Thursday 25 May 2017

squirreling away gapsosis

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how to avoid gapsosis in thrown rings and birdhouse squirrel !

Nothing new here for experienced tatters but do scroll down for the latter. 

Avoiding  gapsosis  in  thrown  ring clusters

Newer learners often face a problem of gapsosis in case of thrown rings and especially thrown ring clusters such as trefoils and clovers. 

Ungainly bare threads can be avoided with these 2 simple steps : 
1. fold the last ring of cluster over the earlier rings and hold in pinch ;
2. tat 1 ds as close to the base of the last ring as possible WITHOUT removing from pinch ;
voilà, now you can release from the pinch, unfold and continue with chain tatting normally – the gapsosis has been avoided and the thrown rings will sit close upon the chain.

NOTE : this same fold, pinch, and tat is equally effective with trefoils and clovers when a normal chain follows it after RW (reverse work). 

A pictorial on how to avoid gapsosis



If required, wiggle the knotting thread a bit till you can feel it flush against the last ring, 
with no core thread left.

 Release the pinch and unfold Only After 1 full double stitch has been made .
In case there is still a gap, untat the 1ds and do over.

This works for me. There may be other equally effective ways, too.
A few previous posts about gapsosishow to avoid and also when/how it can be useful.

I will talk more about this snowflake in next post, in response to a tatter’s dilemma.

Our  birdhouse  owner !
And here is our birdhouse resident for this season. Not a bird, but a squirrel !!!
(click on pics to enlarge)
Notice how it has stuffed the house with rags n ‘riches’ ;-P

S/he does not take kindly to guests ! After a few moments of glaring motionless at each other, the ‘owner’ jumped at the intruder and it squirreled away. Our guest went back to resting on the rooftop J

We've had this birdhouse for over 2 decades and except for the first couple of years, no bird has made it's nest. Squirrels, do stash their pickings before winter, using it as a storehouse. But this time we have an actual resident for the last few weeks and can see it sprawling on the roof every evening !

These pics were taken through out French door glass. Hope to take a few more with doors open, and a closer view. 

happy tatting while bird , errr , squirrel watching  :-)

10 comments:

  1. Useful tip, thanks. Love your new visitor! We have an owl house that has never been nested in. I recently contacted a group that encourages householders to have owl houses and they gave us some tips, so here's hoping that when nesting season arrives in July we might get an owl visitor. Or perhaps some other sort of beastie will make a home in there?

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    1. I hope so too, Jane :-) wishing you an owl or, ahem, a squirrel ;-D

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  2. Squirrels in a birdhouse ?! Amazing:)

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    1. and pretty cute, Anetta ! love watching it sprawled over, or sneaking inside. Y'day was a particularly active evening with the guest/intruder and our squirrel stayed out on roof till late at night, guarding :-D

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  3. I bet he's been watching that bird house for a while to see if any birds take up residence, I wonder if he will find a mate and have a litter. If you feed him peanuts he will get use to you and become friendly then he won't mind you when you go outside. That way you should get some better photos as well

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    1. Good suggestion, Margaret ! We used to keep grain out for birds till a few years back and squirrels would drop in too - very friendly and cute ! But my avian visitors (& there were so many species!) thought my balcony was their walk-in toilet as well ;-p Had to stop :-(((

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  4. Good and clear tip, yes I agree that a new tatter could forget that the ds is made with the ball thread and keep on pulling the core thread instead... thanks very helpful.

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    1. Thanks Ninetta - good detail :-))) I should've mentioned that the same can be applied to even regular trefoils/clovers when they are followed by a chain after RW.

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  5. great tips, and I love squirrels they are wonderful to watch very entertaining we have rehabilitated a few and I adore them :)

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    1. ((I deleted my earlier comment due to mistakes))
      Ooo they Are adorable, Carollyn and here we don't have them as large as in the US. There's a mythological story behind the 4 lines on their back, too - Lord Ram (revered as a god) stroked a squirrel on it's back for helping, and those are the stroke marks :-D

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