friendly warmth ?

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A long time back I had started reading the Bible and finished the Old Testament. Then my eyes gave out and I haven’t returned to it since. But one of my dear tatting friend recently suggested I read the gospel of Luke if not the rest. I have yet to do it, but this is a reminder.

This is the tweaked charmed cross pattern to look more like a cross. A floating ring on either end extends the horizontal bar, while additional rings and chains add length vertically.

Can’t say I’m happy – perhaps changing the chain direction to face inwards at some places would make it a bit better. But that is for some future day.

Worked in Lizbeth size 40. I now regret having bought only variegated and no solid colour in Lizbeth.

For some reason I didn’t enjoy working with this at all. And as you can see, by the second round I couldn’t be bothered to try to hide colour blips caused by the lock join.

Also, I didn’t snug the chain stitches properly on the right side thus getting an asymmetrical outline inside.

There was also plenty of retrotatting to do. All in all not a happy experience.

The saving grace was the lock chain tails. I’ve long admired and wanted to do those little charms along a tail and this seemed like a good project to use in.

And in order to balance the width of the cross with the slim tail, I worked a 2^nd tail. Can’t have enough of bookmark tails - read my argument for multiple tails here !

What truly charmed me was Denise’s enthusiastic testing and working of the charmed cross pattern. She made little tweaks to suit her taste. Notice the charms? And the Heart-shaped glass gem in the center?! These are all meant as gifts for her church friends. She tells me that since it will be close to Valentine’s when these will be gifted, she used the heart and I guess the lovely pink shade.

Also warming my heart in this cold are these cute maple leaf earrings (she added a strand of Rexanna to the hand-dyed colourway), and 

appliqués Denise is tatting; the former again as gifts. She has a great big heart for sure, always helping with a smile and spreading warmth J

And for the record, I now have a finalized version of the charmed cross pendant to share soon.

cheers and stay warm/cool  J

mad or maddening ?

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am I going mad over medallions ?

do you find it maddening to go through it  with me ?

Well, you are excused ; can’t say whether I can be rescued yet ;-P

Yup, more trials, prototypes and procedural peeks !

Made sporadically over the last several weeks, experimenting with different elements and effects to form enclosed space medallions.

1. Square Wave

Combination of elements -- space outlined with alternating split rings and chains.

I’d forgotten all about this. Lucky to have taped it on the page! Trials start from bottom up and the yellow one is rejected now.

2nd round creates a bit of a swirl wave if seen closely.

Need to decrease the negative space.

I had some time today and worked around the square with small tweak. This one has offset picots and smaller SRs in 1^st round.

Techniques : 2-shuttle tatting, split rings, lock joins. 2 rounds. About 3.5" in Anchor size 20.

2. Dancing Peacocks

Onion rings enclose the space.

This design gave me grief!!! Whether it was getting the innermost JR to lie flat or where to place the picot to join adjacent rings. Also, how many onin rings were needed for the medallion to lie flat, since I didn't want to increase the length of the connecting chains. 

The bits you see above don't show the parts where I un-tatted and re-tatted!

Finally, I did away with joining picots altogether.  Now, I can decide where the adjacent rings need to be attached and place picots accordingly. 

The innermost ring is a FB-JR. The overhand knot in floating beads method Does make the Josephine Ring lie in same plane as the outer rings. 

Although I deliberately made spaced out concentric rings, it cramps the adjacent rings. 

Need to reduce the stitchcount in the 3rd onion ring.

Techniques : 2 shuttle-tatting, Josephine ring using Floating Beads method, Onion rings (faux rings made with chains), dots, thrown/floating rings.

3. Inter-Sections

Celtic or Interlaced center made with lock chains.

This piece is made in pieces ! Hence the name.

Although there are many on my to-tat list, I don't remember tatting any such faux-Celtic pieces. So I'm actually thrilled to get something off the shuttles!

2 triangles make up the 6-point interlaced center.

Then a round of lock chains.

Next a 6-tip insertion through rings.

Followed by another round of LCh.

Need to remove the last round (as already done above) unless more rounds are added. Need to increase the central negative space, and also use different colours. Lots of tweaking required !

Techniques : 2-shuttle tatting, lock chains, interlacing, lock joins.

For the present these are standalones, but can easily function as motifs to create larger lace. 

Medallions are a quick, fun way to design and stop whenever desired.  Who knows I might come back to enlarge some of these at some future date. Meanwhile my medallion stash increases (as does my workload ;-P) ! 

have fun whatever you tat J

charmed cross ?

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Off and on, for the past few months, I’ve been tatting and designing medallions - different shapes and effects. I’ve already shared some medallion patterns/prototypes. 
Here’s my latest, the first of this year - an oval that turned into jewellery .... 

....  Charmed ! - a cross pendant

This post only talks of the design process since it is still a prototype. The final pattern will be shared after I re-tat it. I received confirmation from an ever-enthusiastic Denise that she is test-tatting several versions - I'm just as curious to see what she comes up with :-)

I wanted to create an oval shaped inner space with chains and use trefoils instead of clovers. It is interesting to discover that clovers are more prolific than trefoils for the center.

Browsing the net and antique books didn’t turn up anything within those parameters. Or perhaps I didn’t like the ones that did show up. Either way I set about trying my hand at this shape.

1. First came the one in purple with my basic elements – chains and trefoils.

2. Both elements needed bolstering, hence anchored the trefoils to the chains, and linked ring pairs to each side in the next round and .

3. My 3^rd attempt was more of a cleaning up. I shifted the ring pair to the inner chains - as thrown rings (hence outward facing). 
I now had a decent shuttle shape though a bit obese with all the holiday feasting ;-P

4. Trying to get out of my comfort zone, I tried to spruce up the 2^nd round. While ending, I eliminated the thrown ring at the top to see what it would look like and to give me an option for next trial. This made it look a bit like a cross!

Drew 3 rings at the tips in above pic to create a more cross-like shape - one possible variation. Another could be with a longer lower arm. Lots to keep me busy....

5. Sewed in beads using Anchor size 40 in same colour. In case I didn’t have the same colour, I would’ve followed Jane’s tip here.

In Anchor size 20 (close to a size 10 Lizbeth), this pendant measures 2”x3”. In smaller thread it can be used for earrings.

I call it “Charmed” because one can use a charm of one's choice instead of a teardrop in the negative space. I don’t have any in my stash to show though.

It can be tatted in one pass using a split ring on the side pair to climb out, and Floating Beads method to add teardrop beads/charms. The crystals can be loaded on the shuttles.

I like how this has shaped up. Fairly elegant, even if I say so myself ;-P

However, was the initial goal accomplished?

The medallion is more spindle shaped inside and angular outside, than an oval. 
My next trial will be with a short chain between each of the trefoil rings as in the lone sketch on the left. It defeats the trefoil criterion, but may be I’ll learn along the way … 

happy tatting always :-)