a collective gift 1

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... of so many snowflake variations and patterns in one place, from a talented group of generous designers!  Perhaps you recall my invitation to design the next round(s) for a Celtic interlaced center - https://tipsaroundthehome.blogspot.com/2023/05/lets-design-round-3.html... the DAL Celtic Snowflake 'challenge' as several called it. I loved the response and the models that turned up, some almost overnight! And later, when I requested each participant to share their pattern, they readily complied. I compiled them all in a Google Doc, listing them chronologically as they came in. 

The main reason for this inordinate delay in sharing with you is two-fold: 1) I wanted to synchronise the patterns, adding a diagram to each or filling in any 'gaps', and 2) I wrote an article on this project for the IOLI Bulletin and wanted to wait a decent amount of time. The first objective hasn't been achieved, unfortunately, though I did begin diagramming. For this I sincerely apologise to my designers, but hope to work on it in future.

I have decided to share the document as is since it is the season of tatting up snowflakes! Please note that the patterns are not tested and there is diversity in presentation styles. We hope you enjoy the individual flavour and range of effects, tools, and techniques and also the story behind each! All details are in the doc, the link to which I will share at the end of the visual display of models. Between my article and the Google docs, the entire backstory is laid out . hence I will not repeat it here.

Presenting them alphabetically ---

1. Aleksandra Pawlik - Round 3 designed and tatted within a day!

 

2. Anita Barry - Two different versions, both with Round 3 designed!

 

The difference in backgrounds brings out the mandala effect differently.

Clever use of split rings.

3. Anna Bonelli - Rounds 3 & 4 designed. Makes a nice wheel impression.

4. Antonia Lai - Round 3 designed in single shuttle with bare thread spaces!

5. Barbara Slodka - Round 3 designed with Josephine rings and pleasant pastels

6. Daniela Galli - Round 3 designed and tatted in two shades of metallic threads

7. Donna McDade - designed Round 3 for Five versions! All 5 models have been appliqued on a quilted wall hanging (pic in the doc).

8. Jean Inglis - Round 3 designed. Appears like a flower or wreath.

9. Ladyphoenix tatter - designed Rounds 3 & interlaced Round 4 after discarding two other attempts since it caused cupping.

10. Margaret Davies - designed Rounds 3 & 4 and tatted multiple models till she was satisfied! 

11. Lella Loops - designed Round 3 and also styled a Celtic shuttle to work the interlacing in this round! She is a needle tatter.

continued in next post along with links .... 

layered revelation

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tatted snowflake with Celtic effect

Has this happened to you ? Some patterns tend to reveal themselves gradually, layer by onion layer, despite the fact that the designer has presented the pattern clearly, with superb diagram, instructions and a tatted model ?!

This is one such . And each layer brought clarity, simplification, and joy :-)

I had to retro-tat segments a few times, until the elegance of this design gradually made it into me thick skin.

Celeste

Sparrow Kelly

I love the Celtic effect and elegance of this pattern! Not for the faint-hearted, but one soon gets into the rhythm & I enjoyed the challenge.

The diagram and presentation is very appealing & the layering of chains is clearly visible in her diagram.

I had started with the maroon and blue, but made a mistake in the 2^nd repeat. Following the diagram exactly, this is what we get on the 2^nd repeat – an extra chain and a visible picot. Unlike what the diagram says, Ring J is the equivalent of Ring A, where the repeat starts.

I started again, this time with pink hoping that the crossover layers will show better in a lighter colour.

