passing fancy

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As if I didn't have enough 'pots boiling', I let myself be carried away with this! I finished the 12 florets for the bracelet mentioned yesterday. And they simply called out to adorn a tree. 

Can't say how many years/decades it's been since I painted something. But this is on my laptop using a Inking Stylus Pen (a Windows inking device for HP). I've tried the pen in the past weeks for a spot of this or that, but this is my first real experience.

Took me a couple of hours of relaxed brush strokes. So little to show for it.

Requires a Huge amount of practice and patience to improve (it is so much easier to mix and merge colours in oils and water paints, and so much paraphernalia to set up). But I'm not looking for perfection - only some fun (despite some cringe-inducing areas on that tree!) ;-D And I totally forgot the shadow!!!

Oh, and this is how the 'tree' looked before. We've all seen a barren tree, but have you ever seen a missing Tree Trunk  full of foliage and flowers?! Now you've seen it all, LOL.

These are in my flag colours - saffron, white, and green.

Now I must get back to assembling them into a bracelet like a proper tatter!

Identity Crisis

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IdEnTiTy  CrIsIs

Identity crisis – that’s what this snowflake has ! It wants to be a sun – a “sunflake”. We’ll let you decide – is it a snowflake or a sunflake :-)

Right off, I don’t like to tat patterns that have too much bare thread. I admire their dainty laciness; I admire the person who tats them up & shares their beauty; but I am not one who chooses to do it. So this particular snowflake was an under-protest, under-groaning & mumbling undertaking :-D

The First Day of December Snowflake

Lene Bjorn

24 Snowflakes in Tatting by Lene Björn

I was looking for a “painted tatting” effect, hence the choice of transitional shades. I’d started off with a copper metallic thread center, but the threads in that trial were all slightly different in size & after a few rings, had to abandon it.

I opted for size 20 thread this time, thinking it might make a good coaster.

Abbreviations used in text below :

ds – double stitch

BTS – bare thread space

fs/bs tatting – frontside/backside or directional tatting

RODS – reverse order ds used in fs/bs tatting

fhs – 1^st half stitch

shs – 2^nd half stitch

hs – half stitch

JR – Josephine Ring

Round 1 : Red Heart 00328

Started with 1ds & finished with 2ds. This helps in keeping the picot well inside & safe, especially in rings that need to be cut & tied.

Round 2 : Anchor Mercer 0307 & 0289

Techniques used : 2 shuttles , with twisted thread between rings instead of bare thread, picot joins (both up & down), fs/bs tatting.

Remember my post on “new effects” earlier this year, & “wrapped rings or rings enrapt” in particular ? I used the same concept with bare threads, wrapping/twisting them, thus overcoming the use of 2 colours on a rings-only-with-BTS problem.

Advantages :

• I could use 2 colours. One can, in fact, alternate the colours as one pleases! ( Ninetta has used 2 colours in a very beautiful way here & here )  
• It had the added advantage of acting as a built-in picot gauge if one counted the number of twists (I used 5 twists) !!!
• It also brings in some stability which is an asset for a coaster.

TIP : I inserted the 2^nd colour shuttle into the first & the last half stitches of each ring.

Close ring before adjusting length of BTS of 2^nd colour.

Problems : It is not easy to keep the length, twist, & curves intact since the 2^nd colour is not really anchored. May be with practice & patience…or a little knot of some kind.

This picture, taken in the sun on my raw silk sari, is simply to show that the threads have a lovely sheen, which gets lost in all the photos I take inside.

 Round 3 : Anchor Mercer 0300

Techniques used : Down Join, Josephine Ring, graduated picots, fs/bs tatting

I was so tired by this time, I gave up the idea of adding 2 shades here. Also, a little airiness was necessary.

All I did was add a Josephine Ring of 10 fhs. Always felt that space was too flat between the high peaks. I think the JRs work pretty well, right ?!

TIP : Now here’s a Great tip I recently learned from Georgia Seitz here, about using the down join as 1^st half stitch ! So far, I was using it to keep colour blips on the back side of work. But this worked perfectly when the same colour elements were to be joined ! Conversely, when applying RODS (for fs/bs tatting), make an up join followed by 1^st HS.

When there are 2 colours, as in inner rings of previous round, I used the down join functionally to hide blips as before. 

Technically I have completed 2 snowflakes for this month, except that these were supposed to be for January … still behind by 2 ;-P 

I’m including this in the 25 Motif Challenge because of the little experimentation & my first real (but failed) attempt to make wheels with BTS .

My next post will be a free pattern for a snowflake/medallion (& the next for a butterfly). It was all done, but then I decided to make a few additions … my work is never done ;-P

I have decided to standardize all links in my posts. They will be in bold font & blue colour throughout.

Happy tatting :-)

Motif #22 of III for 25 Motif Challenge

Related Posts : Lene's Day 2 Snowflake