drop by drop

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tatted ornament/jewelry/cabochon using large glass beads, mirrors, etc.

edited Dec 21, 2016

I caved. What do you expect, when Diane keeps dropping off these gorgeous little beauties daily on her blog?! Instead of working on my planned projects, the mood got to me. I gathered all the materials, strung the beads, wound the shuttle, refreshed Diane’s excellent stepwise pictorial, and went to play, basking in the warm winter sun.

 Ice Drops

Diane (lace-lovin’ librarian) Cademartori

free stepwise pattern 

 Magnified !

 

A while back, some 3D movie promo scheme had sent in a pair of glasses with magnifying lens. Don’t know why I kept it, except that the lenses looked very cute. Tore off the paper specs & got to work with the lens.

The lens is a bit flat for this ornament, but had to make do for now.

It is a bit over 1”, hence strung beads for 8 repeats; 7 repeats sufficed.

Unfortunately the transparent beads don’t show up clearly in the pic, but the ice drop looks Fantastic – DH was impressed and considered it a pendant. He guessed right for a change, coz I wanted to keep my options open & didn’t tie any ribbon, string or tatted braid.

TIP : I used a Fujito Join slope and roll join for the second round. The Lock Join didn’t seem to come out right for me. So instead, I pulled out a loop with the ball thread & passed the shuttle through. That’s all.

There are a few mistakes in round 2, which I noticed later – a bit of twist in a ring & a chain.

Here's how it looks from the 'back' ...

Mirrored ! 

My second Ice drop is made with 2 mirrors glued back to back. This idea had been on my mind ever since the pattern was shared. I checked the edges & they were smooth. A tad less than 1” across.

Everything went very smoothly. A vintage size 20 thread, which is slightly thinner than the newer one I used above.

TIP : For directional tatting (frontside/backside) :

Round 1 (the back of the bead) – tat rings frontside, RW, and chains frontside as well.

Round 2 (front of bead) – tat rings frontside, RW, chains backside.

Finished off with a beaded loop. Absolutely reversible.

I can vouch for their "addictiveness" ! Wanted to keep making them – they are so quick to tat up and look oh so pretty in real, even though I didn’t have the specific materials. The only downside (always) was stringing beads. Should stick to larger pearls ;-)

many thanks to Diane & Edda Guastalla

for such a delightful addiction !

happy tatting always :-)

My Sea Pearl version