My Notes

• Overall, the snowflake is worked counterclockwise.
• For frontside/backside tatting, all grey coloured elements are tatted backside.
• Ring J is actually the equivalent of ring A, hence next repeat starts from ring J.
• Her tatted model has one extra ring in the inner circle (13 instead of 12, which caused me a lot of confusion. 13 didn’t make sense, yet it was difficult to locate the extra ring - found it finally at 10 o'clock position).
• Always remember to bring both threads to the front after ring H so that the chain is above Ch3 (this is a note to myself, coz I had to retrotat on many occasions!)
• Also important skill required - how to join last ring to first. It is a bit tricky in this pattern, especially when the ring is small (more below).
• Some rings and chains require switching shuttles to get colours into position. SS after ring B, Ch3, Ch4, ring G, ring H, ring I, and Ch9 .
• I used direct tatting (reverse stitch) for some of the short chains, especially between the three rings at the tips.
• UPDATE Shuttles are numbered & colour-coded according to the colour of stitches that show up, not necessarily the shuttle that forms the core thread. Hence green rings will use the green shuttle, but green chains will be made with the grey shuttle. 

Thesee layers revealed themselves gradually. The one layer that remains hidden is how Kelly came up with this synchronised design. Simple rings and chains, no SLTs or Celtic shuttles…. Would be interesting to get a peek into her gray matter, right ?!

Incidentally, I had to peel off layers to find the source of this pattern, too, which I had downloaded a while back. Googled Images, then found Kelly’s blog, (but pattern is no longer there), and her post where she mentioned it was being shared with the OTC. Got the date/month/year and hunted the 2011 OTC index. No image, but thankfully the pdf link was there (April 2011).

Last to First Join

There are many ways to avoid the folded join (and I always avoid). Some of these tutorials are listed here.

But this pattern had a different dilemma. (Not sure whether it was due to frontside/backside tatting, a small ring, or fine thread, hmm or my thick-headedness). :

1. the ‘first’ ring was on the left of the current ring ;
2. the rings were facing outwards
3. avoiding a colour blip and using an up &/or down loop

I rotate the work such that the in-progress ring is on the right of the ring to which it will be joined (and the tapering end is away from me), then pull up/down a loop thru joining picot, pass shuttle through, & snug. It is Still Basically the same as the many tutorials out there, but needs some orientation.

UPDATE (May 10, 2017) : A video showing last to first join has been shared by Sandra Figg. Note the way she rotates the motif to orient the 2 rings correctly.  This same concept of reorientation is applicable to outward facing rings or rosettes.

Many many thanks to Kelly for this wonderful pattern !

 happy tatting :-) 

who gobbled the sun?

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A mini video – please disregard the static. It’s actually the sound of the fan last night!

A few days back, Lilas Lace started a Celtic earring tat-along on facebook, which she has now posted in her blog here. From a bit of Googling, I find that it is a variant of the 4-leaf clover symbol.

It was a small project, broken into extremely tiny steps, And it was true Celtic interlacing unlike the ‘faux’ Celtic I’ve attempted so far. 

I chose Bliss variegated thread because it brings out the interweaving clearly. At the end, the motif is inserted within a 3cm ring which I did not have. This was the other reason I chose a thick thread (size 3 or 5), to mount on a bangle. 

The weaving itself took a long time! Pinning it down helped me keep track. After many trials, I reached this stage, where a part of it is still wrong. Took a pic to refer and remember. Then it was easy to undo and redo the last bit correctly...

TIP : Always remember that each chain/line goes over-under repeatedly. After choosing to keep the chain left of each ring above (over), at the next intersection it should be below (under), then again over and under meeting up with the next ring.

Final measurement – 2 inch square.

Pretty happy with it.

Now to make a suncatcher out of it - my very first. Chose a bangle with 2½” inner diameter and scurried over to the Queen of Suncatchers – Sue’s (His Kid) blog! 

• Before starting, I tacked the overlapping chains at 4 points - peer closely to see white sewing thread knots in pic below. And notice all the tools I needed?!

Gold metallic thread to shine through the transparent crystals.

I first sewed crystals through the 8 tiny picots, rolling the thread around the bangle frame. I don’t how she does it … I had a tough time keeping the crystals in place.

