Sunday 23 June 2019

an aspiring flake

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While hunting for something, I came across many snowflakes in various stages – from sketches to trials to completed-but-not-presented. So, despite having sketched 2 new designs after the Paisley snowflake, I’m taking this opportunity to reduce my backlog.

My Snowflake #2 for the 25 Snowflake Project started by Land of Laces on facebook....

Aspiration Snowflake

This is the snowflake that arose from my Aspiration doily trials in 2017. with an additional final round of spiky dendrites! I prefer curve to points, but this is a deliberate experiment. The reason is evident in the yellow trial piece below.

The size 40 white is pretty stiff and starchy and not enjoyable. It is also slightly thicker than coloured size 40s as can be seen between the original yellow trial piece and this white one.
I don't even like my stitches! Hence I’ve decided to change to another bold colour in 40 for trials, and may also play with Pearl 8 colours for flower flake versions.

This 4-round snowflake can be worked as separate rounds or in one pass. 
The written pattern is given for individual rounds, but the very same instructions can be applied to continuous tatting by working the last element of each round as split ring or split chain, with mock picots to climb out. Except for the central rosette, the white model is worked continuously.
In Anchor Pearl cotton size 8, it measures 3¼” tip to tip and just under 3” as a hexagon side. This is equivalent to Lizbeth 20.

I intended to make some picots longer in the coloured version, but didn’t quite get it right. Pearl cotton tends to mask a clean picot due to the fibrous nature of the thread.

There are numerous ways to tat this flake and is a prime practice piece for a study of This Way or Tat ? (TWoT) when different methods/techniques are used - such as SLT, reverse join, direct tatting (reverse or unflipped stitch), and so on.



12 comments:

  1. Lovely. I don’t usually like ‘spikes’, they go against the nature of tatting, but in this case I think they work. Good to be able to build on earlier work.

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    1. I can't agree with you more, Jane, on both counts ! 💖💖💖

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  2. I love your "how you arrived to your beautiful design Pictures" and I don't usually like the snowflakes with color very much, but I love this one, the colors really bring out the lovely work :)

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    1. 😄 When I showed hubby the white one, he didn't like it 😄😄 But he, too liked the coloured version, Carollyn.
      I share my design process in the hopes that someone may learn from my struggle and mistakes !

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  3. I like the design, but I dread the thought of making those spikes even! I've downloaded the pattern, and I will give it a try one day. Thank you for sharing it with us!

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    1. Diane, since the spike chains are not too long, a good snug was all that was required. :-)))

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  4. I love it in the different colors. I think it will look lovely as a grouping of snowflakes too.

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    1. As in a larger doily or mat? Or as a combo of different coloured flakes, Vicki? Good idea, either way :-)))

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  5. Replies
    1. Anything to bring some cheer, Sue :-)))

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  6. Pretty snowflake! I also prefer the "spiky" version, because it is closer to how snowflakes naturally look like. It is interesting how the same size thread is so different in white versus colour. Thank you for sharing the pattern!

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