Chained Quartet Necklace

Most of the designs I create end up being published and for that reason I usually draw out the pattern either while I'm working it, or just after it's finished so that I can remember what I've done. Not only that, but most of what I make grows legs and walks out the door soon after it's done, so I don't have the original to work from.

Every now and then I create something intending to put it in a book, but it just doesn't fit in with whatever I'm currently doing so it gets stuffed in a drawer for later. This is one of the designs that never made it into a book. I was looking for ways to incorporate beads that didn't have to be strung on to start with.

The design is amazingly simple. It has a foundation row of a pair of rings alternated with chains where the ring on the right is joined to the ring on the left of the next pair. The end has a single ring and then the whole thing is repeated joining pair to pair forming an X of 4 rings in the middle.

The next row is just chains shuttle joined to the foundation row with a single bead in the middle along the top of the necklace. Those beads need to be strung on the chain thread before you start the row.

The bottom row just has really, really long picots with 20 beads strung on them. (And you thought it was complicated.) String on the beads as you make the picot holding them in place with a safety pin. The next chain is bare of picots. While making the following chain, remove the pin and join to the picot. Tat one stitch and repeat the process. Easy peasy.

You can change it dramatically just by stacking the beads in varying sizes or colours for interesting effects. Add more beads for a deeper loop place a large bead in the middle of the 20 bead group, or stagger them small, large, small, or whatever you want. Since they're all stacked on the picot, you can line them up and see what they'll look like before you commit to using them.

Snowflake pattern uploaded

Earlier I posted this snowflake and several people have asked for the pattern.

I did the pattern for it, but I whipped it out in a bit of a hurry so it isn't really up to snuff.  The central ring is 3-3-3-3 with a split ring of 5-5 into the first row. All of the other rings are 5-5 and the chains are 5-5 except for the chain at the outer point which is 7-7. The four rings on row 3 are all joined into the picot in the middle of the chain of row 2. Picots are usually shown as a single short line but in the interest of clarity I used a wee circle in place of the picot line.

Please let me know if it doesn't make sense or if you find a mistake.

Hot off the shuttles

Here it is, the newest flake. It's not even blocked because the thread broke as I was tying the knot. I always knot my thread ends and then sew them in. This time one of the threads broke right at the knot as I was pulling it tight. So I cut off the other end also close to the knot, but I'm not sure it will hold if I aggressively block it. I think it's cute, but kind of small. On the other hand it's quite dense, so it will hold it's shape.

I might do it again. Or maybe not. . . There are so many things to design, it's more fun just to go on to the next one.

Design fails

I started another snowflake design, but I wasn't sure where I wanted to go with it. I had an idea that was percolating but when I put it into lace the first row looked skimpy and disjointed. I worked to join the bits together on the next row but had more floppy bits that bugged me. Another row held it all together but I ended up with a round design that seemed to want to grow into a six pointed motif that I liked less and less the more I added. So I quit.

I started again, determined not to have any more floppy unconnected bits and ended up with something like an earlier design and smaller that I wanted. So I scrapped it too.

The next design is on the shuttles and so far I'm liking it, although it's coming out at a small 2.75 inches compared to the earlier one posted which is 3.5 inches across. I can add a row or two to make it bigger, but I'm liking how it looks as is.

I was asked for the pattern of the previous design and it's in the works. I'll post it when it's done.

Better

This one looks better. It's not a stinker to tat either. Just a nice smooth flow from one row to the next without any crazy "tat the ring before the split chain" insanity of the last snowflake.

We didn't get to watch a movie last night so it looks like I'll be designing another one tonight.

A stinker to tat

That's what this snowflake is. I like the overall appearance. It looks pretty, but what a pain to tat. I did it in 2 sections, which I guess I could maybe have done in one, but not without even more fussing. The picture pretty much says it all. This is the second one I've done this season without writing out the pattern so it's definitely one of a kind. Now that I look at it blocked out, there's something wonky about it, but I can't tell what it is and it doesn't matter because it's done and I'm on to the next.

