bonding with butterflies

Together, we tamed the butterfly - Bandini and I !!!

The story goes back to July when I posted the Lock Join Plus series... 

We spotted a potential butterfly in the 4 individual motifs and Bandini Maisheri on FB took up the challenge to create a proper tatting model/pattern. She and her mother both tat and sell their wonderful work under the name Harsha Creation. Do check out the range of their tatted lace appliqued on purses, tableware, hankies, etc. - some are spectacular, some are elegant.

These are the 4 models she tatted, tweaking and improving with each as is clearly visible.

Each of the models has 4 white filler rings in the wings tatted separately and then the body and wings were worked around. The lovely antennae are tatted and joined later. 

This makes the pattern easier to tat, using up scraps (in multiple colours, if desired) for the individual rings, but more tails to hide.

I can't thank her enough for all the work she did in breathing life into the butterfly! If it wasn't for her initiative and perseverance, this project would've remained in the ever-growing to-do-someday pile. 

We finally agreed on her 3^rd version and she sent me the count for testing. I've taken a break from the doily to test this (it's been waiting for over a week!) and it was quite an enjoyable experience tweaking and improving the models further. Hubby weighed in with his ‘expert’ comments, too! We are all now pretty happy with this. 

I started with the 2-colour version, working with 2 shuttles following the exact counts Bandini sent. It can be a good practice pattern for the various Lock Join Plus techniques. 

All 4 methods (LJ, Reposition, SLT, Reverse Join) were used judiciously to get the colours in place, yet work it all continuously.

collar, necklace, or doily anybody?!

Next came the pink model with certain tweaks and finally the purple one to everybody's satisfaction. That does not mean there aren't more tweak/decorative variants running through my head ;-D But everything will have to wait.

Named it Butterfly Bandhan aka Butterfly Bonding. 'bandhan'  means bonding in Hindi and it not only reflects the bonds that got this butterfly flitting, but also sounds similar to my co-designer's name. And if you are interested, we call butterfly 'titli' with soft sounds (a soft 't' sound does not exist in English).

Pattern for the purple one will be shared as soon as I complete the presentation. Will you be interested in tatting it? Please leave a 'Yes' otherwise I can spend that time on other projects ;-P

Love to hear your thoughts, which model(s) you prefer, etc. .....