among friends

A short thank you post to my creative and generous tatting friends for sharing such lovelies !

This is my version of Jane McLellan’s Leaf Braid with Flowers. 

I’ve been tatting the leaf braid for quite a few weeks now (for hanky, then saree, and now this), but haven’t tired of it yet! And of course this one with buds and blossoms was even more fun. I intend to use this short length on a future card. Worked in Anchor size 20.

Jane also has pics on how to work the split/SCMR! 

Again, this braid can be worked with 2 shuttles using a ball instead of 3rd shuttle for the top half of split/scmr).

Next is Ninetta Caruso’s Swirling Butterfly 

This is my one shuttle free flying adaptation. 

When winding the shuttle, leave a short length of thread (CTM) to act as core thread for the final chain. All the rest is worked as simple rings (one with treble tatting) starting with the head and moving clockwise. The body is a tds chain worked last.

So now we have 3 versions where the original 2 & 3 shuttle versions have the butterfly on a twig. Ninetta has great stepwise pics which made it easy to 'reverse' sketch and tat with one shuttle.

Now this butterfly is a 9 month old trial that popped out of my Cluny tatting box! It caught my attention because of it's positional similarity to Ninetta’s butterfly. I was trying to create a butterfly with the intention of later converting the 2 wing rings into Cluny leaves. I need to do a lot more work on it before it can work out properly. But design suggestions are most welcome.

That’s it for now. When I complete the tat-along, I will share another way to do the 2^nd part of the tds – one all experienced tatters have done or seen - as a twisted picot !!! So don’t fly too far - keep close to the blossoms :-D