primordial soup

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Over-dramatic, I know ;-D This post is about uncooked, errr unfinished, razzmatazz morsels in minestrone soup. Instead of waiting for life-forms (tatting patterns!) to evolve from the primordial soup, I am ladling out servings to see but not consume :-D 

Last year I bought a stash of beads directly from an online shop most of which can be seen in this image. These include Miyuki, bicone crystals, drop & tube glass beads, drop resin beads, and so on.

In person, I wouldn’t have bought the bulkier ones. But it also got me thinking about how to use them. 

Playing around with some leftover metallic thread, these 2 little earrings came about. 

Single thread, picot flowers, free-style. I’m calling them Spring Drop earrings for obvious reasons. I intend to use each type of bead in similar fashion....

Recently, when test tatting Anita Barry’s Laura & Itsy-Bitsy Angels, I went on a tangent and this emerged. Played with some bead arrangements. Which one of 3 do you prefer? Do you see a Victorian era lady/gown? Made with single thread/shuttle, and the 2 rings on the side are regular rings folded over and linked. This can have no other name than Laura Angel Earrings.

Anita has this uncanny ability to spy/create heart motifs from vintage doilies, etc. She’s done it before - Daisy heart here and Hidden Rose heart here - to show a few that are in public domain. 

She calls it Eye Spy, and I got to playing as well. These are 2 hearts that I spied in the Elizabeth Round Robin Doily. There’s still a lot of work needed to get into desirable shape, whenever that happens.

Can you spy them in the images below?.

This is Elizabeth Heart #1 from Round 4 designed by Kathy Lowe 

I started tatting from the right side clover, going counter-clockwise, to finish with a split ring at the tip. Why split ring?

TIP : Split Ring creates a distinct point at the tip (rather than base, as in normal ring). And using my whimsical method to finish on a split ring without sewing, (Mathew Takeda's method cannot be used due to the joins) enhances that point.

Elizabeth Heart #2 is from Round 3 designed by Bettina Lauth. I've taken a real liking to these picot flowers! 

In both motifs, worked with 2 shuttles, elements were added or removed without changing the original stitch count. The shape that seemed fine in the doily, does not appeal as an independent motif. Tweaking is needed.

Now why is it that hearts in any bookmark are always identical in shape and design? Can’t we put together different designs and sizes? I’ve done it with sizes in this Patchwork Bookmark, and the Italian Connection bookmark, but the design was the same. Elizabeth Hearts Bookmark could be an idea to work on.

meet me and continue

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Meeting with Tatting

Skip over to Anetta's blog to get to know me a bit. If you are interested, that is! 

As I mentioned earlier, Anetta has started a monthly series where readers get to meet a different designer each month. Said designer shares her/his tatting journey along with a free snowflake pattern. At the end of the year, at least 12 snowflakes will be ready compounded by the joy of tatting along with friends, and learning new techniques. It is also her endeavour to educate about copyright and giving credit even when a pattern is free.

Everybody is invited to play along. Before the end of the month, send a pic and link of your snowflake by clicking the 'blue frog' button. Anetta will further summarise all entries in a separate post the following month.

Renulek opened the year with a beautiful snowflake, followed by a couple from Anne Orr (due to unavoidable circumstances), and I was invited to share in March for which I chose the Rosette Enchained Snowflake & Ice Drop. 

Check out Anetta's beautiful 2-colour version. She even prepared a lovely pictorial for split chain, leading up to the pattern. 

And don't forget to visit the post again at the end of this month to check out what the talented tatters send in.

Seeing the patterns shared so far, I am tempted to tat and send in entries, too. May be I’ll catch up later in the year.

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Continuing with the topic of continuous tatting ….

Mock Picot to climb out and Changing chain curve

In my previous post, I spoke about Sheetal’s question on facebook, which led to 2 methods of climbing out with a mock picot when there is a bead at the base (down bead or bead on core thread). {If the beads are on the picot (up beads) and we need to climb out with a mock picot, then I described it for the Sitka Rose}.

Sheetal uploaded a pic of her 2^nd round – a flower motif {! The petals are very similar to the rosette enchained ones where the chain changes it’s curve. But her brilliant stroke was adding beads on picots to the concave segment! Thus the beads face inside. Love it!!! If you are a member of the Just Tatting facebook group, you can read and see the entire post.

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…and about continuous threads...

Extending thread in CTM or CTM with Extra Shuttle 2 thread!

A post without a pic is like a faceless body! So here’s a little trick to extend the length of shuttle 2 thread when winding continuously. 

Pony shuttle bobbins are fairly small. For the Split Ring Heart I didn’t want to have to reload later. 

So, after cutting and winding the Sh2 bobbin fully, I wound the remaining length of Sh2 thread on a spool between the 2 shuttles (red is Sh1 & yellow is Sh2). Look closely and you can see which thread goes where.

I started with the inner clover, working it as mock rings, thus saving on Sh1 thread.

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climbing out with mock picot

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A question was posed in a facebook group and my first answer was incorrect. Got my shuttle, thread and beads out, and gave it a few whirls. Wahoo, got it! (I'm getting good with bead solutions ;-P) Later, Lee Buchanan posted another option.

Climbing Out with a Mock Picot …

with a bead at the base!

What’s special or new about climbing out with a mock picot, you ask? Well, this time there was a bead at the base of the ring and a long picot over it. Looking back it seems, huh, what’s the big deal. Try it with a normal ring, and you’ll discover the issue.

This may have been done before but I’d like to keep a record on hand for future. Sharing both methods here.

For this pictorial, only 1 shuttle is used, with a long thread left attached (ctm).

Method 1 : Mock Ring

1. String beads on the shuttle thread and start a mock ring. I find the self-closing mock ring (SCMR) is neatest and the closure almost ‘invisible’.

Leave a loop and slide a bead after each double stitch (or as per pattern). I have 6 beads here. 

2. After sliding last bead, do not make any more ds, pass shuttle through loop ...

3. ...and close the mock ring. 

4. Leave bare space for the mock picot and make a lock stitch or overhand tie (SLT). Continue with pattern.

Method 2 : Reverse Ring

Lee Buchanan got into the swing of things and offered this RR solution!

1. Start a reverse ring (tutorial links here). A reverse ring or wrong-way tatting starts on the opposite side of a normal ring, and has reverse or unflipped stitches. Make sure the beads are within the loop of the ring, and slide a bead after each reverse stitch. 

2. After sliding the last bead, close the ring. 

3. Threads emerge on either side of bead. 

4. Make a mock picot by securing the bare threads with a lock stitch or SLT and continue with next element in pattern.

As you can see, the end result is the same. Of course, getting that last picot to look unbroken is unavoidable, Unless the next element is a split ring in which case no lock stitch or shoe lace trick is required.

TIP : If beads are on the picot (up beads), one can climb out with a mock picot as in this beautiful Sitka Rose motif here.

Thank you Sheetal. Each time a question is asked, 

there is an opportunity for mutual learning and improvement!

Thank you Lee, for being such an enthusiastic and adventurous tatting sport! 

PLEASE NOTE: If you wish for a pdf of any of my posts, let me know. I now have a mail app thatnallows me to convert any post into a pdf easily.