Hubby wants to kick back and watch a movie so it looks like I'll have another one on the shuttles tonight. Hopefully the next one will look good  without the aggravation.

It IS wonky. No wonder it drove me nuts.

Calling it done

The next row tightened up the doily so that it didn't ruffle as much, but I can't see where to do from here. I know I had in mind to do something with a row of motifs on the outside or combined rows to give that kind of effect but it doesn't want to flow and I'm tired of fighting with it.

Part of the problem is that I'm running out of size 20 white and a bunch more rows will take a bunch more thread. I think at this point I'd rather use the white to make some snowflakes so I called it done and cut the thread.

After blocking it into submission this is what I ended up with, a doily only 9 inches across but just a smidgen too big to fit on the scanner.

It's not bad, but it isn't great either. I have no use for it so I suppose it might end up as a Christmas gift.

I tat! Really. I do!

You'd never know it to look at this blog though. My dearest has been in better health this summer and we did a lot of travelling around. Even when we're not doing much at all, we've spent more time wandering around shopping, mostly window shopping, just to get out and be doing something. Meniere's has kept him mostly house bound and even when he's up to moving around a lot some problems with his ankle means we don't do a lot of walking. Except this year he has been exercising and doing eye exercises that have helped enormously. Consequently there hasn't been as much sit down time as usual.

Of course keeping my Kobo loaded with library books has taken my attention as well. There's just something about having an endless supply of reading material at my finger tips that has brought out the reading monster in me. Yes I know most of it's drivel, but I still manage to go through nearly a book a day.

Usually at this time of year I get into a mad flurry of making snowflakes to send out with our Christmas cards, but as my siblings get older they have discontinued with the massive Christmas decorating. A lot of them have been making noises about decorating a tree being too much trouble so what's the point of making ornaments that won't be used. One brother hangs his on their glass doors and one sister has hers hung on the dining room mirror year round, so for them it's worth while. That cuts down by frantic snow making from a dozen to two.

I sat down and designed a snowflake for my sister last week. It didn't come out as well as I would like, but since she informed me that she is now keeping the snowflakes on her dining room table under glass it'll be okay.

I don't like the limp chains at the base of the points as they don't hold the shape properly. A large outer ring in the middle of the chain on the row before would have helped. Or small outer rings on the final row joining point to point would also give it the structure it needs. By the time I knew that, it was too late. I was already on the last round and running out of time. My sweetie was anxious to get the cards sent out so off it went.

I've been sort of working through a doily and I'm not too pleased with how it's going. It was all right up until the 7th or 8th row. The 10th row ruffled and although the 11th is pulling the ruffles in, I don't think it's enough. It may be all right with aggressive blocking, but I don't want it to need that kind of attention. The 12th row which should be just chains may fix it, but then again it may not.

 I think part of the problem is that I've been doing it in fits and starts so that there's no coherent design going on. I hate cutting off rows and starting again. I have only so many hours to work on it and I resent hours being wasted. I'd rather be clever and find ways to make it work than cut it off and have to re-tat several rows. It's OK on a snowflake, but a doily has too much time invested. Besides, I need to be making snowflakes. I may just pitch it and start with a new idea.

Sea Shell Pattern available on my web site

I noticed on Facebook that people were looking for the pattern for the Sea Shell I designed in 2008.

I wanted a recognizable sea shell and doodled around until I found a suitable design. In one rendition I was doing joins in between doublestitches because the rings had to be so tiny. Itsy bitsy rings and some really fiddly work, but it looks like a shell and it still holds it's concave shape although you could block the life out of it to make it lie flat. It's designed to cup just a tiny bit. Anyway, when I saw folks wanted it, I posted it to my web site. It's on my web site now at http://www.rsbriggs.com/ in the Free Patterns at the bottom of the page.

