Tatting a wild rose

Roses are a common motif in tatting comprised almost entirely of chains and they are quite simple to make once you understand how they are done. You begin with a central ring and the length of your picot defines how much of an arch there is in your petal and how much space there is between the central ring and the rest of the rose. The last picot space is actually a mock picot. So you make the ring and begin the first chain of the rose with a lock stitch.

A lock stitch is just an unflipped stitch and because it isn't flipped, it won't slide on the core thread. Without the lock stitch the chain might start out with an open space at the beginning, but when you snug up the stitches at the end of the chain, the space will close. So begin the chain by measuring out a short length of thread the same size as all the other picots. Make the first half stitch and if it flips make sure to pull on the chain thread to unflip it again. After all that practice flipping stitches, it's sometimes hard to remember NOT to flip.

The lock stitch may seem to be a little unstable and want to flip. But as soon as the second half of the stitch is completed normally, that is, flipped, it will stay in place. The space that is formed between the ring and the chain will look like any other picot when the rose is finished, but it isn't a picot, it's a picot space formed by the shuttle thread on one side and the ball or chain thread on the other side. The picot space in tatting when it is formed by two threads is called a mock (fake) picot.

Continue tatting the rest of the chain in the normal manner. When you have completed the chain make a shuttle join into the next picot. Joins in tatting typically are made along the tops of the stitches because you are joining one section of tatting to another. In a cloverleaf you join the outer edge of one ring to the outer edge of another ring. When you tat a motif or a doily you join to the top of the preceding work. When tatting a rose you join to the BOTTOM of the work. So instead of a normal join you use a shuttle join. In a normal join, a loop of the thread over the back of the left hand (assuming you are tatting right handed) is pulled through an available picot and the shuttle pushed through the loop. In this type of a join, the stitches slide on the shuttle thread. In a shuttle join a loop of the SHUTTLE thread is pulled up and then the shuttle is pushed through the loop. In this kind of join the stitches no longer slide on the shuttle thread. Make sure that your chain is snug before making the shuttle join.

After you make the shuttle join and continue with the next chain you will notice that while the shuttle thread is attached to the picot below, the chain thread just lays across the top of the join. You will see why this is important later. Continue working chains around the central ring, and making a shuttle join into each picot, until you are back at the mock picot you started the round with.

Make the last shuttle join of the round into the mock picot. There is only one mock picot in a rose and it's at the end of the central ring.

On the first round of the rose you made the shuttle joins into the picots on the central ring. On the next rows there are no picots to join into. Instead you will use your hook to wiggle under the chain thread that lays across the top of the shuttle join. You may find you have to stretch the chains apart a little especially if you are working in finer threads.

Once you have gotten your shuttle under the chain thread make the shuttle join and continue around the rose.

Each successive row is joined into the top of the shuttle join of the previous row.

If you find that the thread space above the shuttle join is very tight, then loosen your tension as you tat the first stitch of each chain. That will give you a little room for the stitches to move when you do the joins on the following row.

If your tatting is so tight or if you are working in thread that is exceptionally fine you may have difficulty making the joins into the thread above the shuttle join. In that case you may choose to begin each chain with a very, very tiny (almost invisible) picot. This will give you something to join into and at the same time it will keep the ends of the chains neatly in place.

Consistent tension is what will make a nice looking rose. Each chain is slightly longer than the chains of the preceding rows and they need to lay neatly each one above the other. If one round has chains looser or tighter than another round, the chains will have gaps between them or they will overlap one another. If the chain is too tight or too loose when you do the shuttle join, undo the join and straighten it out.

Roses can be used in lots of tatting and they are too pretty a technique not to master them.

Transitions in Tatting order form now up

The Transitions in Tatting order form is now up and clicking on the link

will take you to the page. I've also added it to the links list on the right.

One of the first patterns in the book is one I like to use for teaching and it's pictured here on the right. The design is intended to be worked in size 10 variegated thread.

I created this pattern so that it could be done using all chains an using a variegated thread it works the same way as using 2 colours of thread since you rarely have the same patch of colour both wrapped over your hand and coming from the shuttle. The central ring can be tatted as a ring or it can be tatted as a mock ring so that the whole bookmark is done in chains.

I often cut out flat shuttle shapes out of card stock or plastic lids and prewind them with thread. For the "ball" thread I use my business card and wind the ball thread around it, holding the card and the shuttle together with a paper clip and that way everyone is starting at the same point. The paper clip is slid over the thread between the shuttle and the card and we can start with the mock ring in the centre. I explain the difference between a normal and a mock ring and show them how they are different, but I use chains in the first lesson and rings on the second lesson.

The tail of this bookmark is just a zigzag chain with a tassel. It's a simple enough project that beginners will be able to complete it easily. It gives them practice without adding in anything confusing so they can concentrate on getting the thread to flip and making their picots a uniform size.

There are several small bookmarks like this at the beginning of the book that use different techniques and let beginners learn things step by step.

If you are a tatting teacher looking for a simple pattern to work with, you have my permission to copy and distribute this pattern and picture.

Transitions in Tatting from Flat to Floral

The Transitions in Tatting from Flat to Floral book is printed and the order form is up on the web site now. Click here for more information and the link to the order form.

The cost of the book including shipping is:

if using Pay Pal:

Canada $32.65 Canadian

US $36.40 Canadian

International $42.80 Canadian

If paying by cheque/check

Canada $32.65 Canadian
US $37.55 US or $36.40 International Money order in Canadian funds

International $42.80 International Money Order in Canadian funds.

Catching up

I haven't had much time to blog recently. I have my personal blog where I post, strangely enough, my personal stuff mostly about tatting. Then there is the huge time sucking black hole that is the 25 Motif Challenge blog, and more recently the Round Robin blog. Don't get me wrong, I love seeing all the wonderful tatting everyone else is doing and I don't mind pulling it all together so that the whole tatting community has a sort of central place to check in and see what's happening. It's just that I feel a need to keep it relatively current and sometimes real life has a way of taking up blogging time.

