WARNING : Dear seekers of beauty &
tatting purists, peruse at own risk. The blogger takes no responsibility for
hurt eyes & sentiments.
My tatting
is not always up to the mark. But even I am ashamed to show these pictures in
public. Yet it is all part of the learning process, and each step helps as we
comprehend & practice a new technique.
These are
Ninetta’s latest Alternate Method of Curling Rings, especially small rings. I
had the good fortune of getting first peek into her brilliant tatting brain.
However, when Georgia announced the class for April 25, I scrambled to try them all out during the
weekend. This time, curling the small rings were a bit tougher than when I did
the Curled Rings series. Curling itself is easy. It’s just that I could not
always get them to face in the right direction :-( . So I stopped jotting down
notes & focused on the why & why not. You can see all the failed as
well as successful attempts interspersed throughout the chains.
Trial 1: My first mistake was to try to tat
the chains from frontside going in clockwise direction, thus keeping the curled
rings in front.
In
clockwise direction : 1st chain has the FR & CR,
2nd chain - half moon curls,
3rd
chain - heart curls ,
4th
chain - button curls
Some ‘succeeded’
in wrong direction, some failed, some simply twisted around & curled over
the chain refusing to budge !!!
Lesson – apply scientific method and
change only one factor at a time. Also, use a size 10 thread when learning (Thanks, Mel)!
Trial 2 : Much better , yet many were still
ashamed to face me ;-p. Ninetta came to the rescue & sent me this video and Then it Finally clicked !!!
An Important point, which is clear in the stepwise tutorial pics, but didn’t register in
my dense brain : turn the small ring at an angle of 180° before pulling the
encapsulated thread to curl !!! The curling picot/space in the small ring
should face down. Now I get it ! I was more focused on the instructions &
not enough on the pics.
Lesson – read & look, look, look, and
follow !!! That is what pictures are there for.
Small Curled Rings (sCR) on Ring
Besides sCR on a chain, there are numerous ways to curl small rings on/through/over rings ! These are also included in the same pdf.
Small Curled Rings (sCR) on Ring
Besides sCR on a chain, there are numerous ways to curl small rings on/through/over rings ! These are also included in the same pdf.
These
Curled Onion Rings were made way back when Ninetta sent me her very first
draft. I was very happy with the way the second one turned out.
Now I felt
confident enough to tackle her beautiful bracelets, which incorporate many of curling effects of small rings.
I opted to do all 4 in one continuous braid, with about 4 repeats each.
I opted to do all 4 in one continuous braid, with about 4 repeats each.
Anchor size
20 thread used (SH1- brown; SH2- cream) & wooden beads.
1. Version
with balanced sCR
I reduced
the stitch count here, to better enclose the bead. But more practice needed. Ninetta shared this video in class.
2. Version
with unbalanced sCR
I like this
pattern the best.
3. Version
with sCR over a chain
The second brown chain & sCR turned/twisted for some reason ; the cream ones came out fine. But I should've reduced the stitchcount for chains.
4. Version
with CR
First ring
came out wrong. Thought & thought, then pulled a down loop through the CR from below the split ring to curl it. It worked (this was my AHA moment). But Ninetta demonstrates a
better method of pulling the to-be-curled ring through the split ring and then securing it with a picot join.
I still
have a lot of practice to do on these whimsical curls, but am more confident
now. This exercise & interaction, and then the videos, also taught me how a
set of instructions &/or format can be read/understood/perceived
differently by individual tatters because each of us has a different way of
tatting – slight nuances in ways of holding, making the formations, tensioning,
and myriad other details. What seems ‘easy’ to a writer or designer may be very
difficult to a reader. I will no longer call any of my patterns or tutorials
‘easy’. Major lesson learned.
UPDATE : All videos have been uploaded to Georgia Seitz's Online Advanced Class videos
Many thanks, Ninetta, for sharing your immense talent .
Hopefully goofs in my trials will be rectified in future :-)
*************************************
Practice
Doodle – What technique ?!
And to end
on another note of whimsy – here’s a doodle I made a year back while learning another
new technique. Using 2 shuttles, I went where my shuttles took me. Can you
guess which technique I was practicing (there is a ‘tell’ if you look closely)?
Can you trace the path ?
And a lucky coincidence - in the left Ninetta’s Quad 13 I made just before.
happy tatting and curling :-))