Note: Click on the Legend link on the right for an explanation of the icons used in the pattern.

Web site update with free patterns

We have just made a change to our web host and it was time to update the web site. The demos are still there but everything else will eventually get changed out. One major change is that the free patterns on my blog have been brought into the web site so they are all easy to find on a single page. Some of the images are huge, but that was to ensure that the numbers on the diagrams are readable.

The web site is available from www.tattedlace.com or from our main site at www.rsbriggs.com/slb

More will be added as time permits.

Tatting? What's that?

As you can see by the sad dearth of tatting content, or any content for that matter, I have been busy with other things. Not necessarily fun things either.

We have decided we'd like to move. Well we decided years ago that we wanted to move, but we haven't found a place to move to yet. Luke 6:38  says Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again. We  have hit the running over point. With all of his great organizational skills my dearest has run out of places to put things and the only solution seems to be a double car garage. Unfortunately, the budget doesn't allow for such a thing in our current location and to improve the sale value of the house we have been working on some over due maintenance and upgrades.

Each little job we did created several other jobs in an ever expanding cycle. Some time ago we had a leak in the bathroom upstairs the made it's way down to the kitchen on the main floor. This required fixing the leak re-caulking the bathtub and repairing the damaged floor. When we came to re-tiling the floor we needed to put down new sub flooring first. Then we discovered that the flooring didn't extend all the way under the vanity, so we had to build up the existing floor to a consistent height before laying down new sub flooring which raised up the floor one quarter inch. Of course the sub flooring meant that the toilet was no longer flush with the flange and a new flange gasket was installed to compensate. Once that was done the tile was laid, the room was painted and we could move on, except of course that the door had to be cut shorter.

Next we tackled the kitchen where the leak had resulted in several water stains on the ceiling and a soft spot where the drywall has disintegrated. A spot that looked about 3 inches across resulted in a square foot hole needing to be cut in the ceiling to bring it back to solid drywall. My amazing hubby cut a very precise drywall patch that was so tight, not even a razor blade would fit between the original ceiling and the patch. Then it was taped plastered and sanded, and sanded, and sanded. Sanding something over your head is a lot of hard work, not to mention dirty and dusty, and it's even worse when you're dizzy all the time like my sweetheart, so it was a job we took turns at. When we got that sorted out we painted the whole kitchen, but of course we had to remove the wall paper border first. Just one more little job.

Then in a fit of enthusiasm I decided to strip the wallpaper off the master bedroom which took about a week of soaking and scraping. The mirror tile came off easier, but left behind a glue-y mess and missing chunks of drywall that required giving the whole wall a skim coat of plaster that needed to be sanded and sanded and sanded ... and you get the idea. Eventually it got down to bare walls that were painted and we took a breather.

That was when we noticed the new tile in the bathroom was lifted up and thinking that we had set the tile incorrectly, we carefully pried up a corner added more adhesive and some heavy weights and hoped it would hold.

A week later we noticed water coming up between the tiles. This is NOT a good thing. After kicking around several options we lifted off the toilet, pulled the vanity back out and pulled up all the tiles where the water was coming out. It turns out the we didn't need the extender that we used under the toilet. It had raised the toilet up too high and water was leaking out between the flange and the gasket. Of course soaking the sub flooring made the plywood separate so the sub flooring had to be replaced and of course so did the tile. Which kind of put us back where we started when the whole "fix up the house" project began. Only worse, because we had to clean off all the old stuff first and just to add a little more challenge the plastic nuts that hold the taps onto the vanity cracked off. The taps were new this summer and both of the nuts broke at the same time. What are the chances?

We THINK this time we have it fixed properly, but we noticed a water stain on the ceiling in the garage which is below and to the side of the wall where the bathroom is...

I haven't done much tatting. I haven't had much time. And when I've had time my hands have been swollen, my wrist have been sore and my thumbs have hurt from scraping and sanding and painting. Then the other day when my hands had just about gotten to where I could tat again I was trying to rub a tea stain out of the dish cloth after washing dishes in very hot water and I rubbed all the skin off my knuckles.

