CentriPetal

Conflicting forces abound – centripetal, centrifugal – turning my brain mushy with overload at times and my hands work faster at others.

Randomly sharing some of the medallions I’ve been tatting over the last few days … Can you see them in the center of a larger design? 

My latest pattern – The Pinwheel !

There are few patterns with a central picot on chain and they usually have ‘spokes’ like the one here. I wanted something with curved chains and sketched this. But with the very 2nd chain I realized why they had to be spokes, unless one enlarges the picot vastly or one layers the chains as I resorted to here.

The little picots were meant for joining adjacent chains which was not logistically possible, but I kept them. I kinda like the sense of swirling, spinning motion in this piece.

Incidentally, I worked it with single shuttle attached to ball thread! The outer chains are Direct tatting ie reverse stitch (unflipped). All picots are very small. Lock join to the ring picot. Stitch count is notated on the image.

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It is always so tough to estimate the length of a central picot (which is why we resort to other means). Moreover, according to Elgiva Nicholls a central picot should not be visible. 

I wanted to check out my Central Picot measurement tip/formula, hence chose a pattern from Lyn Morton’s ‘Tatting Patterns’ - Simplicity.

Central picot is all but invisible as it should be, but the earlier formula has been changed. If someone volunteers, we can give the new formula a quick test run. Please let me know – I realise it is busy-tatting season, yet…. 

This is round 1 of Simplicity .... and

my Layered Extension of Simplicity (round 1)

Using the same stitch count and central picot length as in original, 2 more rings were added, layering them consistently. This is how it looks. I have sketched an outer round for it. 

Or with a bead in center and more seed beads around, it could become a pendant, brooch or earrings!

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ANKARS was another technique I wanted to revisit and chose this pattern by Verbena Creazioni.

This is the basic pattern for a pendant with beads. I think it works well even without beads.

But perhaps next time I will add beads. I’d like to add more rounds to this one and see where it goes. It is a modern variation of enclosed space medallion .

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Finally, a central ring pattern from some Coats and Clark book

Worked in Anchor size 50, it is only the first 2 rounds. Worked in different colours, it shows the central ring clearly and I like how chains dip due to the small rings, creating a floral outline.

Here is the complete 3-round pattern - 3 motifs were linked to make a broad bracelet or bookmark. This was tatted and photographed 4 years back - when I rediscovered tatting. It has taken over my life since then ;-P

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So, any volunteers, then, to try out the central picot measurement? 

Please leave a comment or email me

whatever the forces, center in on your tatting J