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Hummingbird  for Beginners

Designer : flootzavut (Sarah Warren)

This cute little, very simple, ring-only Hummingbird for Beginners pattern, was shared on InTatters a few weeks back. I was delighted by the smooth curve & natural flow of the neck, totally in keeping with the real bird shape ! And such a lovely stash-buster, too. Who wouldn’t like to have a few hummingbirds hovering over flowers ?!

I made them immediately. 

Threads : Anchor Mercer Crochet Cotton, Size 20. 

Lemon Yellow ; Variegated Purple ; Metallic Silver & Green.

USP : The Downward Picot for neck -which gives it a natural flow & continuity of form, clearly reminiscent of an actual bird.

The designer suggests that these be made into earrings by simply reversing the order of stitches throughout – a mirror image. She has uploaded a Split Ring version of this pattern in pdf format (post#25 in above mentioned thread) 

Trial 1 of muskaan's variation :

This one is my own ‘variation’ substituting the ring with chain, using shuttle & ball. In this Trial 1, I made the eyes as tiny picots & the neck with Turn Work (half stitches), but kept the overall stitch-count similar to the original. For the beak, I left all 4 tails (shuttle & ball) tied together for a fuller look.. 

But I was unhappy with the overall shape.

Trial 2 of muskaan's variation :

 

In 2^nd trial, which I like much better shape-wise (though it still requires a neater finish & untwisted picots), I have used very small DPs for eyes & a DP for neck (the reason I took a liking to Sarah’s pattern!). I’ve added a couple of ds, too.

I just noticed that the hummingbird in the last photo looks positively frazzled !!! Oh well, too late to take another pic.

The Sunflower & leaves are my own original patterns .....

TIP : When doing DP (or TW), I always make 2SHS, p, 2FHS. I find that this gives a a very clean turn since there are now 3 contiguous half stitches of same type at each end.

TIP : To avoid twisting of long picot : 

Make the loop for picot & make the 1^st half stitch. Then move/snug this half stitch into position. Only Then complete the 2^nd half stitch. I used to make the complete ds, then snug it in place. But this causes the LP to twist, as can be seen in some wing picots.

 I hope you enjoy tatting these cuties as much as I did :-) 

and my humming thanks to Sarah for sharing the pattern

  

Motif #13 for 25 Motif Challenge