For the entire Christmas season I tatted 2 snowflakes, one which I gave away before taking it's picture and the other I noticed a mistake in right after I hid the ends. So, there's no tatting here and it doesn't look like there will be any, any time soon.

I think I'll just go curl up with a good book, it's easier on my hands.

Look at all the threads to play with

I recently received a wonderful package from Terry Wynn. No. Seriously. A really, really wonderful package. Terry has found that she can't use the really fine threads now and she decided they should go to a good home.

See this glorious palette? There are over 75 balls and partial balls of vintage threads. In addition to the typical vintage J.P.Coats, Coats and Clark, Lily, and Star Tatting cotton, there are brands like Bucilla and Collingbournes "Texazilk". The last couple are names I have seen in ads, but not in thread before this. All of these vintage threads are size 70, 80 or just labelled tatting thread.

There was also a ball of Lizbeth size 80. One thing I noticed, is that the vintage threads came mostly in spools of 60-75 yards, but the newer Lizbeth is 185 yards. I like larger spools of thread for when you're planning on making a nice wide edging for a hanky or a delicate doily in fine thread. Running out of thread for a project is not something that makes me happy. I know from experience, that a wide hanky edging will use up the greater part of one of these small balls of thread. Partial balls mean that you have to play mix and match with the colours to make sure that you have enough thread.

You'll also notice that Terry included a couple of lovely shuttles with the package. The one with the stripe is a wooden shuttle and the cream coloured one is a bone shuttle. I haven't had a chance to try out either of them yet. I feel so blessed to have received these treasures and I'm already into making the thread into lace.

What I did first was grab a couple of the balls of thread and make this bookmark as a thank you for Terry. I think it turned out rather well. The whole thing was done with one variegated thread in mauve/white/green and one solid thread in mauve. It's worked all in one pass, right down to the tassel. I got to the end of the bookmark, tied a knot, then did a crochet chain to the end. The left over thread on the shuttles was used to make the tassel, so there were no ends to hide. I used my, "adding in new thread" technique to both hide and secure the starting ends, so all I had to do was snip them off when it was done.

Making the first one was so much fun. I did another one as a birthday gift for my sister. For that one I use a solid deep blue with a variegated blue/white/yellow.

Now that it's done I've selected a yellow, orange and a variegated yellow/orange for the next bookmark. These are all partial balls and I figured it would be good to use up the littler bits first.

I have the other batches of thread kept separately. I know some of them have labels that say they are the same brand, same colour, and same dye lot... but they aren't. See the 4 balls of burgundy thread in a column in the lower middle? They are all labelled Star Tatting Crochet, they all say ART. 25 and SHADE 130, but you can see in the picture that the bottom 2 are lighter than the top 2. I figured that since all of these threads came from different sources, there was a better chance that 2 pinks or 2 greens from the same source would actually BE the same colour.

That was a good idea in theory, but I know from playing mix and match holding one colour against another, that I've already put the odd ball in the wrong box. My solution for this problem? TAT FASTER!!! LOL

New bookmark

The other day hubby was reminded of the bookmark I'd made for him and wondered what had happened to it. That bookmark was made in a 3 strand Opera thread size 20, which is soft enough that it's OK for a regular book, but too thick for the typical onion skin pages of a Bible. So I made him another one is size 80 thread.

I looked through my stash and noticed that most of the colours are pastel and not very masculine. The best I could do was a solid black with a variegated black/white. I had in mind a centre row of 4 ring motifs to form a column of diamonds in a solid colour with an outer row to finish it. The black, black/white combo was too somber, so I went with a centre row in white.

I entertained lots of possibilities for the outer row, but in the end settled on an understated row of black rings and a variegated black/white chain.