I began in December working on some new designs for the February TLPC newsletter. One of these required working a lot of split chains some of which needed split chains joined to split chains and even after it was completed it didn't look like what it was supposed to be. For the curious, it's a flat rosebud. Now that you know what it is, can you see even a remote resemblance? No? That's why it didn't make it into the newsletter.

Then there were the little square motives I did with woven picots. They looked really cute and I though they'd make a nice bookmark. I forgot that when I was finished with a square I had no way of going from the chain at the base of the dimpled ring into the next square. After some mental gymnastics where I considered SCMRs, split chains incorporating woven chains and other complicated variations, I scrapped the idea of square and went with this model.

Then there was this project. Any guesses? I know what I was aiming for. This isn't it. There's possibilities, maybe, if you stand with your head sideways... Maybe not. Scratch another design.

Then I started in on a design idea that I've wanted to try for a long time. I used to do a lot of petit point. Most of it was done with one strand of embroidery floss on 40 mesh to the inch silk. The one on the left is about a half inch from top to bottom and mounted in a pendant. Tiny. I have always wondered if you could take a petit point chart and tat one of these little guys.

I took one of the simplest charts I had with the fewest number of colours (after all, for every colour I'd need a ball of thread) and I went looking for all of the colours in perle cotton. Some people may not realize that Anchor and DMC use the same colours and dye lots for both their embroidery thread and their perle cotton Since size 8 perle cotton compares with size 20 crochet cotton (Anchor is a smidgen finer) I figured I could use perle cotton. I couldn't find them. At least I couldn't find all of the colours I needed in the stores I could physically go into and I didn't want to take a chance of ordering online waiting for it to come and then finding out one shade was on back order or something. I knew I could get the colours in embroidery floss and I knew that 3 strands of embroidery floss would come out to roughly size 20 so I got my skeins of floss and started on the design.

I needed something that would give me a small square of colour so I settled on a tiny 4 ring motif. That would let me work from side to side or up and down as the chart required. When working in petit point you usually start with the darker colours first because the threads can become soiled with handling and petit point doesn't get washed. With tatting it was necessary to start where the design could be built on colour by colour so it started with the lightest colour.

It was challenging to not only tat the piece but to work from the front and the back and plan the direction of work so as not to miss tatting one little square. I had to retro tat several times because I ended up needing my shuttles to be in a different position to continue.

I like it, I think. It looks kind of pixelated but from a distance, it's clearly a rose. It's 5.25 inches square and it would make a nice patch for something maybe a pieced throw pillow or a placemat. Without the background colour it could be sewn onto the back of a jacket or on a large pocket, or a wide waistband, or maybe appliqued on a bag. Now that it's done I'm not exactly sure what to do with it. It's kind of like an oil painting. Up close all you can see is colour and brush strokes, but from a distance it's a picture with depth and texture. Drawing the design seems like it would be very easy since it's just a repeated 4 ring motif. However I found it hard to clearly explain where to put each bit of colour and how to tat it so that it could all be worked continuously. There are 196 tiny motives and each one needed to be placed precisely so I couldn't just say work like previous one, I need to mark every single ring in the whole design. It took 7 tries to get it right.

One thing is for sure, it's another of those "I wonder if" things that I can check off my to do list.

Taking orders for Transitions in Tatting Book

I have decided to reprint my book Transitions in Tatting. It's something that I've wanted to do for a long time, but it seemed like a monumental task. The very old computer I used to write the book on had very little memory and when the book was done it kept losing the pictures and diagrams of the patterns so I often found pages with text but where the pictures and patterns ought to be there was nothing but big gray markers the shape of the missing graphics. When I rebooted the computer and loaded up the book with nothing else in memory, it was fine, but anything else running on the computer and pictures started to disappear. If that weren't bad enough I didn't like a number of the pictures. The scanned images were fine but not having a digital camera at the time, the pictures of the 3D objects like the flowers weren't as good as I would have liked.

Since I wrote the book I have gone through several computer changes. A new computer, several changes of operating system, a couple of hard drive changes and some software changes. Some things I used to create the book, don't exist anymore, like some of the software and some of the lace. The idea of fixing things so that I could reprint the book just seems daunting, almost like starting from scratch. The other day I came across some backup disks and discovered that my sweetheart husband is brilliant. Well, I knew he was, brilliant already, I just discovered one more reason to think that way. Right after I printed the book, he took all of the files, zipped them and burned them to CD. What I discovered the other day, were the CDs with the zipped files of the finished book. I can't change the things I don't like, like the photographs I'm not happy with, but I can print these files. I not only can print them, but I have printed them.

So the question is, how many of you would like to buy a new tatting book? I called the book Transitions in Tatting because it starts at the beginning with basic traditional patterns done in 3 different notations, long, short and visual and then progresses into some modern designs like a couple of hearts, a couple of critters, and a beaded choker which are flat, then it progresses into 3D tatting. A small wrist bag big enough to hold a small ball of crochet cotton, and a beaded bridal bag, followed by a 3D treetop angel and several life size flowers including a daisy, delphinium, tulip, daffodil, star gazer lily, and orchid. I also included some leaf patterns to go along with these.The book is 76, 8.5 x 11 pages, but in my opinion, roughly the first third of the book wouldn't interest an accomplished tatter as it just contains a lot of traditional stuff like hens and chicks edging. I included the basic patterns in 3 notations at the beginning just to show people who are not comfortable with visual, drawn patterns how to follow them. If you are already comfortable with drawn patterns this section is kind of boring. That still leaves you with 50 pages of fun stuff.

Here's a list of the Table of Contents:

Flower Bookmark

Butterfly Bookmark

Daisy Bookmark

Heart Bookmark

Shamrock Bookmark

Split Ring Cross Bookmark

These are patterns I often use to teach beginners as each one is a simple motif with a long zigzag chain and tassel. Not a lot of work in each one so they are small beginner projects suitable for learning how to tat.

