a simple square motif that I thought I might use to embellish a denim jacket. It kind of grew out of control and has been taking all of my tatting time recently.

When I got the first square bit done, the bits between the points looked kind of empty. When I fixed that problem, I created another. To fix the second problem I ended up with a chopped off point. By the time I had fixed the point I had created yet another problem. For a while there I thought I was going to end up with a tablecloth before I got the various problems fixed. 14 inches side to side and nearly 15 inches point to point. Done with Coats Royale size 20.

I may leave it white or give it a dye bath. I haven't decided yet. It doesn't really fit any of the spaces I have, being too wide for my end tables and too small for my dining table. Maybe I should have kept going....Nah, I'm tired of this one.

Now my problem is what do I tat next?

Supply Find

I've only lived here for 20+ years, yet this week was the first time I made a trip down to the Coats and Clark clearance centre. I've known it was there, I just never got around to making the trek, partly because it's in an out of the way place and partly because I didn't know it was open to the public. What prompted me to check it out was some folks on a local email list recommending it. When I did investigate it, I discovered that it is only open 3 days a week.

We had to visit a client about a job and they were just a few blocks away from the Coats and Clark location so I had to drop in. I was hoping for lots of different crochet threads, but what I found was rooms and rooms full of yarn and very little crochet cotton.

I was wearing a tatted collar so that I could show the staff the kind of thread I was looking for, but they didn't have any crochet cotton on hand. I did discover some spools of Dual Duty Plus which is suitable for bookmarks, but as this is the clearance location the colour selection isn't terrific.

The larger spools of thread are Machine Quilting and Crafts thread size #50. These were all plastic wrapped and it was hard to tell what size 50 would look like tatted up, but I was thinking I might do a doily with the thread so I bought enough for that purpose. I opened one of the spools and tatted a wee ring when I got home.
Size 50 is, well, tiny as far as doily threads go. It's fine enough to make bookmarks out of although they'd be a little thicker that I like. Size 50 wouldn't be my first choice for doily thread.

They also had both metal and plastic Susan Bates shuttles. Again not my first choice for tatting but at $1.50 I got one anyway. Even if I don't use it, it gives me a shuttle I can give away if I need to, or one to show students what is available and point out the differences between the metal and plastic shuttles.

If you look close at the base of the dark blue thread you'll see a tiny ring. I had to show the staff what these odd looking contraptions were used for. I left them with my business card and my email address so if they get in any crochet thread they can let me know.

Luster Sheen is 100% cotton and as you can see it does tat. I will either crochet a shawl and add a tatted border, or I'll tat the whole thing. I haven't decided which yet. It's going to take a humungous shuttle to tat with it, but with all those colours, it should go with everything.

I bought the cross stitch kits because they were very cheap and I thought my sister might enjoy them.

Not a bad haul for a place that didn't have what I was looking for!

More things to do with snowflakes

One of the easiest things you can do with a snowflake is join several of them together. Snowflakes are supposed to have six sides as that just happens to be the natural shape of ice crystals. When you put a grouping of hexagons together in a round shape you use 7 hexagons, one in the middle and one attached to each of the six sides.

Several years ago I needed to create a doily in a hurry. My inspiration was nothing more than I just needed a quick gift. Having crocheted a lot of granny squares, knew that 7 joined hexagons would make a doily and I had 8 different hexagon shapes to choose from. The largest of the 8 designs was Snowflake 4, so it was my obvious choice. I tatted the 7 motives and joined ten together by their points.

That made a nice little grouping, but the motives were very pointy and they didn't have a nice smooth outer edge so the doily looked unfinished. If you have ever tatted a doily, you know that the further from the centre you get the longer it takes to tat a round and I didn't have a lot of time.

The simplest method of bringing it all together was just to tat a row of chain around the circumference of the motives. At the point where 3 motives were joined there were 3 cloverleaves. On the outer edge that meant that there were only 2 cloverleaves, so for continuity I tatted a cloverleaf of matching proportions at that point. Where there was just one cloverleaf, I tatted a single ring and joined them together by a chain.

The chains of the first row were deliberately made long both to save time and to separate the edging from the motives. The less connected it was, the less I had to figure out as far as matching the motif design. I could have worked the edging around each ring of the cloverleaf and followed the outer contour of the motives but it would have taken a lot more tatting and a lot more thinking. As it was, the negative space added a design element and made it easier to work the edging.

The single row had no depth or substance to it. It was just a big floppy chain. Adding the second row with more connecting points made it more solid and gave it shape. When you add an edging to something you want to repeat part of the theme to make it match and look like it belongs. The sparse 2 rows of edging added to the motives is kind of skimpy because I was short of time and had to make this in less than a week, but it still works.