Thursday 14 July 2016

Surprises !

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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 1st flower as per pattern, resulting in  the entire 3rd 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)



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.... 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 1st 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 :-)



14 comments:

  1. That Lene Bjorn snowflake seems to be a difficult tat. Love the coasters!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. If only we can gauge the picots sizes, Jane, I think it would work out better. It definitely wasn't as easy as it first looked :-(

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  2. The folding of the flowers in the coaster to generate new ideas...I do that ALL of the time! I love to use tatted scraps and failed first attempts that way. It's super useful to visualize new layouts.

    Also, beautiful snowflake! I prefer them in white, but only because they show up really well on a Christmas tree.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ... just like a jigsaw puzzle or a tangram, right ?! Scraps can get you out of scraps, Robin ;-P

      I have an artificial full-sized Christmas tree, but don't go to the trouble of adorning it now. So I use these small motifs to experiment & learn. Actually I now have plenty of white thread to work with, so ....

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  3. I lovely coaster, it was a pleasure to test one of the patterns and to be give the whole pack was very generous of Robin.
    Lovely snowflakes it's my next one to do, so I will let you know how I get on, if funny you have been doing them all colourful, I am tatting one in colour and you have done this one in White.
    Margaret

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Robin's patterns are so perfectly diagrammed & notated, that it's like she employs testers as an excuse to distribute her patterns freely :-D And I didn't even test-tat any !!!!!

      Love the colour switcheroo, Margaret ;-)

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  4. Very pretty! I have not tried that one yet, but I will! I also haven't tried that snowflake yet. I will keep in mind the idea of starting with a SCMR.

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    Replies
    1. SCMR does make the ring more circular, so I'll be using it again too, Diane. Unfortunately, I don't remember the exact post where Frivole mentions this.

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  5. Great coaster!!! :) I love your variations!!! :)
    Very nice snowflake!! :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You are too kind, Sue ... the snowflake is meh ;-)
      Hugs

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  6. You've convinced me to always have my picot gauge at the ready for the snowflake patterns. I'll confess to using beads on one to make sure all the joins were the same size.

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    Replies
    1. Beads are an Excellent gauge besides brightening up any pattern, Mel :-) So much better than a boring picot gauge. Problem is to know exactly how long (how many beads) the picot should be :-(

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