marching along

And the snowflakes march on …

My March installment of 2 snowflakes per month for the Year Long Snowflake Tat-Along on Craftree

There’s nothing much to write about these snowflakes, except for my colour adventure in one & my split chain practice in the other.

Day Four Snowflake

Lene Bjorn*

Pushing my colour boundaries.

Threads : Anchor variegated embroidery cotton 1325. 2 strands

Anchor Mercer Crochet Cotton size 40 pink 052

Measurements : Rnd 1 - 1.5" ; Rnd 2 - under 3"

Techniques : 2 shuttles, directional tatting, floating/thrown rings, Reverse Join, Lark's head picot joins (LHPJ), Lock Join

My go-to colour with this variegation would've revolved around blues & purples , or white, black. But pink ? Never. Hence had to give it a go.  Coz these snowflakes are also experimental ...

Rnd 2 continued clockwise after a Reverse Join to switch shuttles.

Added very small anchoring picots to a couple of outer Floating rings to stabilize, then discontinued.

LHPJ to link outer chains.

TIP : Elaine Gan's Reverse Join enables one to lock join to a point below the working element while simultaneously enabling the switching of shuttles, which is what I needed in order to change the colours. 

Day Five Snowflake

Lene Bjorn

Chaining the split chain

Threads : Anchor Mercer Cotton size 40. Aqua Blue. 4054-0185

Measurements : Rnd 1 : 1½”  ; Rnd 2 : 2¼”  ; Rnd 3 : <3½”

Techniques : 2 shuttles, directional tatting, lock join, split chain (SCh).

Started rings in Round 1 with RODS (reverse order DS) so that the chains would be normal stitches.

Climbed out of the round with a split chain.

Deliberately done in single colour because I wanted to practice SCh. I want to become comfortable working the SCh.

TIP : During the Craftree Mystery TAL, I realized that after a chain is lock joined to a picot & returns back up for another picot join, the adjacent chains lie flatter together if 1 half stitch is reduced. Or in other words, if the LJ is considered as a half stitch in the stitch count.

  

Lene’s snowflakes are much larger than I used to think before, and I’m glad I chose size 40 to work them. But each pattern has something new to learn or try out, besides being so beautifully designed.

I'm still behind by 2 snowflakes but hope to catch up soon. And I've skipped Day 3 for the present. Want to work on it at leisure.

                                               happy tatting :-)

Related Posts : Mystery Doily

Day 1 and Day 2 snowflakes