Traditional type patterns for just the basics:

Edgings

Insertions

Motif Patterns

Original patterns that become increasingly more difficult as you progress through the book and everything from here on has been worked with size 20 Opera thread:

Simple Heart

Floral Heart

Bunny

Turtle

Beaded Choker

Wrist Bag

Beaded Bridal Bag

3D Angel

Daisy

Rose and leaf - pictured above. Not life size , it's only about an inch across, but it makes a really great lapel pin.

Delphinium

Tulip and Tulip Leaf

Daffodil and Daffodil Leaf - these are shown in the gallery on my web site

Carnation - shown above. I noticed when I used the carnation from the Tatter's Treasure Chest that the perky flower ball was small and after a while it flattened out in the middle. My carnation design is more the size of a real carnation and it doesn't flatten out.

English Ivy

Stargazer Lily

Orchid

The book will probably cost somewhere in the range of $30 and I'm taking advance orders. I'll even sign them, which I didn't do with the first printing unless requested. Somehow writing in someone's new book seems wrong, but way back then I simply didn't think of myself as an author. So if you'd like to send me an email at sharon at gagechek dot com or leave a comment on the blog, I'll be taking advance orders.

The book has been reprinted and the cost is $30.00 Canadian plus shipping (to the US $6.40 and International air mail $12.80). Payment can be made through PayPal, just email me at sharon at gagechek dot com or tatdlace at gagechek dot com giving me your full mailing address and your PayPal email address and I'll send you an invoice for it.

Colour

And when not to colour. Some years ago Maus had a note on the round robin pages talking about doily colours. She pointed out that a doily using dark and light colours can look really pretty and very dramatic but when you lay it down on a dark wood table the dark colours can blend into the background. Similarly the light colours can almost disappear if the table surface is a light colour. None of that matters if the doily is going to be framed. So for round robins it's important for the participants to know where the doily will finally be displayed.

Colour can make or break a doily. A doily that makes good use of negative space can be really beautiful and a designer may use colour to emphasize the design and make it really "pop". Think of a simple ring and chain edging. You can work it all in one colour or you can use one colour for rings and another for chains. Do the ring in red and the chain in green and you go from a ring and chain edging to a row of flowers. Similarly colour in a doily can be used to emphasize one element while another is subdued.

See this pink butterfly? The first one was done all in one colour and while you could tell it was a butterfly, it didn't really come to life until I changed the middle row of split rings to black. It separated both sides and defined the body of the butterfly.

Variegated threads can add a whole new dimension to tatting and the effects can be terrific or terrible. This is the same butterfly using both solid and variegated thread, but the placement of the light and dark sections of the thread was deliberate. The butterfly is made using 2 shuttles. One was wound with the solid blue that is a pale shade matching the palest colour of the variegated thread and the other shuttle was wound with the variegated thread. The darkest sections were used close to the butterfly body which is black just like the pink butterfly. The colour changes from dark to light as it works toward the outer edge of the butterfly wings. You might think that the whole butterfly was done in just variegated thread, but it wasn't.

Sometimes variegated thread can really add a wonderful dimension to tatting and sometimes it can completely ruin a beautiful design. In a doily where very effective use of negative space has been made so that shapes are evident within the design it is best to use a solid colour thread. A variegated thread will usually draw the eye to the colour and distract from the shape. In that instance colour and line would be at war with one another and neither win.

In a doily where the line and shape are simple and repetitive, variegated thread can break up the monotony and bring new life into the pattern. Long stretches of colour with gradual changes can make one effect on a design while another thread with short quick colour changes can bring a totally different effect. Sometimes the short quick changes can make a finished piece look choppy, but if the design warrants that kind of quick colour changes, it can be a very useful design tool.

The Tatting of Kathy Niklewicz

I have been busier than a one armed paper hanger. I'm working on the designs for the newsletter and things are not flowing the way they ought to mostly because I haven't had quiet me time to just sit and tat. We've had to do a lot of running errands recently and the projects that I have been working on aren't progressing well 2 of the articles I had planned to include have had to be scrapped and now I have a new idea I'm working on that I hope will meet with better success. I have managed to send out all 5 of the Round Robin groups and I think I'm caught up on the 25 Motif Challenge.

The other day I was surprised to find in the mail a large envelope and when I opened it up there was a charming letter from a tatter I don't think I've "met" on any of the tatting lists. Kathy is an awesome tatter who is a member of the Beaver County Tatters of Old Economy PA, with enormous creativity. Sadly, she is blogless so we don't get an opportunity to see the things she has made so I just have to share it with you all.

Kathy's letter to me had a picture of one of Teri Deusenbury's hearts on it and the scanned picture doesn't do it justice. Kathy's note says that she attached it by pins to a velvet heart box and the pearls were sewn on after it was finished.

Kathy had intended to send her note to me at Christmas time but was delayed so included in her package was a Christmas card featuring Patti Duff's wreath design to which she added red rhinestones, a bow pin and a tiny ringing bell.

Also included in the package was a custom US postal stamp with the same tatted motif pictured on it. That definitely gives tatting an exposure it wouldn't have otherwise.

As part of the Beaver County Tatters, Kathy dresses up in period costumes and demonstrated tatting at a number of local festivals. She brings along her small Christmas tree covered with tatted ornaments and a small Victorian dollhouse with Victorian furnishings including tatted doilies valences and bedspread which get a lot of attention.She likes to design 3D items like this bell, egg, and heart and she often spends as much time decorating them as tatting them.

Kathy says these adorable parasols are simple ring and chain designs with an edging around the top. Sometimes she fills potpourri inside tulle netting and then she attaches a crystal call at the base. The basket was copied from one she discovered in an antique shop.

Her crowning achievement are these lovely Victorian Ladies Slippers which are about 4 inches long form heel to toe.

