Wimbledon motif

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My personal tat-along for Wimbledon 2018!

2 weeks of Wimbledon. Not that I watch all the Center Court matches. Yet I needed to satisfy my tatting hands while I watched. Something medium-sized, not too stressful, where my eyes could focus more on the game…

Clover Mat

Lindsay Rogers’ ‘ Mastering Tatting’

 

July 2, evening.

After quickly completing my kitchen chores,  we sat down to watch Federer (defending champion) vs Lajovic.
I had earlier readied 2 shuttles, ctm, with Lizbeth 20, Vineyard Harvest. This variegation reminded me of the tournament colours and towels – but perhaps my memory was faulty coz I couldn’t find any magenta this time! Still, it had green for grass and shades of purple for royalty & tradition, and let's pretend the magenta represents strawberries! 

This is how far I reached after that speedy match ! 

I’d barely got the hang of the pattern when it was all over.

Now to watch Brazil vs Mexico - FIFA World cup. But the motif remains solely for the great W.

At the end of Federer’s Round 2 match. 

I had to switch to direct tatting (unflipped stitches) for chains to keep track of direction. 

The working of this pattern reminded me of the Magic Square.

His Round 3 match was too late for us to watch. 

So this was done during his Round 4 match against Mannarino. Another Master class!

Techniques : 

2-shuttles, thrown/floating rings,  inward picot, lock join, picot join to right. 

Optional: fs/bs tatting, direct tatting (reverse stitch).

Quarter-final and he’s out, shockingly. But this is how far I got.

I was pleasantly surprised that the mat was almost the same size 

as the one photographed in the book.

I finished it off during Kerber's semi-final match. 

Her quarter-final with Kasatkina was an amazing match with both ladies 

playing some spectacular tennis. Eyes glued to their play!

I had deliberately left off the central ring (which could’ve been worked as a thrown ring) 

because I had this fear that there could be cupping. 

Adding the central ring later meant I could tweak the stitch count to suit the space. 

Sure enough, I added 2ds to each segment.

Yellow is for the tennis ball!

The completed mat measures 5X5 inches.

I consider this pattern easy in terms of the techniques employed, but requires Mindful tatting- what joins where, etc. Possibly my attention was so divided that I could not memorize the joining points even till the end. 

But the book itself made me comfortable.  I absolutely love the book binding – a normal spine on the outside, but spiral binding on the inside. The pages lie completely flat and I can easily tat along without damaging the spine.

Diagram is large and clear with only a couple of picots missing. Easy to keep track and follow along. Central ring count was missing but easy to guess with the entire pattern following the same count. In fact one can easily choose a different multiple and yet get the same result - only smaller or larger depending on one's choice. 

evenings of tennis and  football are over for now

but tatting goes on forever !