a trip to the beach

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Reworked patterns, in modern style, from Frau Eleonore Endrucks-Leichtenstern’s ‘Die Schiffchen-Spitszen’, 1920, for Endrucks 1920 Project.

This pattern #39 fell into my lap and it has such a range of possible effects to play with that one cannot get easily bored. Despite my resolve to not play, temptation triumphed. So come to the beach with me and let's pick up shells, pearls, oysters, and more ..... (not in chronological order)

Download Shells and Pearls pattern #39 here - https://drive.google.com/file/d/179E9JeCMeM7RXFcq-wThF0iPiBLfQZ4_/view

Made of 2 alternating motifs, the tiny ring reminded me of a pearl between shells and called it Shells and Pearls circular edging. I broadened the shells a tad. 

Now this is how the edging should've worked out - a straight line, not a circle! But notice the picots and loose chains? We really don't tat like this in this century. 

The tautness and smaller picots resulted in a circle. There are a few more minor tweaks made, all listed in the pdf.

Notice the cute little bows? If we tat these in one colour and use white for the alternating motif (a narrower shell), we get Bows and Cravats!  

And yet, I could not resist straightening out the edging - after all that's how the Frau envisioned it. Unfortunately tweaks were needed again, at least with my tatting tension. These are also shared in the pdf.

These are all my practice pieces where I was trying out the original pattern and also tweaking to get them to be as symmetrical as possible. And I couldn't resist arranging them like a necklace with teardrop crystals. Imagine this with many more beads placed strategically!

A single shell motif could make cute earrings to pair with a complete parure made from this basic pattern!

Or a simpler necklace version with a large teardrop and those small pearls. 

Using 2 colours for a pattern presentation makes sense because one can tell at a glance which of the 2 shuttles is to be held in the hand. And I get to play with colour combinations, LOL.

And when I brought the trial stretch into a tight circle, look what emerged! A Buttercup! Those shells (or cravats) now take the form of beautiful slightly overlapping petals. An easy idea to execute in colours of your choice for the flower of your choice.

This close-up shows clearly how the shell motif leans to one side. This happens because the chains are all parallel as in block tatting. It is an inherent structural dilemma. 

From an early stage I wanted to see if it could be 'corrected' by changing the direction of the 3rd pair of chains. Also, I wanted to try a standalone 3D shell. So I took the plunge with both....

If you ignore my personal tatting flaws, the shell is now symmetrical! The 3rd pair of chains has inward picots (Block Below Tatting or BBT). They should've been tinier, but oh well. 

This is my first tatting with hand-dyed thread (HDT) - a gift from Denise 3 years back. It seemed the perfect choice with the colours of golden sand, blue waves, purple-tinged clams, green kelp, etc. and I dived in.

Huh, a clean dive would've been good. But that short distance held many other commitments and the tatting was sporadic with several day intervals in between. Not having jotted any notes, I lost my trend of thought and made several mistakes. The 3D effect needs more tweaking so this is a prototype.

That large pearl inside is a real pearl from Hyderabad - the pearl capital of India.

So here ends our trip to the beach for now. Someday I will get back to both 3D models (buttercup and oyster) to create better version. Hope some of the above ideas have caught your attention?

Pattern #39 pdf - https://drive.google.com/file/d/179E9JeCMeM7RXFcq-wThF0iPiBLfQZ4_/view

And don't forget to visit the Endrucks 1920 Project document to see what our wonderfully talented volunteers have contributed - https://docs.google.com/document/d/17LEVftXweztBIOWh4sL4BB7bX65ssoOsOn4oXIgCepY/view