I finished it off with a lock chain in the variegated thread with a couple of diamonds and a tassel that used up the unfinished bits of thread on the shuttles.

Hubby seems happy with it and doesn't seem to mind the lack of any eye popping colour. If I'd had a bright robin's egg blue (his favourite colour is blue) I'd have used that in the middle, but the washed out pale blues I have just didn't have enough punch.

Edited to add:
Here's the pattern for anyone interested. I haven't proofread it, but the rings are all 5-5-5-5 and the short chains are 3-3-3-3, the long ones are 3-3-3-3-3-3. Let me know if you find any errors and I'll fix it.

Variegated thread edging

or Pink hanky, part 2. You may have noticed a duplicate posting about the trials and tribulations of tatting with variegated thread. That's what happens when hubby is trying to hustle me out to the store and I don't pay attention to what I'm doing. What I meant to post was this part about the finished hanky.

When I finished the first row and started the next round I used up that left over bit that had been wound around the ball and of course when it ran out I had to join in new thread, but fortunately the splice happened in the long pink section.

One thing I wasn't thrilled with was that in the section where the green pooled and I had green on top and bottom, it pooled again on the second row. There's not too much that can be done about it except maybe ripping it out and starting again. Thankfully, I missed out on the perfectionist gene and I'm OK with letting it sit.

All of the angst over how to handle the corner turned out to be a non-issue. I just repeated the same thing on the second row and it worked perfectly. I had started the second row at the green bit and when I came around to join into it, I just happened to hit another green bit, so there wasn't any need to adjust it at all.

I was also pleased with how the thread colour complimented the pink embroidered flowers. So I guess it was a success after all. I have a few more hankies to add edgings to, but right now I'm working on a bookmark which should be finished today or tomorrow.

Edited to add: One other thing I thought I'd mention, The 2 rows of edging took almost an entire ball of size 80 thread. I have a full ball of the same thread and the ball that I used looked to be the same size. I was down to the cardboard core when I finished. There's enough left to make a bookmark or something, but that's about it.  

Are you a shuttle hoarder?

I noticed a thread on InTatters in regard to shuttles. Some people have a lot of them. Some people start out with a couple and then they seem to multiply like rabbits. Some people have hundreds of shuttles. There are times when you are making a project that you need pairs of shuttles for working different parts of a design so it's not that difficult for a serious tatter to require 6 or 8 shuttles.

I can see, when you are learning to tat that you need to try out different types of shuttles. You might love large shuttles, or you might have small hands that need a smaller shuttle. You might try out a post shuttle without a hook and then find that working with an attached hook is easier. Or you might use a shuttle with a hook and find that it gets caught in every stitch. So you try out a few varieties to see what you like.

If you fall in love with post style shuttles you will inevitably acquire a few more since pairs of them will be attached to projects and half full shuttles will require emptying. Bobbin style shuttle are emptied by popping them out and letting the thread unwind so fewer shuttles are required.

Some connoisseurs will want to have one of every kind, just because they are collectors. They will haunt antique stores and flea markets looking for that unique shuttle to round out their display.

Then there are the hoarders. They can't pass a rack of shuttles without buying one. Or 10. If there are shuttles available online, they need one in every colour. Decorated shuttles are bought for every occasion, in fact occasions are invented for excuses to buy more. There are shuttles all over the house. There are some by the comfy tatting chair and a few on the computer desk. Every craft bag a purse has some stuffed in it. There are some stuffed down behind the cushions and peeking out under pillows. There are boxes stuffed in cupboards full of them. Some are hiding out in drawers, some dangle by a thread from pockets. The cat chases others under the sofa, and the dog has left teeth marks in one or two. The hoarders never saw a shuttle they didn't like.

Better watch out, there might be a hoarder near you. Maybe it's time to go count your shuttles.

