Eager to bloom

It may be a bit early for the Wild Rose to bloom but flowers always bring a happy smile. 

Continuing from my last post here is Nellie’s Wild Rose. 

Abbreviations used :

DS – double stitch

FHS – 1^st half stitch

SHS – 2^nd half stitch

fs/bs or RODS – frontside/backside tatting or reverse order double stitch

RS – reverse stitch (unflipped)

SH – shuttle

SS – switch shuttles

TW – turn work (like pages of a book)

LJ – lock join

RW – reverse work

Nellie’s Wild Rose*

Original : Nellie Hall Youngburg

Modern : Farida, Melanie, Ancolie

    

This is Motif #26 from “Forty Original Designs in Tatting” by Nellie Hall Youngburg rewritten & model tatted by Farida, Melanie, & Ancolie for the Nellie Hall Project (2014). The tatted models shared by them inspired me to try this flower. I like the heart-shaped petals – a very pleasing minimalistic pattern.

Threads : SH1 – Anchor Mercer Cotton size 40 (white)

SH2 – Anchor Embroidery Cotton 3 strands . (variegated pink – 1320)

Measurement : 2”

Techniques I used : Fs/bs tatting (optional), Z chain, decorative picots (graduated) , folded chain , Turn work, Down join, Lock Join, RS (optional), joining in a circle.

 

It seemed like a simple pattern at first glance. Well, first glances can often deceive. My first attempt (which was all variegated) landed in the compost heap & I started afresh with a white center to resemble the Alberta wild rose or a Nootka rose. Insights from the first trial helped me.

The main steps are collaged together. But here I share each step. Refer to pattern pdf for stitchcount, & pictorial for steps & directions. For convenience, I am uploading single pics sans directions. This is merely an alternate way of tatting the rose in clockwise direction.

Fs/bs tatting (using RODS) is optional & can be ignored.

Nellie's Wild Rose Pictorial free pdf

SH1 : Ring A : RODS

Chain B : DS with graduated picots. End with 2SHS to fold chain. SS.

SH2 : Floating Ring C : RODS . SS.

SH1 : Chain D : 2FHS then follow the chain DS . Join at base of Ring A.

Folding the chain makes the floating ring automatically face downwards (one may need to adjust with fingers) without using any other technique, while simultaneously creating a nice little notch.

SH1 : Z Chain E : RS

Chain F : DS. Fold with 2SHS . SS.

Chains E & F constitute a Z chain (sample #13 on page 1 here) with 2 colours by first not flipping the stitches (E), then flipping the stitches (F). This gives a pointed/sharp turn to the chain. (Refer to pic #5 below)

One can achieve this result without RS as follows (sample #20 on page 2 here) :

After Chain D, Lock Join to base of Ring A, reverse work (RW) , SS, tat E (RODS) using SH2, RW, SS, tat F using SH1, SS.

SH2 : Floating Ring G : RODS . SS.

SH1 : Chain H : Fold Chain with 2FHS, complete chain, TW.

SH1: Ring I : RODS. LJ to angle of Z Chain E-F.

Repeat till 5 petals are tatted, joining back to 1^st petal.

What I shared is nothing out of the ordinary. It is only my way of keeping track of what I have done.

I am not sure whether anyone will be interested, but just to get it over & done with, I have converted the pictorial into a pdf file which can be downloaded by clicking Nellie's Wild Rose Pictorial

Many thanks to the lovely tatters & Georgia Seitz for sharing the pattern 

Related Posts : Chains in Shuttle Tatting

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