a mixed dream

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It wasn’t intentional, but a lucky coincidence – the symbolic resemblance to our flag colours ! We are celebrating the 70th Independence Day on 15th & these are the colours I see all around (with the white, of course).

Floral Fantasy Doily

Kathleen Minniti
free pattern on Craftree project

Kathleen shared a few tatted rounds (& pattern) of this doily but a complete sketch on Craftree. It was still a work in progress, including pattern-writing, but two features called out to me instantly & I began tatting along …So far she has shared stitch count for 6 out of the 9 rounds.

Following the name & the pattern, I wanted this to be a bit colourful. In order to increase my colour choices, I have tatted this in a combination of size 40 Anchor crochet cotton (Art 4054) & 2 strands of Anchor embroidery thread (Art 4625).

Many rounds can be done with single shuttle & ball & while I used 2 shuttles for the most part, I have mentioned which rounds can be tatted with ball & shuttle.

Only Rnds 1&2 were blocked before taking pics. All subsequent rounds are unblocked &/or un-ironed/unpressed … will do it after completion, for the final presentation.

Round 1 – 1½”

Rings : 4054-020 ; Chains : 4625-0314 (2 strands)
Techniques: Swirl Join, down join, directional tatting, picot gauge 3/8" for the long picots, last ring SCMR, ball & shuttle.

Actually a swirl join would hold them all together, since it is a proper join. But with these very very long picots & fine thread, it became extremely difficult for me to manage. Hence, after very many failed attempts, I started the last ring as a SCMR; then cut off a length, pulled the end through all the picots, and completed the ring. This can be seen in the more open picot towards the bottom right in later pics.

TIP : I should've taken the thread back through all the picots again to secure them in the center ! Now, however, I am planning on weaving the picots after completing the doily, as in the old vintage patterns, An opportunity to try it out :-)

Round 2 –  < 2”

CTM or shuttle & ball : 4054-0293.
Techniques : lock join, reverse join, RODS. Ball & shuttle CTM.

I loved this overlap of the chain & chose a light colour to highlight it.

TIP : Probably better to start with the ring at the LJ position. Now I had to cut off shuttle thread in the end and pull it through to the front for overlapping, before completing the last segment.

Round 3 – ~ 3”

Rings : 4625-0204 ; chains – 4625-0879 . 2 strands each

Techniques : directional tatting, long picots, down join, ball & shuttle.

    

Round 4 – 3⅜” 

Rings & Chains : 4625-254. 2 strands each

Techniques : directional tatting, long picots, down join, split rings, 2 shuttles.

Round 5 – 4”

Rings : 4625-314 ; Chains : 4625-0359. 2 strands each

Techniques: directional tatting, long picots (for frayed picots later on), down join, lock join, 2 shuttles (ball & shuttle possible), SCMR to use up ends.

Although the pattern did not call for this profusion of picots, I visualized these as flowers & have chosen long picots for a reason. Yes, you guessed it, I want to convert them to Frayed Picots !

After a few repeats I noticed that my fs/bs tatting was ‘wrong’ & I continued in correct sequence, which led to an interesting observation while joining these flowers ….

TIP : Using a down join to connect the flowers to previous rounds makes the central picots lift up to the front of the work !!!! (compare with the 2 bottom right flowers in the 6^th round pics) are not really visible, but one can get rid of them by tatting the rings RODS.

It is cumbersome & time-consuming to separate the strands of embroidery thread. To make full use of the thread in tatting, I used SCMR for many of the rings, thus using up the last lengths of thread. I had first used this in my Wiosna last year (lengthening the functionality of thread & SCMR instead of normal ring).

Round 6 – 4¾”

Rings : 4054-229 ; Chains : 4625-0204. 2 strands

Techniques: directional tatting, down join, ball & shuttle possible.

This is a very quick round & I love the overlap of rings at the base of the scallops.

 

Colours are fun to work with, but it takes me so much time to choose them :-(  As you can see, I attempted a few combos but snipped them off, ending with a repeat of earlier round colours.

Not sure whether I’ve lost the colour plot here, but these were chosen keeping in mind the next round & it’s colours …. 

Kathleen is still in the process of developing & writing this pattern & will be sharing it in a proper format soon. I will update accordingly.

happy tatting :-)

Related posts : Using SCMR to avoid wasting thread.