decorating in August

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Snowflake #7 in Land of Laces’ 25 Snowflake Project !

If there can be snowflakes in June/July, why not start with tree decorations in August?!

This Sunday I have 2 tiny stars and a Christmas tree motif for Dorota’s project.

Starlets and MatheMagical Tree  

click to download free Starlets pattern pdf

All 3 projects require only one single shuttle with ball.

The starlets are quick projects to empty shuttles.

Recognise the teal star? Yes, it is the centre from the Repetition Doily. Here are the starlets with the snipped off center. 

I had an idea to use a beaded circle on which this starlet could be anchored, but totally forgot to tat it. Any ring can also be used.

Starlet #1 is a chains-only pattern, starting with a mock ring (SCMR) and climbing out to work the other rounds in one pass. Notice that the outermost chains have their stitches facing inwards. I used a simple picot and folded chain to get the pointed tip.

Starlet #2 is a single round of inward-facing chains with long interlaced picots. In order to get the tip, a small seed bead is moved from the shuttle when required.

Care is required when interlacing so that they move over/under correctly.

Starlet #2 – Ice Drop Process for an ice drop variation is also provided in the pdf.

These make for quick inserts for greeting cards, or to embellish on top of a card. Or as tree ornaments, naturally :-)

Dancing with the stars, all starry-eyed !!!

download free Starlets pattern pdf

MatheMagical Tree  

It is clear from the name that this is a derivation of the snowflake. While tatting the flakes, a single arm looked like a conifer, so I included this in as my #7B, since the starlets are too tiny ;-P

Here, I used green in shuttle, and brown ball.

I made a slight alteration by adding unanchored rings along the center. (If desired, tat 2 rings, one for the front, and one larger behind, for an even fuller look.) 

And picots, of course! 

Picots caused a dilemma! With asymmetrical rings, how to join to the middle picot of each ring since one would have an odd & the other an even number of picots! I solved this by starting and finishing the 'even' rings with 1ds instead of the regular 2ds in the 'odd' rings. Thus I got the same number (odd) picots in both rings and could link in the middle.

Can you see a bell here with slight modification?!

Now here's the deal. pdf for the starlets is ready and link is shared. BUT presenting the tree pattern is posing a problem. I don't need a test-tatter, but can somebody volunteer to look at the draft and answer a couple of my questions and help to simplify it? That is if you think the pattern is even worth the trouble ;-D I

 need to sleep over it some more, yawn, the bell tolls !!!

budding dahlias

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Snowflake #6 in Land of Laces’ 25 Snowflake Project !

By the skin of my teeth! The new keyboard arrived last evening and I’ve been working to get the pattern out alongside the new snowflake. Phew, made it! Staying off the net helped me reboot as well ;-P

So, taking your feedback into consideration, this is what I’ve come up with.

  Budding Dahlia Snowflakes  

click to download free pattern pdf

You are in for a treat again, with 4 patterns in one! 16 patterns (main plus variations) have now been shared in the past 6 weeks - not bad at all!

I used seed beads between the mock rings to add colour, stability, and a better finish.

There is one unflipped half stitch right after closing the mock ring to lock it into place, then the bead is moved in place from shuttle1.

I think these look cute and can be used as embellishment in so many different ways!

But to challenge myself, I tried adding more rounds. This is the medium-sized version made with ball and shuttle since the Josephine rings at the tip are mock rings in order to create a pointed chain.

I have listed numerous other ways in which one could make pointed chains for an overall different effect. eg. a seed bead, dot picot, right angle, mimosa knot, one-stitch scmr, SLT, pointed chain, etc.

Wanting to keep a connection to the JRs on rosette, I stuck with JRs throughout. But I’d love to see diversity.

This is the large version with dahlia in mind. It continues from the medium version and is worked similarly, but free-form, with petals of differing lengths.

This is undoubtedly a flower flake pattern!!!

Some petals are lock joined to a free picot on round1, but most are joined to the space between 2 chains in round2. Use a finer crochet hook to pull up a loop for joining. Petals are also linked to each other towards the base – after 2 or 4 stitches.

And a bonus sunflake variation! I tweaked the count of this maroon trial, since some of you liked it. This requires 2 shuttles and the difference in the chain arch when a JR is thrown versus when it is a mock ring is clearly visible here - the smooth chain versus the pointed chain.

download free Budding Dahlia snowflakes pattern here.

All previous patterns are listed under Snowflakes here  

h hit

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I don't swear, but if I did, this is how it would come out "h hit" !!!
In one of her recent posts, Ninetta talked about 'the missing e'... My keyboard decided it has had enough of 'o' and 's', sigh. ;-P

I've tried to insert (copy/paste) the missing letters, but it's no fun, except for the weird-looking words and sentences (if one can call them so) that form :-D My autocorrect also decided to take some downtime!

The new keyboard should arrive soon. Till then, please excuse me for not responding to emails or commenting or facebooking. I'm taking this opportunity to stay away from the net as much as possible and 'de-toxify'. And enjoy my tatting :-)   SO there !!! 😃😄😆😉