a new DAL in town

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I logged into Craftree after several weeks and scrolled back for recent posts. Imagine my immense surprise and pleasure to see that Savarosa, inspired by my recent design-along challenge, had created her own and invited tatters to join in! Glad to see it catch on, though there was no response to the Craftree post.

So, after a hiatus of over 2 months, I finally picked up my shuttles and began tatting! Rusty at first, but soon got into the swing of it and designed the 3rd round. Two days, start to finish! Round 3 is my own, original, though I cannot claim that it is 'unique' .... the shape just seems 'familiar', doesn't it. If you have seen it before, let me know so I can add a link here.

But first, the details to Savarosa's 2026-Design-Along-(DAL)-Snowflake can be found here -  https://savarosacraft.com/2026-design-along-dal-snowflake/ . I like the way she has laid out the rules and legalities!

This is a prototype but I think it worked out fine. I had started by not joining the long chains to each other. This would allow flexibility for the chains to overlap if too long. Turns out the lengths were just right therefore the latter chains were all joined to their counterpart. It helps to sketch on grid paper like I did for my own DAL round.

The only change I would make is to add very small picots so that the thrown rings can be anchored to the chains and stay in the center. I added this in the pattern even if it is missing in the prototype model.

I picked up whatever thread was at hand/on the shuttles. Hence the red rosette. I had 4 long leftover lengths of the beige thread which I put to use here. In 3rd round I reached a point where both threads were over at almost the same time. Hence I wound the shuttles, ctm, with new thread and finished the round. But now I have two new lengths of leftover threads, LOL.

Here's my Round 3 pattern for the Flower Flake in PDF - https://drive.google.com/file/d/17Tclhmx_iRZ4mtYpyi8qv4ig9y8z5hGe/view

I kept it simple starting with a repeat of the trefoils in Round 2 and with sufficient free picots in my round in case of any future additions to the design. The equally spaced picots in the long chains helped me keep track of the count, too. 

My sketch also had an inward facing thrown ring on the short connecting chain. Obviously it would not fit in the tatted model, so I didn't even attempt it. What looks good on paper does not always work out in the real thread world.

In Anchor size 20 (equivalent to Lizbeth size 10) the motif measures 9½ cm tip-wise and 4½ cm along the side.

While it may not be unique, I do love the shape of this motif! What is your verdict?

Many thanks to Savarosa for organising this DAL. I am now ready to get back to the book review again with ample tatting in store.

I won this

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 I was in the kitchen this afternoon, just starting up on the lunch dishes, when the doorbell rang and hubby went to attend it. We were expecting a delivery from Amazon hence the delivery was pre-approved and the delivery person reached our apartment without any call from the guards. Imagine our utter surprise when hubby came back with the gift package from Marilee! It had been at the customs since 26th and we had no idea how long it would take there. From her doorstep to mine in less than 10 days!

The vibrancy of these hand-dyed threads is absolutely amazing! And the combo of shades with their cute names often brings a smile... 16 skeins, 4 in each size.

Size 10

Size 20

I have one skein in size 20 gifted by Denise years back but I've held on to it for fear of not using it in the right project, LOL. Now I better get cracking and enjoy them all. 

Size 40

Size 80

A little hand-written note from Marilee .... Oh yes, I certainly intend to enjoy them and show them off as well ;-D I just hope I can do full justice to them.

Read about it here - https://yarnplayertats.blogspot.com/2026/10/giveaway-hand-dyed-thread-samples.html  ;  https://yarnplayertats.blogspot.com/2026/10/the-giveaway-winner.html  ; https://tipsaroundthehome.blogspot.com/2026/10/the-rising-sun.html

And to think I almost did not join the giveaway!

Many many thanks, Marilee, for your wonderful generosity and the bounty of beauties!!!

aside

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Like I said in my last post, it's been almost 2 months since I picked up my shuttles. However, I have enjoyed watching videos of doodling, water colours, etc. I will need to buy a whole new set of brushes since my old ones are quite spoilt by their idleness spanning decades! But doodling was something I could do  ... simply pick up a pen or pencil and a piece of paper and .... 

I was especially impressed by Olga Dee Art on FB since her videos always start with 'stop scrolling for 3 (or 5) minutes ......' Now that's a strong hook, right ;-D So, here are my limp but quick attempts .... 

I need a hell of a lot of practice to acquire a steady and firm hand!

I had started with the orange Uniball but the shading didn't work. So made another in black pen outline.

For a bit of interest I added a tiny body so that it becomes a dancing peacock ;-P

I think this turned out pretty okay! I do like the transformation when those curves are filled/darkened as in neurographic art.

All these were done in September.

Now, yesterday hubby surprised me with a set of 12 blacklead pencils ranging from H to B! I just had to try them out so I made the above doodle. It had started out as a continuous curved entangled line. Then I darkened the outlines of teardrop or oval shapes and also filled them with simple lines. And yet, it looked kind of disjointed, so I started filling in the spaces with freeform shapes and shading, using a range of pencils. Didn't even bother to blend the shaded lines with a piece of tissue or lead shavings ... I just did it with my finger (you can see the smudges escaping the outlines). 

None of the above images has been tampered with in any way. They are pure photographs with all my mistakes and amateurish lines showing. Since these were all meant as something of an aside, I didn't try to improve or draw new ones. Now that the pencil set box is on my bedside unit, I should make a lot more use of it, frequently, and put those video-watching hours to good practice ;-D