I'm so glad that Kathy sent me these pictures so that I could share them with you. She has such a wonderful way of presenting tatting that it's like it's a new art form.

Tatting, or the lack of it

This is a Suncatcher I designed for Nell. I was working from a picture of a snowflake trying to re-create it in lace. It doesn't really look like the picture, but it came out looking pretty. When I get a minute (HA!) I'll re-do it in colour with beads.

At the moment I have the piece I showed earlier, which is still incomplete. I have a bookmark with woven picots that I did the drawing for, and then realized that in thread, what I had drawn was going to require very long split chains with joins on the split chains. It's do-able, but it's a stinker, so I cut it off for a design that is less like the picture in my head and more like something the average tatter can do without becoming stark raving mad.

I had the idea that the bookmark would be a gift for a guy, but the dimpled hearts just scream feminine, so I need to create yet another design tout de suite.

Another of the designs I'm working on is looking more like an amoeba that what it's supposed to be and I'm glad I used the ever plentiful white thread for the test run rather than the colours I was going to use. I have 3 variations of appendages and none of them is quite right yet. Facial features may be a total write off.

I'm itching to start on the petit point to tatting design and I have it all charted out and ready to start but there are other things getting in the way. (see above)

I'm thinking of applying as an instructor at the Creative Festival, but I might be too late for the Spring show. If I miss it I may try for the Fall show.

In the mean time today is my day to sort out all of the round robin entries and contact people about THAT, and here I sit writing in a blog. Can you say Procrastinate?

Thread Shopping

I had the opportunity to visit a lovely little shop in Woodbridge called The Enchanted Needle looking for some tatting threads. The shop

has supplies for all kinds of needlework including Cross Stitch, Tapestry and Knitting as well as Finishing and they have a room for classes. I had a chance to talk with the store's proprietors Christiane and Julia whose work in all manner of needle arts, adorn the walls of the shop.

Their spring class schedule is filled up, but Christiane has my card and may need me to come back and teach tatting in the fall.

I went looking for Valdani thread and a brief search of the internet indicated that they were the closest store that carried these threads. Apparently someone else had the same idea and had come in last week and wiped out their stock. That's OK, I managed to pick up a couple of balls in colours I like, so I'll have a play with them later.

The other things I went looking for were balls of perle cotton thread for a project I have been dying to try out for a while. I want to do a petit point design in tatting and it requires specific shades of colour. I didn't find the shades I needed, so I bought the embroidery floss instead. I hope one skein of each colour is enough. I hate having to rely on stores like WalMart and Michaels because they never seem to have what I need. They carry a lot of materials for general purpose crafting, but if you need something like a specific shade of thread, you have to go to a specialty shop.

O yeah, the other balls of thread? They were just sitting there in the thread drawer next to the Valdani thread and they were just such pretty shades of DMC perle cotton size 8 in the same pink/plum colour I felt I had to bring them home and of course I needed a contrast colour, didn't I? Besides the blue went nice with the variegated Valdani. And the red? It's DMC Perle 12. I seem to use up red faster than I bring it home and I'm down to half a ball of red perle which isn't enough to make much of anything with. I mean really, how can you NOT tat red hearts when Valentine's day is fast approaching.

I don't stash thread, I use it, a lot of it. I showed DH another empty core from a ball of size 20 Royale I don't see a weight on it, but I'm guessing about 50 grams and it's 400 yards of thread. I'm blessed with a sweetheart for a husband. His only words were, where do we get more. Gotta love him.

Now that I have my thread I'd better get tatting.

Mistakes

Many years ago I tatted an edging from Janet Carroll's book Elegant Tatting patterns and attached to to a hanky. I used sewing thread put out by Mettler that was quite fine and it seemed to me to tat up much finer that size 80, so I'm guessing that it would be around size 100. The design is almost all rings.

Put a fine thread together with a pattern that has a lot of rings and you get a disaster looking for a place to happen. The thread broke. About every 6 inches or so, it broke. Usually it broke at the base of the ring I had just completed leaving me with a core thread about a quarter of an inch long. I learned many creative ways of hiding old ends and new ends.

One of the things that I learned is that when you have 2 old threads and 2 new threads to hide,

sometimes it is better to unwind enough thread from the shuttle so that it can be used as a "ball" thread (wound CTM) so that you only have the 2 old threads to hide at the break and you can work a little bit further using the tail of the shuttle thread so that when it runs out you can introduce a new thread and hide the 2 new threads at another location.

I was being "clever" when I started this hanky and I started at the corner and designed the corner "on the fly" when I got to the second corner I decided that I didn't like my first corner treatment. I figured no problem, I'd just change the design to something I liked better and fix the first corner when I got to the end. So I made a change to the corner design and kept on working around the hanky tatting the edging directly on to the hanky as I went, breaking threads every few inches.

Then I got to the last corner and on the last pattern repeat of the 4th side, the thread broke. No matter how I worked it I was going to have 6 ends to hide. 2 old ends, 2 new ends plus matching it up to the starting end which I had cleverly decided that I would CUT off and replace the first corner treatment which adds 2 starting ends. That was six ends to hide inside one cloverleaf, in addition to making joins not into picots, but into the teeny little bump of thread on the opposite side of the join.

Those of you who have done this kind of repair know what I am talking about, but for those of you new to tatting. Think of how you make a join. You pull a loop of thread through the picot and put the shuttle through the loop. Then you pull the loop back down. Now imagine that the picot is cut. All that is left on the other side is the strand of thread that went through the loop. So now imagine that you are working with really fine thread. That means that there isn't enough room to get a hook under that loop, there is barely enough room for a strand of thread.

When I cut off the starting corner I worked it so that I had the minimal amount of crazy backward joins to do. I cut the starting corner and hid the old thread finger tatting toward the corner. Then I undid part of the last pattern repeat on the fourth side added in new thread and hid 2 of the ends. I worked the first ring of the corner clover leaf and then the second ring. I managed to hide all of the ends even the itty bitty quarter inch ends, heaved a sigh of relief and closed the last ring. Whereupon the the thread broke.

