whizzing past

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I wanted to share the next few rounds of Agnieszka’s Doily #10 (zabawa pikotek) together in one post. But Round 7 may take a while because I’m busy with a pictorial and don't want to lose focus. So might as well get this off my list.

I returned to dot picots for 6^th round. A ‘repeat’ of the 2^nd round.

Surprisingly, even with all that switching between shuttles for dot picots the round went smoothly and quickly.

I tried to make the dot picots mock rings (SCMR) instead of thrown rings, to avoid switching shuttles But the latter was easier and came out better for me. Moreover, I kind of got into the rhythm and didn't mind at all. 

In Anchor size 40, it now measures 8” or 20½ cms.

Next round is again flowers. 

Carollyn suggested different colour for the center of the flowers. I've been thinking of interspersing all pinks with a cream center to avoid an overload of pink. Think it will work???

Check out Frywolaga's latest post. The invitation is open till the end of the month. I think it's a cool way to begin designing. With the pattern all laid out, and no trials/tribulations for stitch count, etc. all one needs is to play with the picot and create our own version!

Don’t you love when the day’s tatting & designing is stress-free and relaxing!

Related posts

Rounds 1 & 2 ; Round 3 ; Round 4 ; Round 5

slow colour fast colour

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The power of colour often amazes me!

And I don’t mean the usual aesthetics and visual appeal of our colour choices and placement.

Go a step beyond to the speed and pace of working. eg. certain colours in finer thread merge with my skin tone making it difficult to eyeball picots, etc.

This time I experienced an even greater power! 

Colour affected my involvement and motivation!!!

Continuing with Agnieszka Gawron's Doily #10 - adding picots challenge. Round 5.

For this round I deliberately chose a darker green - thought it would make a statement ;-P

I even had my husband select from an assortment of colours (without telling him my preference) and he also chose this. Yet, as I worked, it had me on edge continuously. And after every couple of elements I would wonder about my choice and stow it away. The shade seemed overbearing in real (and hubby agreed – no, he’s absolutely Not a yes-man!!).

Took me several days of uninspired working to do just the 2 arms of simple rings and chains.

Frustrated, I coloured in some options in Sketch Guru, and tried a combination – green rings/cream chains & vice versa. Ugh it looked bad!

Rejected everything and went to the safe option of similar colour strength.

So much better and even tatting went smoothly, rapidly, and happily thereafter ! The entire round was done in 3 days flat.

This time I chose simple decorative picots. I like how the rings are joined to create those angles!

Round 5 in size 40 measures 7 inches or almost 18 cms tip to tip.

2 shuttles used because of thrown/floating rings.

But you know I'm wondering whether I was wrong again. The pastel green has brought the pink into too much prominence. There's yet another round of these flowers! Sigh, will just live with it for now and see what happens. It does look and feel good in real though.

‘fast’ colours make for happy tatting  J

Related posts

Rounds 1 & 2 ; Round 3 ; Round 4

lazy or smart?

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When was the last time I posted something unrelated to tatting? Hmmm, probably a year back for the Pinterest Challenge in December – that cute little bird. It still sits on my bedside cabinet with pins stuck in it!

This time I'm sharing a very quick mixed media project involving painting and embroidery, done sometime around mid-2000.

These pics were taken quite a while back, hence not as sharp, bright, rich and clear as I’d like them to be. Apologies for the poor quality.

The background is a light yellow but not as washed out as it looks here.

I’d wanted to embroider a bedsheet for ages, but was fearful of it becoming an UFO. Once during our summer vacation we forced our Mom to give us separate bedsheets to embroider and she succumbed despite her valid fears of us not completing them. The sheets did get finished but only after she sat alongside and embroidered the remaining motifs over the months following the vacation ;-P

Going by that experience, I decided to do something quick but covering a large area. After scouring through my pattern collection, I zeroed in on my favorite book – Creative Stitchcraft. It has a beautiful Bouquet of Roses Quilt – red stem-stitch embroidery on white background.

I went for colours, but a mere stem-stitch outline would look too barren. So after I had enlarged the template – drawing manually, since I was excited to start immediately – and transferred it to the cloth I looked in my fabric paints box – I use Fevicryl acrylics.

I had a few left over from painting a free-hand saree border for my MIL earlier.

Diluted them and did a quick wash. A thicker coat of paint could've caused some stiffening of the fabric making it difficult to embroider, and taken longer to dry obviously.

There’s a bit of yellow paint in the rose petals, too.

I deliberately didn’t ‘stay within the lines’, keeping it a bit random with some unwashed areas or some overlapping of colours, to give it a natural shading.

Then simple stem-stitch along all the outlines.

I kept the stitches very short, using 2 strands of Anchor embroidery threads throughout.

Manoeuvering becomes easier when stitches are short. Abrupt curves, sharp ends, pointed ends, etc. can b e neatly managed. 

Mary Corbet has some excellent tips & tutorials which I had already figured out on my own. 

There is also a lovely Morning Glory border in the original pattern which I did not use here. This seemed fine on its own. 

Yay, it was all over within a week – from enlarging to the very last knot! 

Is this multimedia project smart or sheer lazy? You decide :-D

Bouquet of Roses pattern from the book "Creative Stitchcraft". (Better Homes and Gardens) Murdoch Books. 1991.