Surprises !

Surprises …

One for me, one for you.

One yahoo!, one boohoo

One happy, one sad

Fifty-fifty, not too bad ?!

We never had any doubt that tatters are a generous community. Yet it was a Hugely pleasant surprise to get this in my mailbox … For Robin to send me her hard-worked Tatted Coaster pack for free ?! WOW. 

Do I hear you joining in my applause to her ?

“Thank you” doesn’t capture half the gratitude I feel for Robin . I can only try my best to live up to her expectations as a designer-par-excellence ….

We’ve been witness to her design process for these coasters. It’s a real privilege to get to tat them. Difficult to choose one. Jumped in with an eenie meenie …

Floral Coaster

Six Petals (split ring variation)

Robin Perfetti

eBook (instant download) : Tatted Coasters Pattern Pack

Materials : 2 shuttles, Anchor Mercer size 20. Art. 4054. 0289 (yellow) ; 1215 (shaded green)

Techniques : rings, chains, split rings, directional tatting.

Round 1 : 1”

Round 2 : ~ 2¾”

Round 3 : 4¾”

 

Since I don’t have shaded yellow, this is what I thought I’d do – load each shuttle with a different shade. Tried one & wasn’t sure. Played it safe & used the same shade throughout.

I forgot to join the 1^st flower as per pattern, resulting in  the entire 3^rd round being tatted counterclockwise.

Very quick & relaxing tat.  

And below are 2 possible variations. 

Simply by missing out a few petals strategically, we get a hexagon. 

(I’ve simply folded the rings underneath to take photos)

****************************

.... and here's the surprise for you (sorry it’s not as good as mine was)

Ever thought I'd tat one of Lené's snowflakes in white ?! teehee

The Fifteenth Day of December Snowflake

Lene Björn

from book :  “24 Snowflakes in Tatting”
for 2016 Snowflake Tat-along on Craftree 

Materials : 2 shuttles, Anchor Mercer size 40 thread in white.

Techniques I used : SCMR, directional tatting, thrown/floating rings, decorative picots

Measures 3-3/4"

Straight off, I am NOT happy with my working.

Learning from my Day 10 mistakes, I used regular picots instead of smaller picots at joins. But there were other problems as well.

I kept getting confused with the number of thrown rings & had to unknot & retro-tat a few times. Finally gave up & started afresh. Still made a few mistakes but most caught in time.

At the end, before hiding the tails, I kept tugging at the SCMR thread, hoping that the snowflake chains would fall into place better. Big mistake – a tug too many! It made the chains more crammed at the base; they were lying a bit better earlier.

My Notes

(Past tense is what I did here ; rest is what I should do in future)

1. Started with a SCMR instead of a regular ring. I think it is Frivole’s tip that SCMR gives a more rounded ring than normal/regular rings which tend to become tear-drop shaped.
2. Because of SCMR, entire tatting was done from the frontside.
3. Make the 1^st picot of chains even longer (~ 2DS span)
4. Reduce the stitch count of smallest thrown ring by 1DS
5. Mock picots added at base of thrown rings to mirror the picots on other side, thus achieving complete symmetry.
6. Picots on the extreme rings were decorative & graduated.
7. Kept the chains loosely tensioned to mold into shape before blocking.

the negative space can be converted into a paisley !

The lop-sidedness/unevenness of chains have given me an idea of how to change the shape deliberately to get a slight paisley effect negative space, instead of the big tear-drop, as can be seen in the pic above.

Will definitely be tatting another, working away the mistakes (hopefully).

Many thanks to Robin

&

Many apologies to Lene

happy tatting :-)