a new DAL in town

Pin It now!

I logged into Craftree after several weeks and scrolled back for recent posts. Imagine my immense surprise and pleasure to see that Savarosa, inspired by my recent design-along challenge, had created her own and invited tatters to join in! Glad to see it catch on, though there was no response to the Craftree post.

So, after a hiatus of over 2 months, I finally picked up my shuttles and began tatting! Rusty at first, but soon got into the swing of it and designed the 3rd round. Two days, start to finish! Round 3 is my own, original, though I cannot claim that it is 'unique' .... the shape just seems 'familiar', doesn't it. If you have seen it before, let me know so I can add a link here.

But first, the details to Savarosa's 2026-Design-Along-(DAL)-Snowflake can be found here -  https://savarosacraft.com/2026-design-along-dal-snowflake/ . I like the way she has laid out the rules and legalities!

This is a prototype but I think it worked out fine. I had started by not joining the long chains to each other. This would allow flexibility for the chains to overlap if too long. Turns out the lengths were just right therefore the latter chains were all joined to their counterpart. It helps to sketch on grid paper like I did for my own DAL round.

The only change I would make is to add very small picots so that the thrown rings can be anchored to the chains and stay in the center. I added this in the pattern even if it is missing in the prototype model.

I picked up whatever thread was at hand/on the shuttles. Hence the red rosette. I had 4 long leftover lengths of the beige thread which I put to use here. In 3rd round I reached a point where both threads were over at almost the same time. Hence I wound the shuttles, ctm, with new thread and finished the round. But now I have two new lengths of leftover threads, LOL.

Here's my Round 3 pattern for the Flower Flake in PDF - https://drive.google.com/file/d/17Tclhmx_iRZ4mtYpyi8qv4ig9y8z5hGe/view

I kept it simple starting with a repeat of the trefoils in Round 2 and with sufficient free picots in my round in case of any future additions to the design. The equally spaced picots in the long chains helped me keep track of the count, too. 

My sketch also had an inward facing thrown ring on the short connecting chain. Obviously it would not fit in the tatted model, so I didn't even attempt it. What looks good on paper does not always work out in the real thread world.

In Anchor size 20 (equivalent to Lizbeth size 10) the motif measures 9½ cm tip-wise and 4½ cm along the side.

While it may not be unique, I do love the shape of this motif! What is your verdict?

Many thanks to Savarosa for organising this DAL. I am now ready to get back to the book review again with ample tatting in store.