See this pretty hanky? It's sewn onto the tatting board I use to show people what tatting is. Notice how you can't see the 4th corner? I know when to quit.

Lovely surprise

I received a truly unbelievable surprise last week. Nell sent me a beautifully made tatted cross done in a vintage ecru thread either size 70 or 80. Isn't it exquisite?

In addition to this marvellous lace she sent me ....are you ready for this.... An ENGLISH Aero. It just blows me away that someone who loves Aeros as much as I do would be so generous as to share one of these irreplaceable treasures. I have 3 English Aeros and I love them and use them all the time. Two of mine were broken in the same way in the same week. After years of using them exclusively, I went to load a shuttle by putting the bobbin on the back and the shuttle snapped up close to the hook end when I was winding thread. I guess they had just been flexed once too often. Both were probably bought at the same time and got used the same amount. I bought 2 more Aeros to replace them, but they were German made Aeros and not the same at all.

Having a clever hubby though, he did a quick repair filling in the inside of the shuttle with hot glue right under the break and I've been using the repaired shuttles for years. You can tell a product is exceptionally good when you'd rather use it broken than another, different one. Thanks so much Nell, it's just wonderful.

Round Robin Tatting

The tatting community used to participate in numerous round robins. Many of them were hosted by Etha Schuette "Maus" so that we all got to see what wonderful laces were being made. Often the things created were one of a kind and the designers graciously shared their patterns with us. Pirating of the treasures from that site led to it being shut down, which was too bad because it was a source of endless inspiration.


Recently I was asked if there were any round robins currently going on and there aren't that I can find, but several people have expressed interest in doing a round robin. Others don't know what a round robin is. Just so that I don't keep repeating myself, this is how a round robin works.

A round robin is kind of like an exchange except that it has 3 or more participants. They may be making individual motives or they may be working on larger items like a doily. Before they start everyone is given a list of the likes and dislikes of the participants. For example one person might want fine thread and another only size 20. One might want beads included and another might want everything done in purple to match their decor. The names (real names) addresses both email and street addresses are shared among the participants. All of the participants agree on a project type like snowflakes, hearts, butterflies, bookmarks, doilies etc. All of the participants work within a specified time table.

These hearts were from a round robin I participated in some years ago and they have been appliqued onto a shirt so that I can see them and use them regularly. I wanted everything in pink or red and no beads because I expected to wear the shirt often.


Let's say for example that the round robin is for 3 inch snowflakes done in size 20 thread (or 40 Olympus, or 8 DMC perle, see my earlier post on thread sizes) and each snowflake is to be completed in one month. So if we have 5 participants, let's label them A, B, C, D, and E it works like this:


Each participant tats a 3 inch snowflake, it may be their original design or it might be a published design and before the one month deadline they mail it to the next person on the list.

A sends to B, B sends to C, C sends to D, D sends to E, E sends to A

A B C D E
B C D E A
C D E A B
D E A B C
E A B C D


When each participant receives their first package, they take a look at the snowflake and tat a second different snowflake and within a month send both snowflakes on to the next person on the list.


Each month the participants receive a package containing the snowflakes done by other participants, they look at what has already been done and tat another snowflake different from the ones in the package. They have the opportunity to see other people's handiwork and admire their skills and in turn they have the opportunity to have their own skills admired by others. After 6 months the participants will each get back their original package with the snowflake they tatted and 4 new ones, one each from the other participants. So they will tat and give 5 snowflakes and receive 5 different snowflakes (the starting snowflake they give to themselves).


A variation on this is a round robin for designing doilies where each participant starts a doily centre and then passes it on. Each participant designs and tats a round for the doily and passes it on so that A does the first row, B does the second row, C does the third row, D does the fourth row and E does the final row before returning it to A. This type of round robin gives each tatter the opportunity to practice designing and they only have to create one row at a time. Since doilies get larger with each row they often use a staggered schedule where the first row is forwarded in 2 weeks and the last row is given 2 or 3 months. Schedules also have to be adjusted when international robins are done to allow for increased shipping times. At the end, each participant has a new, one of a kind doily.


Others can enjoy the fun of these challenges vicariously when the pictures of the tatting are posted regularly. Each person takes a scan or digital picture and posts it on the internet for everyone to see. So as the snowflakes, hearts, bookmarks or rounds of the doilies are completed pictures are posted where everyone can enjoy them. Sometimes, where the patterns are original the designers may choose to provide the pattern as well.

If you would like to participate in a round robin email me at the address shown. If there is enough interest I will see about setting one up. Let me know at what skill level you consider yourself and whether or not you would be interested in an international round robin. Bear in mind that a round robin is a commitment of some time.


Note: The reason for the email address in the picture at the right, is so that people can email me. Contacting people through blogs is time consuming and when I match folks up with partners I'll need home addresses so that the round robin packages can be sent. So if you want to join the round robin, please contact me by email so that I can get back to you with your group of happy tatters and their addys. Please and thanks folks.

The perception of Art

I have just asked the following questions on several tatting lists.

If you went into an art gallery to see a tatting exhibit what would you expect to see? What would you like to see? What kind of tatting exhibit would make the world at large sit up and say WOW! ?

When I was thinking about how to talk about tatting to an audience that has no pre-conceived notions about the subject, I was at a loss to think of a way of describing it to give it greater appeal to a non tatting audience. Whether you are a tatter or not, when you think of tatting you invariably think of doilies and edgings as making a size able portion of tatted objects, but those of us who are tatters know that there are other things, non traditional things you can do with tatting. I've designed a lot of 3D objects like flowers, snowflakes, and snowmen but then I thought about what I might create to showcase tatting. What would I tat if I were putting on an art show for tatting. Doilies and edgings didn't even make the list.

