Matilda

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I tatted this back in Dec 2017. It is a motif from Hye-oon Lee's book "Lovely tatting Doilies Fall & Winter". She generously shared the Matilda motif pattern with the Online Tatting Class in November – one with spiral chains, the other without.

Worked in Anchor size 40, in 2 contrasting colours, it works out to 2¼ inches.

One colour is made first with no attachments. Then the next colour is made, joining on the go to the previous rings.

The long chains overlap. Notice how the chains are not all equal in length? Reason is a little experiment I did.... 

Just for fun, I used Victorian sets for the chains going up/out, and Josephine chain/spiral tatting for the chains coming down/in. Turns out the former are longer!

DESIGN TIP : The spiral chains tat up tighter, hence shorter, than the Victorian set chains. 
Refer Chains in Shuttle Tatting sampler.

I hope Hye-oon is not too miffed with this little visually unsuccessful experiment. Many thanks for this uncommon pattern.

gifts with tatting

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for a relative – a card, snood and handkerchief... 

gluing old tatting to a card
is creative ; not at all hard!

Remember the Butterfly Edging card when I elicited suggestions? 

This is the After pic, with 2 more Josephine chains on opposite corners.

I think this simple addition has been successful in 
maintaining the integrity of the composition, 
while closing in the bare white space ?

And I finally found my stick-on embellishments (flat-based pearls, rhinestones, etc). So keep an eye out for more SOUP cards  ;-P  

a doily is very good

for an instant snood!

Remember this beautiful Cherry Blossom doily by Hye-oon Lee? 

To cover the large negative space and add body, I tatted a central medallion (all rings : 7+7). 

I wanted to maintain the beauty of the lovely pink round, hence chose brown. 

On second thoughts, pink would’ve created a much better dahlia-like effect!

With a diameter of 4½”, it was the perfect candidate for a snood for MIL. 

This specially tatted one I gave her was small (at 3½”) and instead she’s been using Konior’s spinning wheel glass mat (4” in size 40).

Including the finished size of projects in my posts has helped.

And what a coincidence! The name of the doily has blossom in it ;-D Serendipitous! 

TIP : With all those rings in the outer blossoms, one can easily weave the ribbon differently and alter the size of the snood.

on an edging pattern raid

I found Jane’s leaf braid!

Remember the Blossoms corner motif? 

What's a hanky without an edging?! Jane McLellan's Leaf Braid was the perfect candidate. 

Worked in size 40, the rings resemble the motif leaves and is not overbearing.

 Here they are, all sewn up, on the hanky. I think the braid was 39" long and 5 to 7mm wide. 

TIP : I tat a slightly shorter length of edging than is required, and start sewing it to fabric. This gives me an exact idea of how many more repeats are required to connect to the start. It works for me - whether it is for a cushion cover, saree, or hanky.

This time I sewed down through each picot, since it is meant to be given away….

for myself, I would’ve shied away from that extra sewing! 

White sewing thread and stitch at the back is hidden within the folds of the hem. 

I actually went round twice - first tacking between rings, then zigzagging through picots..

Hope you enjoyed this post. Some of my next posts might be pictorials of multi-coloured Cluny tatting – fair warning ;-P I’ll try to intersperse them with regular tatting and patterns to keep my sanity as well as yours!

sakuras and shuttles

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what does one do when one is laid up in bed, without necessarily lying down ?

Tat, of course !!!

And this lovely pattern, shared on the same day, caught my eye. I've been meaning to tat one of her designs for a while now.

Cherry Blossom Doily 1 Variation

Hye-oon Lee
(of lovelytatting.com)

I liked two aspects - the 16 central outward-facing rings, and the thrown rings on the last round. Perfect!

After a bit of dallying over choice of colours, I settled on traditional pink flowers and brown bark of tree.

Tatted in size 40 threads, it measures 4½ inches across.
Anchor Mercer Art. 4054 : pink - 052 ; brown 00352. I needed less than 2 full bobbins of pink and 1 full bobbin of brown.
Techniques : 2 shuttles , thrown rings, mock ring with thrown rings.

I cut and joined for each round.

Started the last round with brown thrown ring instead of the sakuras.
Click here for the free pattern, and also to view more of her exquisite tatting.
I thoroughly enjoyed tatting this !

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Homemade Shuttles

And on a totally different note, now that I can do beads, who knows when I might need a large shuttle to load beads ?! Couldn’t find them on Amazon, so Pinterest to my rescue !

Last year, Tamara had requested testers for her prototype cardboard shuttles on Craftree and this is what I rustled up within a few minutes, using doubled-up cardstock. Crudely made, but worked well enough to give her feedback and suggestions. I was too ashamed to post, coz Eliz had soon made a perfect set!

This time I cut out the sides from an empty L’Oreal shampoo bottle - plastic. And for the central post I used an adaptation of Tamara’s method, with cardstock – merely folding 2 rectangles at both ends and gluing them all. Sandpapered the sides a bit. Still crude, but feels good to know that it is do-able. Needs to be adorned and tested; all that for later. For now, it seems to be holding up fine.

I've placed a Pony shuttle beside it to compare size.

Hey, it just occurred to me that this being the last day of the month would’ve qualified for the pinterest challenge ;-D

 Many thanks to all the designers for sharing their skills ! 

happy tatting everyone !

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