A
few days back I bought assorted glass pebbles in order to make Jane McLellan’s Elana. Didn’t get to it (yet) but I had an idea when I made my charmed cross pendant. It has a large open space in center – ideal for an ice drop makeover!
Finally
got around to experimenting with it this morning.
Ice Drop
Enchained
(a
prototype experiment)
My
idea was to have long picots all along the chain in front, then link to these
picots when tatting the chain at the back. Well, it didn’t quite materialize
due to my laziness – didn’t want to leave the warm winter sun to get a picot
gauge ;-P
The
picots turned out to be too short.
This is the price I paid for being lazy and
not leaving the warm winter sun to get a picot gauge!
But
I improvised….by using a lock join with shuttle 2 (also called a ball
thread join) leaving enough space to create a mock picot when encasing. Just
like we do in Inverted Tatting.
I
must say I’m not unhappy with the textured edge this creates.
This
is worked in Anchor size 40 and is easily adaptable to any shape and size gem.
But
all is not well.
- The stitchcount
needs tweaking. I had to substitute the original gem.
- Worked in one
pass, but I let the chains make a single point at the tips instead of
having an all-round encasement/pocket.
- The picots need to
be longer still.
- I ended up keeping
the medallion at the back and working the other chain from front. Not that
this should be a problem.
The fact remains that it Can be done ! A gem caged between chains within picots ! Even normal picots
with regular picot joins. Some dexterity is required to hold the piece when
joining, though. I held it sideways, ie., the side faced me, thus making it
easy to pull loop through picot and make joins.
I
had more ideas for this –
Tat
the clovers on both sides – front and back – and join while tatting, inserting
a large bead/gem within the space. This would create a nice pendant when chains
were inserted at both ends later. For some other day….
Another
idea based off Diane’s recent ice drop – tat a twin split ring braid, folding
it along the middle to encapsulate the gem. Then add any more rounds as
desired.
Also
for another day. I do have nice glass pebbles now :-D
happy
tatting !!!
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