To be considered by the average person as "Art" it has to be out of the ordinary. That might mean something so large that it is awesome because of it's size, or something so exquisitely tiny that it boggles the mind. We don't always think of tatting as something to be framed, but entire scenes could be created in tatted lace. Unusual objects like Jane's tattysaurus or the tatted fairies done by (I think it was) Celtic, or Carol's gingerbread house or Mark's geisha are all possibilities. It's the non traditional items that make people sit up and take notice.

What kinds of tatted objects have you seen that would belong in a tatting art show? Maybe you're not a designer but you'd like to see someone make a ________ ? What would say Art to you?

Tatting on Living in Toronto

Anyone going into a craft store is going to be bombarded with all kinds of crafts that can be done in an hour. Projects that take mere minutes and give instant gratification and things that fall apart as quickly as they are made. Tatting isn't such a craft.

Anyone tuning in to Living in Toronto today saw Mary Ito make her first little tatted butterfly.

A tiny bit of nothing to learn a skill that will create all manner of lace and unlikely lace objects. How about a turtle? This one doubles as a pin cushion.Or what about a pair of skates?

These aren't the kind of projects you think of when you talk about fibre arts, yet they are tatted objects. If you'd like to take lessons in tatting please visit my web site and click on the link for Lessons. (http://www.gagechek.com/slb)

If you need to reach me, my primary email address is sharon at gagechek dot com or my lace address is sharon at tattedlace dot com. I've just discovered that the email redirect from the Tattedlace domain isn't working right. So if anyone has been trying to contact me, it has be changed now to my primary address and will come through. Sorry for the problem guys.

For those of you who would like to view the show on line click on this link to visit the Living in Toronto web site.

Look ma, I'm going to be on TV.

Well it looks like the CBC - Living in Toronto episode about tatting will air Wednesday January 9th at 1:00 PM. If you aren't able to get CBC you can view it on the web site. This is the part where I cross my fingers and hope I don't look like a total idiot on national TV. You know those times in your life when in retrospect you do a lot of thinking about woulda, coulda, shoulda? That's how I've been feeling about this show lately. I keep hoping that their editing department makes me look smarter than I am.

The flower pictured here is from my book Transitions in Tatting from Flat to Floral. It measures about 2.5 inches across and it was tatted in Opera size 20. The construction is such that it doesn't flatten out like the carnations I did for my wedding veil.

Camera

I started replying to comments and then figured it would be just as easy to reply here. Our first digital camera was given to us, but lately we've been getting the 'out of range' message more and more often. It seems like after over 20 years of use, it's finally giving out so getting a new one was becoming more and more of a necessity. Since 3D subjects like the snowmen here, just don't fit in the scanner. Bad angle, bad lighting, shaky hands and still it takes a decent picture. Going from 1 to 12 megapixels makes a huge difference.

We got a Kodak Z1275 and it's a nice little 12 megapixel camera, add in the 5x zoom and it's pretty sweet. At the time Rob took the picture of Dusty she had her feathers all fluffed up. The sort of pixellated look of the feathers on the top of Dusty's head is just the look of the individual feathers.

The focal point for the macro is about 8 inches and each time I've tried to get hubby to test it, the batteries have been dead. He's been running it nearly non-stop since we got it home and each time I've reminded him to test out the macro the batteries have been shot. So, we've tried it to know that it works, but the camera shuts off because the batteries are shot.

New Toy

The camera, not the bird. This may mean a pod cast is in the future. Going from 1.5 megapixels to 12 is like going from night to day. This little stinker is good for a couple of hours of filming and does terrific macro shots. I haven't had a chance to play yet, hubby is still tinkering with it. Once we got it home he was all set to return it until he discovered that it would do video too, so that was a nice bonus.

Thoughts on shuttles

There are 3 main types of shuttles. There is the very basic flat shuttle which is generally a flat aerodynamic shape with 2 holes punched in either end and a slit from the outer edge in to the hole. Thread is wound across the flat on the top through the slit and into the hole and across the flat on the bottom through the other slit and into the second hole.



It's about as simple a shuttle design as you can get and that's great because it's the kind of thing you can make quickly out of a business card. Or if you are teaching someone and you just need a short length of thread you can use the plastic tab off of a loaf of bread.



Flat shuttles are great for projects that take an enormous amount of thread or projects using huge quantities of beads. Their one big drawback is that the thread is on the outside of the shuttle and that means that it can easily get dirty.



Post shuttles are oval with a clam shape where the top and bottom sections called blades come to a rounded point at the front and back and the points of the blades touch at the tips. They may have a narrow point or pick or flat hook at the front used for joining. The thread is wound through the tips and around the post in the middle that holds the 2 blades together.



In switching from tatting rings to tatting chains you often have to shorten your thread which means re winding and when you switch back you need to unwind more thread. When working with beads the beads need to be added onto the shuttle by walking the shuttle over the thread and spacing the beads out along the length of the thread. Sometimes when you are tatting the thread instead of sliding over or under the shuttle, will slip through the tips of the blades.



Post shuttles can be made in a wide variety of materials and designs and can be very decorative making them a wonderful collector's item.



Bobbin shuttles have the same general shape as a post shuttle, but instead of a post they have a bobbin and the tips are closed in. The bobbin, in most cases, is removed for winding and depending on the type of bobbin and the type of sewing machine you have, they can often be wound on the sewing machine.



When you are tatting with a bobbin shuttle you can shorten the thread length by turning the shuttle sideways and rolling the bobbin with your thumb. Lengthening the thread is as easy as pulling on the shuttle until the desired length is reached. Beads can be added all at once as they will easily roll around the bobbin.

One of the great advantages to a bobbin shuttle is that additional bobbins can be purchased. With a post shuttle the only way to use the shuttle on another project is to finish the project of cut the thread off. With a bobbin shuttle you can change thread or change projects just by popping in a new bobbin. I always start my thread by using a slip knot around the flat shuttle post or bobbin so nothing comes loose until I want it to. Once you are finished with a project, pop out the bobbin hold the thread and let the bobbin drop. Then either throw away the scrap of thread left on the bobbin or rewind it onto the ball of thread. (Wind the thread around the ball and hold it in place by tightening the slip knot around the ball. That way it keeps the thread on the ball, and you always know the starting bit is a short end.) There's no need to waste precious tatting time doing little projects to use up the thread left on the shuttle as with the post shuttles.