Pink hanky, or the trials of tatting with colour

I started the edging for this hanky and was coming up on the 3rd corner when the thread broke. I did a whole hanky with dimpled rings and the thread didn't break even once. With this simple edging that I think of as a vine edging, where the rings are small 8-8, and the thread seems strong so it shouldn't break. But it did. I'm a big girl and I know how to open closed rings, back up, bring the thread back in and carry on, so I don't usually mind. See, it's all fixed.

This however is variegated thread. It has a long stretch of pink followed by a short intense stretch of green. The pattern is worked with 2 shuttles in a ring of 8-8 followed by a chain of 8-8 and a ring of 8-8 joined to the first ring. Since I'm using a variegated thread wound CTM on both shuttles there is a section of pink lace followed by a short section of green on one side of the lace, then repeated and the green is on the opposite side of the lace. like this. See?

I was beginning to wonder if the travelling patch of green on the top was going to match up with the green on the bottom, which I don't want it to. Then the thread broke right in the green. I thought about cutting out a repeat of colour and moving over to the next section of green, but it seemed like such a waste of thread, so I just joined the thread where it broke and kept tatting.

Then the thread on the other shuttle broke. I'm a big girl and I know how to open closed rings, back up, bring the thread back in and carry on...wait, I've been here before. At this point, I have not 1 but 2 shuttles with variegated thread that have broken about half way around on the edging.

One of the nice things about variegated thread, at least in my opinion, is that you get a recurring sequence of colour just like the lace has a recurring sequence of pattern. In order to continue that regular sequence, you have to have the same pattern used in the same section of colour. Breaking the thread means breaking the sequence. So to try and bring the colours into sync again, I undid everything back to the first break. Pulled the thread off the first shuttle until I was at the beginning of the green section and added the thread in. Then I brought in the pink colour on the second shuttle.

Of course at this point I had to go around the corner which used a bit more thread on the first shuttle. You can see what happened. The green sections caught up with one another and I now have an edging with half of it pink with little bits of green and half of it with solid blocks of green. I don't like it.

When I started this project I grabbed what looked like a full ball of thread and loaded the first shuttle, only to find out that the thread had been cut and wound back on the ball. That's OK there was plenty of thread left on the ball, so I unwound it and started again. The design is simple and it makes a fairly narrow band of lace, but it's easy to do a second row to mirror the first row, which I was prepared to do from the outset. If you read this blog, you'll know I abhor skinny lace. Nor am I crazy about doing multiple rows of lace to make it wider. However, this one is repetitive, quick and easy, so it'll do.

Except. There's always an exception. I like how I've done the corners on the first row. I'm not sure I'm going to like it when I add the second row. So I could just do the sides and join the row to the existing corner which will mean a lot of ends to sew in on teeny tiny thread. Or I could just do a chain over the corner, not really doing much of a corner treatment at all.

There there's that other exception. What do I do about the pooling of that block of colour on the second half of the hanky? If I just do the sides, I can start the variegation at any point and separate the green more for the second row, on the side where it's pooling, or deliberately match up the greens on the section where it's not. Of course that means all those ends to hide.

I was leaning toward spreading the colour out on the side that's pooling and doing a new corner. I've come to the end of the last side and realized that I either have to undo a section to join the lace to the beginning or crown in another pattern repeat. I'm thinking undoing will be a better fit and the last ring is being stubborn about re-opening and the thread is starting to look frayed.....

Another hanky in the works

When I went through my stash of hankies I realized that I'm out blue flowers, so I got to thinking that I ought to do matching edgings for the hankies I have and finish them off, so I can buy more with blue flowers. Here's the current assortment.

I'm thinking that I'll use a double bobbin shuttle for the pink and blue flowers so that I can repeat the colour on the edging. I haven't come up with a design that I like that I can do that with so I selected a hanky with a single flower to work with.

I chose this pink flower and then went looking for threads to match. Out of the threads I have none of them are quite right. There isn't much of the deep pink and the pale pink thread is a little off. The pink flower has a bit too much yellow in it.