Wasn’t satisfied with the look, hence added more crystals, along with small green bicone crystals. This time I simply tied and cut each thread! Easier to handle the sequence as well. Yeah, I’m still not comfortable sequencing the beads correctly for pre-stringing.

ecided to snip off the first round of crystals and continued with the rest. Huh, this looked much better. So that was it!

Now how to hide the little ends? Tatting over the bangle using a single shuttle, and hiding all ends within. (cover a cabone/plastic ring - scroll down to #5 for tut links). I enjoy this process as can be seen in my previous bangle projects.  

The air pollution has been so high, that it has gobbled up the sun. It’s dreary and difficult to breathe even inside the house. This is the best we could do this morning. Soon we will be literally caged in - next week we're going to put up toughened glass in the balcony, sigh. Sliding, yet not the same. 

Many thanks Lilas Lace & Sue !

due credit

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Ninetta’s Curled Ring Ice Drop that I posted here was taken up in Online Tatting Class on Feb 18^th along with Ninetta's original post/pattern.

Undue credit was given to me (not that I'm complaining when my name is linked with that of my very talented friend's ;-P). I’d like to reiterate again, that the pattern is Entirely Ninetta’s. Arguably perhaps the only ‘contribution’ I made is the following :

• using 2 colours that highlighted the curled ring effect ;

For 1st (top) motif, load one shuttle only with seed beads

• not tatting the entire pattern thus making it look more like an ice drop. In the original the last round turned it into a square with floating hearts in the corners ;

1st (top) motif made

• using the word Celtic/faux Celtic. Reason: the gem is encased using 2 motifs. Remember Rosemary Peel's famous square motif where the 2^nd motif is interwoven through elements of 1^st and then a 3^rd round is added which connects and holds the 2 motifs in place? I was reminded of it here. EXCEPT ....

For 2nd motif (seen from back) wind thread ctm. Silver used here.

What Ninetta did was curl the rings (immediately after closing each) through 1^st motif, thus securing them in place and also forming a pocket to insert the gem. So while a 2^nd motif was tatted, it was not 'separate', joining as we go. 
For this reason, only 2 rounds performed the function making it easy to stop at this stage; the 3^rd round in her original pattern merely added decorative value.

Many more stepwise pictures are posted in Ninetta's blog in the link provided above.

lll

What if the 2 motifs actually were separate? This is how they would look (I have increased the size of silver rings to 12-12)....

A Celtic variation in progress

Notice how the upper and lower motifs are completely separate, then placing them over each other, the silver is interlaced, and the gem inserted before interlacing the last ring. However, the silver rings are floppy and need another round of tatting to hold them together. 
Ninetta's curled rings engineered the feat without the need of another round as pointed above. 

lll

We thank Georgia, again, for her interest in this beautiful design and for sharing it with the class. I only wish I could attend the same way as a year back. Over-enthusiastically, I would sometimes attend even the first session which starts at about 0030 hrs my time! No wonder it affected my health and constitution. I miss the motivating and learned company! 
Congratulations are also due - she completes 40 years of tatting !!! Wishes for many many more to come J

a Celtic flip

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Remember how I wondered about a Celtic variation here? This is how I went ahead to complete a Celtic variation of Ninetta’s Curled Ring ice drop.

Notice there are no curled rings here, but the beaded rings are raised. I was hoping for more of a water lily effect.  

The pattern for 2 motifs/medallions remains the same as Ninetta's original (I have inked the count in the pic above for easy reference).

BUT, I flipped the cabochon, switching the motifs in the process : the lower one is now in the front/on top, and vice versa.

I didn’t tat a new one, simply added to what was already tatted. One can call this a prototype variation if you will,  with scope for improvement. 

For outermost green round, after the first lock join to previous round, I continued with the Slope and Roll join. It looked better.