I began tatting with an icky metal Boye bobbin shuttle, but it was all I had, so I used it. Then I bought my first English Aero shuttle and I was spoiled forever. A few years ago (when I was young and foolish), I would have said that anyone who doesn't like using an Aero shuttle is nuts. I have since learned that some people really struggle with the attached hook and some people find the 3 inch length from hook to end is just too long, but I have long fingers and I adore having an attached hook.



How do I love thee Aero, let me count the ways. I love the weight or rather the lack of weight. One of the irritations of using a heavy metal shuttle is that I find the weight of the shuttle will unflip the stitches and create knots when I drop the first shuttle to pick up the second shuttle. I also find that the metal shuttles can make the thread black if it gets caught between the bobbin and the shuttle. Constant use causes the bobbin to grind against the inside body of the shuttle creating powdered metal. Every time a thread gets caught between them the black metal filings come off on the thread. It usually washes out, but it's an aggravation I'll gladly do without.



I love that the Aeros have a knurled bump at the back that holds the bobbin for easy winding. The old Boye shuttles had a narrow stem at the end that the bobbins also fit over for winding, but the newer metal shuttles made by Susan Bates have a stem that is too wide to fit in the hole of the bobbin.



I love that the Aeros have an attached hook at the front that makes doing joins quick and easy. I don't have to look around for a crochet hook or keep trying to poke the thread through a picot with a point of pick. Each time I need to make a join I just grab a loop and continue pushing the whole shuttle through. Quick, neat and easy.



I love that the Aeros are made of a shiny slick plastic that the thread just glides over and that the shoulders around the hook are smooth and tapered. Everything about the Aeros makes for ease of use and fast tatting. With a craft that is anything but fast, every little bit of speed helps.



In recent years the manufacture of the Aero shuttles moved from England to Germany. The molds used to create the original English Aeros were destroyed and the German made Aeros aren't as good. The dimensions are the same and it retains the knurled knob at the back which holds the bobbin, but there are changes. The plastic isn't a smooth and it has more of a matte finish that does polish up after a lot of use. The bobbins aren't held in quite as snugly on the German shuttles and the shoulders around the hook are often cut off sharply so that the thread catches on it momentarily when in use. People purchasing the newer Aeros now made by Prym in Germany under the name Inox often wonder why older tatters rave about Aero shuttles. The newer shuttles just aren't as good as the old English made Aeros.
Even more recently other companies have created similar shuttles. In the picture above the original English Aero is on the right and beside it is the German Aero. Next to the German Aero is the white shuttle produced by Susan Bates and it is far inferior. To begin with the knob on the end is rounded and too large to hold the bobbin for winding. They might as well have produced a shuttle without the knob. The shoulders around the hook are like the German Aero, cut off sharply so that the thread doesn't glide smoothly over it. The bobbins either hardly move at all when the shuttle is new and it is hard to pry the bobbin out or the bobbins roll around freely. If the bobbin is too tight you can always use a worn out bobbin in it until it gets looser, but there have been reports of inconsistent tension with these shuttles. The finish of the shuttle is more like that of the original English Aeros and the thread does glide nicely over the surface of the shuttle. The bobbins do tend to wear more quickly with these than with the traditional Aero.

Another company that has made an Aero type shuttle is H. A. Kidd and Company under the Unique label. It's the blue shuttle and I bought mine at Zellers.Their shuttle is similar in style to the Susan Bates shuttle with the useless rounded knob on the back. The shuttle material is similar to that of the German Aero and it comes packaged with one extra bobbin. The unit I purchased did not seem impossibly stiff when I bought it as did the Susan Bates model, but it was a little bit stiff. All in all though it's not a bad little shuttle and I'd rate it as on par with the German Aero except of the useless winding knob.

Coats produces a similar shuttle under the Red Heart label (it's the red shuttle) and it's available in most WalMart stores, but it doesn't come with an extra bobbin. The winding knob on this one is as useless as the Susan Bates or Unique shuttles. The shuttle material is thicker, not as elastic and has a rougher surface than the other shuttles and the shoulders around the hook are cut off sharply and quite rough. It's a cheap and use able shuttle but certainly not the delight to use that the English Aero is.

I like all of these shuttles and I'd prefer to have several of these than to spend my money of more glitzy shuttles. I can use them, break them, give them away or lose them and it isn't going to cost me an arm and a leg to replace them. I take very good care of my Aero shuttles and when 2 of them got broken in the same week (I'd been using the same pair of shuttles for about 15 years non stop, so it was just weakness from excessive use), hubby filled in the end where it had broken with hot glue to brace it and I kept on using them.

I love the looks of the wonderful unique post shuttles, but when it comes to tatting, give me my Aeros.

Christmas tatting

I got to spend Wednesday at the hospital while hubby got all kinds of test done. We left home at 6:30 AM and arrived back home at 7:30 PM so it was a very long day. There were a series of tests done in the morning and then a 4 hour gap in the middle followed by a 2 hour drive home stuck in rush hour traffic coming back from downtown Toronto. It wasn't a total waste though. I managed to tat 3 of these snowflakes. I used a size 10 thread with an opalescent filament. It's like the silver and gold filament stuff but not so tacky. It just adds a little sparkle of shine when the light hits it, although it doesn't show up in the scan.

I did 8 of the snowflakes in size 30 to go out to the family in their Christmas cards and my honey was in such a hurry to get the mail out I didn't have time for any more. I'm not crazy about the design, but there was this whole time warp thing, where my belief that I would be able to tat miles of lace in a day, smacked up against reality. I had actually planned on tatting angels for this year's cards but then there was, you know, this time warp thing. Maybe in the lull between Christmas and New Years this year I can tat some angels for next year and be ahead of the game. Just once when hubby starts doing the Christmas cards I'd like to hand him an abundance of tatted pieces ready to be tucked inside.

