dare not outlive me

Pin It now!

I have no intention of letting my stash outlive me ;-P Ditto for the wonderful gift of hand-dyed threads. As if the planets (or two designers par excellence - Marilee and Jon) aligned and there was this perfect pattern just waiting to be tatted! 

I converted it into a bookmark with a tassel. Worked size 40 in Marilee Rockeley's HDT (Stardate) and Gopal threads with tassel in silk threads.

Jon Yusoff's pattern is shared here - https://tatsaway.blogspot.com/2026/10/kupu-kupu-butterflies.html

I made two adaptations - 

1. used twisted picots (floating) for antennae, and
2. added a long (20ds) chain at the other end instead of the butterfly, in order to add a tassel.

There are a couple of places where I forgot to add a 4th picot to the top right wing which meant I couldn't join the next butterfly to it. However, once I blocked it (using the simple rolling pin method), they aligned so well that you can hardly notice!

What I would've liked to do, but was a bit lazy, is use the ball thread join (or it's variation here) while joining the yellow 'buds' to the butterflies such that all picots would be of the same length and colour - symmetry and colour coordination. Now I have variegated on the left side and yellow on the right. Overall, it is barely visible.

Now for tassel, I used silk threads choosing every colour in the bookmark body, matching the shades as closely as possible. The tassel doesn't curl as much, yet I should've dampened and let it set straight. Which would mean a delay of several days after already being late.

I wanted a simple cow's hitch. But it was quite a nightmare to get a neat finish keeping each thread together. I finally took off my first attempt after spending more than half an hour trying to align them nicely, pulling on each and every thread 2 or 3 times around :-(

I've used silk threads for a tassel/tail before but in the first I tied it down with metallic gold thread and in the other I braided it. That was a long time back in 2014! 

So, for my 2nd attempt, after wrapping the threads on a card, I tied it at the center with some scrap thread, then cut the bottom. This kept the threads relatively together to be able to make the cow's hitch. Yet not as neat as you can see in the close-up above. Also, since there was a chance they would slip when handled, I put a few drops of glue at the back to hold it all together.

I'm happy with the overall piece and will be using it. Luckily, if it comes to that, I can always snip off the tassel and make a new one with normal threads or one that is more secure ;-D

Curious, since it's been a while, I checked to see Natalie Rogers' PICOT Bingo 2026 (Level 2) card, and imagine my immense surprise that I could cross off one more box!

• Twisted Picot.

Many many thanks to all mentioned - you make tatting extra fun!!!