The variegated pink might work, but then I'd have to pair it up with a green to match. The green leaves are a yellow/green and not a blue/green like the thread. The best match in the greens is a yellow/green variegate. I don't like mixing 2 variegates together. Too often they don't quite work and I don't want to tat 44 inches of lace that doesn't look quite right.

You'd think that with nearly a 100 partial balls of thread, finding a match would be easier. Nearly running out of thread on the last hanky has me wary of starting another one without being sure of enough to complete the job. One of the other options I have is a pink green variegate that on the ball looks like a perfect match.

Once I had the thread chosen, I opted for using a traditional design, just to get things going. Designing edgings isn't my strong point. When I do an edging I want it to be fairly wide. I don't like skimpy edgings. Of course wider edgings take longer to complete and use more thread so it's a bit of a balancing act.

I've started, using what I think of as a vine edging, which is just a variation of a ring and chain edging, but it's skimpy. The edging makes a wider design if it's mirrored back to back, but that will mean playing around with the corner treatment which I have already done for the first side. I like the corner the way it is.

My options are to put the mirror image on the inside, and play round with how it connect to the first corner, or mirror it on the outside and just follow around the outline of the existing corner. Of course I could always just repeat the edging part and just join it to the existing corner.

Decisions, decisions, what shall I do? I don't know, I guess I'll have to wait and see how I feel when the first row is done. Yet another reason why I don't like multi row edgings.

Of course it's February and I really out to design another heart.

Have I mentioned before I have the attention span of a flea?

Lesson learned: Make sure there's enough

You may remember that I won some thread on ebay. It was a lot of size 80 thread which I use mostly for bookmarks, like the one in my last post, and edgings. Winning a batch of partial balls lets me have a wide variety of colours, although not necessarily a lot of thread. Bookmarks don't take a lot of thread so having only partial balls is OK.

I decided since I have a nice palette to work with that I'd add an edging to a hanky. I happened to find a lot of cotton hankies with machine embroidery in the corner and I bought a bunch on them in different colours and designs. It seems that most often I want to make these as bridal gifts so I generally use the hankies with the blue embroidery like the one shown here.

If I can't have plain white on white, blue at least goes along with the "Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue" tradition. Of course, unless you know ahead of time what the wedding colours are going to be, the lace is best left white.

Consequently, the white drawn thread hankies and the ones with blue embroidery are gone and I still have those in pink, purple and mauve. So I decided that I should just tat matching edgings to some of the others and keep them on hand for quick gifts. (I don't know how it happens, but things just barely get off my shuttles and they're walking out the door, sometimes before I even take a picture.) Anyway, since I had lots of lovely colours to play with I thought I'd just choose a hanky and give it an edging.

This one has a mauve flower with a darker mauve ribbon and mint green leaves. One of the variegated balls of mauve thread was a perfect match, as was the solid green. I filled my shuttle and merrily tatted away. Guess what? You don't have to guess do you? You know when I started out talking about partial balls of thread, what was inevitably coming.

I ran out of the variegated thread half way down the last side. (Why is it always the last side? Couldn't it happen half way through?) Fortunately in the other batch of partial threads there was another ball of the same dye lot that I won. Good thing too, because the thread was vintage Lily brand which isn't being made any more and the balls of DMC and Coats aren't really a match for it.

At any rate, here is the finished hanky using my Hearts and Flower edging and I have a wee giftie  ready if I need it.

NOTE TO SELF: Next time you make a hanky edging make sure you have enough thread before you start!

A bookmark pattern for you

Besides the usual snowflakes that I tatted over Christmas, I also did a bookmark for my SIL. Her birthday comes just before Christmas and consequently her birthday can get overlooked in the seasonal events. Since it was near Christmas though I thought of doing something with a poinsettia like a small pin, but didn't have the time to fuss with designing something with the points of a poinsettia. Getting the loopy round natural shape of tatting to conform to angular shapes can be aggravating.

