A Loom for All "Clunies"

A loom is your oyster. With the right choice, one can belt out beautiful pearls
in the form of tally leaves & petals !

After some initial tallies made on my finger loom I switched to Judith Connors’ Cluny Tatting Loom for all the rest of my practice, trials, & experiments. I sincerely thank her for sharing her loom , without which I’d have faced many limitations.

The copyright for this loom belongs to Judith Connors. Hence I will not share the dimensions, etc. of the card loom, although all looms are basically the same functionally & one can follow their instructions too (listed at end of post). In 2 posts, I will share only my own way of using it to make various kinds of tallies, which, so far, I haven’t come across. I can’t thank Judith enough for sharing her expertise ! 

  

I made the loom from a good sized piece of cardstock. It is sturdy yet pliable : place it on any horizontal surface & while weaving, I allow the card to curve a bit (from the top edge). This gives the shuttle plenty of space to make the passage to & fro ! A smaller loom (see Judith's tips below) becomes much more portable. But since I can no longer tat on-the-go, my ‘larger’ loom works splendidly. Moreover, I cut more slits along both edges, top & bottom, of the card This allows a great deal of flexibility in use --- the SAME loom can be used to make hanging tallies, tallies with more than 2 veins , and so on ! Truly a loom for All "clunies" :-)

TIPS from Judith Connors : 

“Use a pencil to raise all the threads above the surface of the cardboard, like the bridge of a violin”. (post #5 here) 

“The measurements of the loom may be enlarged or reduced, even to using an old credit/loyalty card. … once you have the gist of the technique, one can reduce bulk in one’s tatting bag/box by creating the smaller loom” (here)

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UPDATE - 

See brand new Colour Cluny Tatting pictorials 2018 (including some basics) listed here - https://tipsaroundthehome.blogspot.com/p/my-tut.html

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HANGING   CLUNY  LEAF   ( HCL )

My main attraction towards Cluny tatting has been in their potential & beauty in freeform & dimensional tatting. They can take such wonderfully natural leafy or petal-like shapes ! And of course, as I later realized, many polygonal shapes as well.

A hanging cluny is like a tatted ring in the sense that after the tally is made, the threads all emerge back at the same point from they started viz., at the base. Besides their appearance, they are functional too, & can bridge a gap (as in my 2-in-1 Wiosna) .

In the tuts that I consulted, either a floss threader was used (which I could not acquire, despite getting my DH on the hunt), or the centre loop/Warp made with thread or dental floss, was left ‘unsecured’, making it a bit floppy to handle & pack down.

Additionally, in case one is using auxiliary thread to weave, too many threads hang down in a finger loom . 

So here’s my easy solution :

Easy Hanging Cluny Leaf on a Card Loom

Following is a pictorial of how I applied the card loom for HCL . I used a size 20 AMC thread, doubled up to form a loop & knotted at the tail end. One can insert the loop into the slits & then place the knot so that it gets anchored behind as in Tip#2 in previous post. ( Many more tips are covered in the same post).

 

Since the weaving thread needs to be pulled out through the base when the tally is complete, one can use another length of auxiliary thread. Or, one can unwind the shuttle & allow the entire length to pull through. It is obviously advisable to use shorter lengths of weaving thread for hanging clunies.

All closing is done by gentle pulling .

The tiny space of weaving thread loop is left so as to avoid ‘locking in’ as well as to keep leaf shape from getting distorted while closing. This is also the loop that can form a picot (see below) .

This was my very first HCL. Hence, while closing it, I did not take pics of individual steps. I have tried to indicate with help of colours, numbers & arrows. But for a clearer understanding, there are Excellent tutorials by Karen Cabrera & Ruth Perry from which I learned . 

I often tend to leave the loops on the loom till it becomes absolutely essential to remove & close. The loop(s) that are not being closed can stay on the loom, instead of coming in one’s way. Also, then I don’t need to pull & check which thread needs to be pulled next, because the loops are already in their sequence on the loom. This is Really handy when making tallies with more than 3 Warps.

It is easier to weave HCLs with a darning or tatting needle, since short length of auxiliary thread is required !

Potential of Hanging Cluny Tatting :

Great stash buster – use up short lengths of scrap thread as auxiliary thread to weave leaves.

Colour Spectrum – the same motif/piece can have tallies in different colours !

Picots & Beads – One can add a picot at the tip of the hanging cluny leaf if one needs to join to it later. Beads at the tip or within the leaf ….