This design only took about 2 hours each and between shifting from room to room as different tests were done and walking around window shopping and having lunch during the mid day 4 hour break, I don't think I did too bad at managing 3 of them. I want to give these larger snowflakes to the neighbours and I'm having a hard time balancing between not leaving anyone out and possibly feeling offended and giving them to people who will think nothing more of them than a paper cut out snowflake. I always seem to end up the season thinking I wish I had a few more to give away. I've done 10 snowflakes now and I think I'll deliver these and then think about who I've missed...Maybe I should do a couple extras just in case...

Yippee! the Newsletter is done

I'm so excited to finally have this newsletter published. This edition has a lot of items I've been wanting to try for a while now. I decided that as a wee, "thinking of you" gift, that I wanted to make something for my sister in law. She wears a lot of yellow so I thought a yellow rose motif would be nice. I used the Coats machine embroidery thread in yellow with a matching variegated yellow/orange/brown for the outer border. I really like how this turned out, but it was hard doing all of the shuttle joins with this thread as it's not as strong as tatting thread and it's so fine I had to use a #14 hook to do the joins.

Then I did up a quick drawing to experiment with making a tatted angel. I didn't want wings that went straight out so I tried for a more uplifted version.

It looks OK but the bottom is too straight and although it can all be done in one piece from beginning to end I thought I'd try another variation. The first inner bit with the large rings was too small so I added another row and zigzagged back with a second row. At that point I ran out of thread on the shuttle and got side tracked from what I had originally intended. Usually if I'm tatting something for the newsletter and it isn't quite right I already have an idea of what I want to do to fix it. I just re-load the shuttles and start again, maybe from a different point or with a different technique. I set this one aside thinking it was done except for the bit I had to finish where I ran out of thread.

Whatever I was thinking of, when I went back to finish it off for the newsletter, I realized that there was no way this design could be worked in one pass. Sometimes a project just has to be done in pieces and I can deal with that, but I don't like designs that could be worked in one go if they were designed better. I tatted a bootie pattern once that had 5 or six little pieces and it drove me nuts so I really try to avoid piecemeal designs if I can. So for this angel I had to start over.

Here's the new version that's tatted all in one piece. The wings look more like wings ad less like arms. The skirt isn't a straight line across the bottom and the use of smaller rings gives it more all over shape.

One of the other things I wanted to try was making a beaded ball. I wanted some droopy bits along the bottom and some different sizes of beads for some texture. When I went through my stash of materials the only kind of bead I had with a hole at one end that would let it hang was an iridescent blue/purple/black bead that had matching seed beads. Not exactly my first choice, but then a friend of mine told me that black was the "in" Christmas colour this year and she's done her whole tree in black and gold. So I thought why not and started tatting my beaded ball. The first couple of rows went quickly but then I had to stop and think of a beading arrangement that would accent what I had already done and use the beads I had on hand. Several attempts were discarded because they called for more beads that I had and since I couldn't remember where I had picked up the iridescent beads I had some additional limitations to deal with.

I put the beaded ball aside to handle some more pressing issues and when I can back to it I decided to go with something simple. Some heavily beaded double picots finished this one off nicely. The colour of the beads just doesn't show up in the pictures and after several tries with different background colours, I just gave up trying to get a good image.

The piece that I'm really excited about is this one. I tried to tat it a couple of different ways, before I hit on this design, but I'm tickled pink with the results. Tatted Ice Skates. Aren't they adorable? My physiotherapist asked if I made them for sale. Her daughter has taken up skating and I think she'd love to have the skates for her. My initial reaction was "no way" but since I had to sit down and tat another skate to make sure I had the instructions right, I just might do her a pair. It's one of those things where you have to do it in pieces because you need 2 of them.

By the way, for anyone who doesn't already subscribe to the newsletter, it's published quarterly and has 4-5 designs in each issue. Usually there is one larger item and several smaller items although sometimes there are just a bunch of medium size projects like this one. The newsletter is published in PDF format and is sent out by email. The cost is $21 Canadian and can be purchased through PayPal. That means that you can order it and have it in time for Christmas even if you order it on Christmas day. Here's the link to the order form if you want it. And here is the link to the main page

Now that all this is done I can get back to other things like updating the 25 Motif Challenge. I know there is a lot of tatting going on that I haven't blogged about, but I have been busy.

The day I made Mary Ito cry

The day came for the CBC TV crew to come and do a spot on tatting. Some unfortunate circumstances meant an unavoidable delay but Mary Ito the host of Living in Toronto, April Stevens, the producer. and the ca merman Richard arrived and got set up.

Mary is even sweeter and more charming in person that she appears on TV. She was a delight to talk to and made me feel perfectly calm and at ease.

Mary want me to show her how to tat and as we all know, co-ordinating both hands in unfamiliar positions is challenging at first. In between the changing positions for that camera and pausing while Dusty, the macaw voiced her opinion, I botched up the explanation of how to tat. So instead of things being concise and coherent, it was more of "put this thingamajig through that spot there and pull that thread over here".

I decided that if a novice tatter was going to be filmed doing their first bit of tatting it had better be something quick. So I decided on a one ring butterfly. Just 5 stitches. The first 3 were relatively painless, then the pressure of keeping a schedule added to the frustration and the stitches just wouldn't co-operate. Down to the last half stitch and the tension mounted. the first half stitch un-flipped, the thread wouldn't slide, it seemed hopeless and Mary started laughing.

The laughter took on a slightly hysterical note and the cameraman stopped filming for a moment. The Mary wiped away the tears and surmounted that last obstacle, that one last half stitch......and closed the ring.

Congratulations Mary, you did it! I'm so sorry I made you cry.