I settled on a bookmark, and thinking of a poinsettia, I worked in red and started with a basic daisy shape. The daisy seemed sort of ordinary so I added another round to the petals to give it a little more oomph. It was finished off with a row of chains and some single rings like leaves between the flowers.

I was planning on sharing this with you earlier, but better late than never. Here's a pattern for you to enjoy.

UPDATE: I knew I had forgotten something. Maureen kindly pointed out that I hadn't specified where to start and the new drawing has that added in. The shaded rings are done with the second shuttle, so the first daisy ends with a split ring and the next begins and ends with a split ring. The top rings are tatted with shuttle 1 and the bottom ones with shuttle 2. This lets you tat a row of daisies instead of tatting individual daisies that you have to join together and hide all those ends. I don't normally show the stitch count inside the rings, but on the little "leaf" rings it was less crowded to put them inside.

Done and dusted

I agonized forever over what to make for my nephew's upcoming wedding. I decided that since people are going more for digital pictures rather than print photos that a picture album was redundant. I finally settled on doing edgings for some placemats.

The Mikasa china pattern they have selected is Love Story which is very romantic and has a stylized heart.

I chose to use a simple dimpled ring edging. See all this?

No, I didn't have trouble with the thread. I didn't have difficulty closing the dimpled rings. I didn't make a miscount and have to cut it off. What I did have, was difficulty finding some plain but elegant placemats. Knowing that I had a lot of tatting to do, I just started tatting and when it looked like it was long enough, I just left ends long enough to make a few more repeats and started again.

None of the stores I tried had placemats. They had plastic crap. They had wooden junk. They had printed ones and patterned ones. They had ones in really hideous colours. I was looking for something neutral like a plain cream or ecru and I couldn't find them anywhere. Just when I was about to give up I found them. I wanted a nice formal, linen look fabric, double sided so that I could blind stitch along the edges to attach the lace.

The little pieces? that's where I overestimated the length and had to cut it shorter. Cut shorter, undo the last 2 dimpled rings to get rid of the joining picot, tat the last ring without the joining picot, finish it off and sew in the ends. If I had had the mats to measure it would have been easier because it turned out that on a couple of them, where I had to undo ended up right where I had added in more thread so I had to back up even further, add more thread and re-tat to the end, just to get rid of the bump from the joining picot that wasn't needed.

Dimpled rings while cute and matching their china pattern are kind of plain by themselves.

I don't like giving people high upkeep tatting. I know that they'll use it a few times and then just give up on it because it's just too much work to keep it nice. The picots on this edging are all on the chains where they can't be seen. There are 3 picots on each chain and they're all sewn into the seam along the edge. Machine wash the placemats and just pull the edging out for minimal fuss.

Still, it looks kind of plain. So I thought a tatted heart in the corner might be a good choice. In going through my designs, there were some that worked out too large and some were too small, while others left open areas that I thought might be problematic. I could envision a knife or fork sliding under the lace and tearing so I wanted to make sure I didn't use too open a pattern.

I didn't want them all to be the same, so I chose different hearts all about the same size. I chose to put them in the upper left corner, because I thought that would be safest. In tatting them, I eliminated a lot ot the picots because I didn't want to have a lot of picots to sew down and I didn't want loose picots that could curl and need blocking every time the placemats were washed. I've blind stitched the hearts onto the top layer of the mat and hopefully I've tacked down all of the bits that might cause problems. I even tacked down each row of the rose so that the silverware can't get caught in it.

At any rate whatever problem it might be, is not longer mine. The recipients can deal with it. Or not. At this point, I'm done. May hands are hurting from tatting and from struggling with a curved needle trying to stitch down all of the picots of the edgings through the thick fabric. My thumbs are aching and now I get to go shovel more snow. O Joy!

It's hard to get a good picture when it's white on off white, but you get the general idea. Hopefully they will appreciate them and not use them under the dog's dishes.