In order to demonstrate how I made a picot, I started a tally. But then decided to carry on to make a complete piece. Although the colours are not right, it is a Cluny tatting variation on my Rustic Leaf pattern here. But I did jot down the stitch count, etc. & will share it soon. Again, this is only a practice piece, but I won’t have time in near future to do it properly …

All Hanging Cluny leaves as veins, joined at base by Josephine Chains 

& at tips by padded ds tatting for 3D effect

UPDATE : Ninetta Caruso has shared another way here, of making picots along the edge of the Cluny leaf ... by making a reverse stitch (unflipped ds) with picot space between the 2 hitches, on the loom thread !

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SPLIT   CLUNY

Why do I pin, if I don’t go back to refer to them ?! A few months back, I had pinned an image of a tally being made. Back then I had no concept of the various forms/techniques involved; it just seemed like a great stepwise pictorial for the future reference. Now, as I scrolled through my Pinterest Board , & went back to the site, it turned out to be a ‘3^rd kind’ of tally viz., the Split Cluny !

Split Cluny method was developed by Melanie Blowers, a student of Mimi Dillman. Mimi has a neat pictorial with instructions on how to make them , and also various tips & functions related to them .  

It just so happened that I Needed to use this technique to correct/rectify an error almost immediately ! I was playing with a Cluny tatting bracelet (tentatively called “Geometatic” Bracelet/Rakhi). All tallies were regular tallies. But while closing one of them, the middle loop refused to budge. It wasn’t yet ‘knotted up’ but I was scared the thread would break if I pulled too hard ; so I emptied the loom shuttle and pulled this last thread ‘tail’ through the other end. Finally, with gentle persuasion & perseverance, the open loop yawned to a close, but too late : I now had the loom thread & weaving thread at Opposite ends of the tally !

After some thought, I added an auxiliary thread with weaver’s knot, made the loom with this auxiliary thread, & started the tally weaving with the ‘original loom thread’. One of the tails was hidden in the back while weaving the tally. Never hurts to learn a new technique ;-P

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And one can hide the tail within a tally, as I mentioned in Tip #12 in previous post. Since there wasn't a pic then, I've added one here :

Keep the tail parallel to the left or central Warp while weaving, treating both tail & Warp thread as one. 

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Now for la pièce de résistance .....  

A  Lego  Loom for Cluny Tatting !!! 

My DH hasn’t been able to suppress a wry/amused smile, watching me weaving on the card loom (I keep him abreast of a few terms ;-P); even teasing me at times. Yet, watching my ‘focus’ & movements, his engineering brain kicked in & he asserted that other materials could be used. Here’s what he immediately came up with : an electrical connector ! 

Great idea but it needed to be steadied because the Warps need to be taut. So this would have to be glued down or nailed down to some board.
But don’t you see something else here ? Yesssssss ! A Lego block !

• Make a loom with blocks stacked up higher on one end of the board & lower at the bottom end (this will provide the height/lift for easy passage of weaver shuttle), 
• wrap the loops for the Warp around the little knobs on both ends of the loom blocks, 
• place blocks over these to 'lock in' the Warps, 
• and weave away. 

It is so versatile, can be assembled/dissembled at will. Distance between Warps And the number of Warps can be easily changed …. Game anyone ?!

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My final post will cover Shapes & multiple veins , and the factors that can affect tally shapes.

Tally Ho  &  Happy Tallying :-D

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More Links to Cluny Tatting
Various Types of Looms & tuts 

• Clever Cluny by Lorraine Eisbrenner Wolak  loom on card 
• Star Plastic Canvas Loom
• Plastic Bottle Loom
• Cluny Tatting Loom  Judith Connors (diagram & instructions for loom on card)
• Cluny Box Loom Shuttle tatting tut (Beginning Tatting Video Series) 
• Various Cluny Tatting Looms
• Simply Finger Loom by Suzanne (confused by all those loops while making a loom? This is an easy 3-step ‘short-cut’ or summarization)
• A Card loom by Ninetta Caruso, In Italian, but with self-explanatory clear photos

Hanging Cluny Leaf

• kcabrera74 : Lesson 31 -  hanging cluny ; Lesson 32 - hanging cluny off a ring
• Ruth Perry (Rozella Linden) Hanging Cluny Tutorial – excellent tut . 
• Tim TenClay  Hanging Cluny Leaf Flower  pattern & process

Split Cluny

• All about Split Cluny by Mimi Dillman, including how to hide tails with magic loop !
• How to make Split Cluny Melanie Blowers' 'method' demonstrated by Mimi Dillman

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Related Posts : Cluny Tatting Tips

Cluny tatting Earring pattern
How to make Broad Cluny Leaves
Lots of shapes and effects !
Free pattern for braid