a chained heart

Pin It now!

I fell in love with it right away. It is such a wonderfully elegant heart with a bit of freeform thrown in – just the way I like it. So it had to go to The Most Special person in my life for our very special day.

This is Renulek’s Serce Od Serca or Heart from the Heart. Such a beautiful conversion of a bobbin lace heart to a tatted lace heart. The pattern is free here.

Made with Anchor size 40, it is <7 cms high and 8½ cms wide.

I must apologise to Renulek for bungling up. Despite frequent referencing and such clear diagrams, I ended up joining the last chain on 1^st round on a picot rather than at the base of ring. Realised only when I reached it after the 2^nd round. Had to wing it, which is why you see a long chain and no small ring.

My eye keeps getting drawn to it ;-(

TIP : Notice how the orientation of my heart is opposite to that of Renulek’s? In traditional tatting this wouldn't be a problem, but with directional (fs/bs) tatting, there is only one distinct front side.

TWoT (This Way or Tat?) Notes - The reason lies in the very first ring. I followed the pattern, and tatted the ring frontside, starting with 8ds. Realising it was going to face the other way, I peered closely at her photos. Huh, her rings were backside, and chains frontside - knotty naughty ;-D. This same orientation was used in diagrams, hence the confusion.

However, if you want the heart to face like her’s, in frontside/backside tatting, 

start the ring by reversing the order of half stitches (shs then fhs), 

OR,

start the ring as 5-5-3-8.

It seemed a bit forlorn all alone on the card. These S-chains made with scrap threads, saved the day. There’s more tatted lace and stuff inside, but that’s our secret ;-P

Meanwhile I’ve been hooked on the S-chains, clearing out my scrap lengths. I have a few ideas to cook them in SOUP* when I have a good stock ;-P (This is how the S-chains look with picots)

Many many thanks, Renata,  hubby loved it !