snood and a wannabe

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Remember the snood I made recently from Linda’s Split Chain Doily ? My MIL loved it and immediately asked me to make her one, albeit a very small one. I chose this …

Flowery Meadow (for snood)

“Tatting Patterns and Designs”

Blomqvist and Persson (Dover, p58)

  

For a hair net/snood, I needed a semi-dense pattern and liked this. However, all except the joining picots have been discarded, for practical reasons when used & washed.

It got me thinking as I worked the looong outer chains, how picots have their advantages and disadvantages. To list a few …

Without Decorative/Free Picots

• Clean, crisp lines of the design become highlighted. 
• Quicker to tat, too.
• No hassle about even picots, picot gauges, etc.
• Easy to keep track when joining since they are the only picots there.

With Decorative/Free picots

• Enhance the lacy, airiness of a piece.
• Decorative picots come in numerous forms and can add a lot of effect and interest.
• Picots at regular intervals help us keep track/count of stitches, which is especially handy in case of long chains and large rings !

Since I didn't know the final size, I decided to cut off after each round in order to stop when needed.

Used one shuttle and ball, cutting after each round instead of climbing out. Simple techniques call for simple tatting J

Techniques used : directional tatting, clover, rosette center, join to the right.

The design element that caught my eye was the clover arrangement.

Row 1 has outward facing clover rings,

Row 2 has inward facing clovers, &

Row 3 again has outward facing clovers. (This row was not done, since the size seemed right for the snood).

And in Row 2, I really like how the clovers are joined as pairs !

Each round looked very pretty when completed, but I didn’t take pics.

Works out to 3½ inch diameter in Anchor size 40.

The complete doily will look good in colours to do justice to it’s name. A snood for MIL called for something subdued.

Added a Lock Chain string with rings at either end – normal ring and tatting over tails at the starting point, and SSSR tatting over tail for the end. No sewing in ends !

I intend to tat a few more snoods for her in different colours & patterns, once I know for sure that this size is fine.

how far can I go ?! 

In fact this is a challenge I’m setting myself – trying to design a larger pattern. I don’t know how far I can go with it, but this is the very first stage. Already I need to change the picot position in 2^nd round so that 3^rd round reflects the long ring effect of inner circle instead of oblongs.

I'm going to start over tonight to see how it looks. At present there is a lot of ruffling as well.

What do you think ? Any suggestions ?

tatting simple patterns can be just as exciting !

stay tatting stay happy 

ties of friendship

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We ‘met’ in Georgia’s online class. Anita has been a huge supporter and her emails are always so sweet and encouraging! She is so talented – many will remember her corn harvest basket and her miniature tatted baby items.  

This year she was teaching a class at Tat Days and imagine my immense surprise and pleasure when I got the same pattern in my inbox almost as soon as the event ended! The pattern will be available on the Palmetto’s CD shortly. I am so touched by her thoughtfulness and generosity and treasure her friendship.

Doctor Who inspired

Red Bow Tie Tatted Necklace

Anita Barry

A 3D bow tie meant to be a necklace with jump rings and chain attached. I intended to sew it on to a hairband; instead a satin ribbon was passed through the bead to use for wrapping a gift. It's theirs to decide how to use the bow :-)

The triangular motif is repeated 4 times – 2 on either side of the bead, folded back on itself, to create this bow tie. Smart – and interesting how ‘easy’ it is to use flat motifs to create a 3D lace.

An alligator join midway through a ring was new to me - stopped me in my tracks! 

But it’s pretty simple – move the ring thread around/behind keeping the core/shuttle thread in front thus 'capturing' the picot and continue, making certain that thread still slides freely. 

Use of padding only one half of a stitch is clever (Half Double Double Stitch - HDD)! It adds stiffness to the tatting to hold shape, without making it bulky ! 

HDD is merely one form of a variable/unequal padded double stitch (pds).

According to the notation we proposed, 

a HDD would be pds(0,1) ie. regular first half stitch (0 or no wrap), 1 wrap on second half stitch. 

And if one wanted to make 10 such HDD, we would write it as 10pds(0,1).

pds encompasses all the various terms for padding the stitch.

Pattern called for a ½ inch bead. This pearl bead is the only one in my stash. However, one can use any sized bead, I realized only later. A smaller bead, more importantly with a smaller hole would keep the 2 sides from 'flopping'. Or perhaps I didn't snug the bead/tatting tightly enough. As a necklace, it wouldn't matter, though. 

I used size 20 Anchor although the pattern calls for a size 10 thread since I’ve come to realize that the former is pretty close to Lizbeth 10. My bow measures 2”x4” - almost similar to Anita’s. 

Since it is inspired by Dr Who, I went with maroon. Looking back, I really should’ve chosen a lighter colour to bring out the beautiful pattern. Pink, to go with the Barbie story book inside ? ;-P

Many many thanks, Anita :-)

I enjoyed tatting it tremendously & am sure the recipient will like & use it too.

Cascade bracelet

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Cascade Bracelet

Adaptation of Cascade Earrings by Jane McLellan

As mentioned in earlier post, this bracelet is an application of Jane’s Cascade Earrings pattern.

No change in stitchcount of each ring or the process/path. 

Merely reduced the number of rings, making smaller 'diamonds' along the length 

and adding the entire earring pattern too for a bit of width and interest.

All in one pass, in size 20 Anchor and 4mm white pearl beads. 7 inches long.

Techniques : single shuttle , SSSR - single shuttle split ring,lock join, bead at base of ring.

After 2 rings, in order to make the next single ring in center, 

I made a lock join to the bare thread between the rings. 

This is required because the shuttle is on the farther side of the bead.

It was fun all the way !! And I like the gentle colours.

Once you get into a rhythm, the pattern flows easily and it is quick to tat up.

The bracelet took up a fully loaded Pony shuttle - that would be around 6 yards.

Hope you too are inspired to tat up the earrings and bracelet set J