edging out a snowflake

Patterns in this book start with edgings, and I was interested in the way the chains seemed to be curving around like a continuous scroll in this one. Annette was my very first tat from this book, even though I shared the star medallion first.

Annette Snowflake

Adapted from Annette (p28, Dover)

“Tatting Patterns and Designs”

Blomqvist and Persson

Techniques : 2 shuttles, fs/bs tatting, thrown rings.

Overall direction of tatting - clockwise

Worked in Anchor size 40 (closer to 50), it measures 3½” point to point 

All the blue elements are tatted backside, so the majority pink elements can be frontside.
Using 2 colours shows clearly which shuttle is in use – SH1 has pink & SH2 has blue.

This attempt was discarded because I joined the 2nd repeat incorrectly - to the left of first (going counterclockwise!). Wouldn't have been a problem in traditional tatting, but in fs/bs, it shows ;-(

TIP : colour blip : On the return, when joining 2^nd chain to base of blue ring, here’s how I avoided the colour blip from showing above :

pull down a pink loop ;

pass blue shuttle through loop ;

snug and tension, but do not pull the loop up – keep it on the backside.

This is kind of like the slope and roll join. 

I intended to tat a bookmark by returning back along it’s length. But the first repeat was larger than expected.

How about a square instead ?! Pink chains were supposed to be joined at a picot along the chains, which I did not, thus allowing room to turn an angle.

Turned out it needed more repeats to lie flat. Yes, 6 !

The interconnecting chains were left to overlap for a layered effect. Remember to interlace the last chain correctly before joining and tying off.

A central ring was added later for stability, following the same stitchcount. This can be tatted as a thrown ring on the first blue chain for continuous working.

There are a lot of mistakes in this work, including the interlaced chains, which I am not proud of. And modern tatting techniques, along with 2 colours took their toll on the scroll! But I can't see myself tatting it again just coz. Live with it, sweep it under the carpet, or hide my head in the sand ;-P

TIP : Pattern Notation

Remember the Sunday puzzle which listed some ways of shorthand pattern notation?

This book threw up yet another notation, which had me crosschecking again and again and yet again to verify correct number of picots, even though the longish form is shown at beginning of each pattern.

The authors do not tell you the exact number of picots. Since the stitches between picots is the same, say 4 ds between each picot, here’s how they write the notation :

4 x 10

So how many picots is that ? No, not 10. It is 9 picots total, because 4 stitches are made 10 times, like so :

4 – 4 – 4 – 4 – 4 – 4 – 4 – 4 – 4 – 4

 

This pattern does not tell you when to reverse work or when to switch shuttles. This can be a bit of a bother for newbies.

Since the pattern or stitchcount hasn’t been changed, except for very minor tweaks, I will not share any diagram or pattern for this snowflake.

Which snowflake do like better – with or without the central ring ?

happy tatting always, with or without oopsies :-)