There was a very geometric and open shape after completing the green, hence I added more silver rings in the empty spaces to look more like petals. If properly planned, a full round of 16 silver petals would give it more of a lotus/water lily effect. 

as seen from the back

I still don’t understand why the outline is more square than circular despite all chains being 7-7 ! Anybody?

In Gautam (green size 8) and Red Rose (size 20) metallic threads, the motif/pendant measures 4½ cms across and 5½ cms diagonally. The cab is 2cms.

picot me roundup 3

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 I had shifted Ninetta's entries to this Part 3 in order to equalise all 3 posts. And then I got caught up in a lot of other stuff and this post got delayed. It turned out to be a blessing in disguise 'coz a few more butterflies fluttered in! 

Game - #PicotMeEndrucks April2024

Pattern - Antonia Lai's E32 adaptation 'Life is Bliss butterfly' 

Objective - Use ornamental picots to embellish the butterfly motif. 

Roundups and details - Part 1  ; Part 2

21. Ninetta Caruso - started a virtual butterfly effect when she used Celtic Knotted Picots! Many members used the CKP, albeit in different ways, as you would've seen in previous roundups.

Calling it her Frilly Butterfly, she says, "This is the frilly butterfly that I got, ....  I tried for my first time the "Celtic knotted picot", developed by Sabina Carden-Madden, I followed her tutorial shared years ago, that luckily can be reached again using the wayback machine:

https://web.archive.org/web/20190108165755/http://www.paradisetreasures.com/ckp.html. Thank you for the fun! It's wonderful that in tatting we never stop learning!"

To me, her CKPs themselves looked like tiny butterflies!

Her 2nd entry was even frillier than the first one and she called it the Fluffy Butterfly.

She says "This is my fluffy butterfly, ... these are "layered picots", they are called also floral picots or ruffled picots, it is like the Victorian set but with picots between sections of half stitches, it's a technique already found in Priscilla's patterns."

The top view is in the inset.

22. Reiko Akamatsu - started this circular edging with a series of butterflies.

It's still a WIP and the amazing part is that she does not seem to have altered the stitch count at all. A truly versatile motif!

23. Sabine Robert - joined us for the first time with 3 versions!

She says, " - I start tatting with this Life is Bliss Butterfly pattern (2nd project, after some trainings). Not so easy, I need to do more and more"

One can already see her progress and improvement! And adding beads is not always easy for a new tatter.

24. Sara Dougan - is a new member, too. 

She used a combination of long decorative picots, double picots, and butterfly picots!

25. Silvana Buonvino - sent in these delightfully coloured versions!

Besides the pearls and beads, she used double picots, triple picots, and Josephine Picots. She asked whether the JPs could be made on rings and tried out the suggestions for her 4th butterfly! 

Voila, her 4th entry has Josephine Picots on rings as well as on chains! 

Silvana embellished her own skills along with the butterfly! 

26. Stephanie Mc (Tattimic) - shared her ideation and design process and has promised us the pattern, too!

Her 3 idea sketches (which inspired Lauretta Tondelli to learn the CKP) for which she asked for feedback.

The 3 versions that finally emerged. The one on the right uses balanced double stitches to stabilise the long "wobbly" chains and a scroll of rings and chains for the bottom wings.

She says, "But then, I still didn't have any picots, which wouldn't do for a #picotmeendrucks, right? So I asked myself how I could add a shape inside the largest loop and still use the crocheted picots suggested in the list of ideas (I like it! It's so super cute!). That's when all hell broke loose, because it meant to rethink again the initial pattern (so no real onion rings, for exemple), and I ended up with the design you see on the left. 

That being said, thank you for the initial challenge, haha. It sparked my imagination!"

And what a spark it is! 

The metamorphosis process in thread!

She says, "And here are a couple of tests I made along the way. I often see people wondering how to create new design. That's one way to go : trial and error, haha."

This is proof that designing is not always easy, despite the numerous paths one can take to convert an idea into thread.

27. Vani Kattoju - heeded my request and shared her 3 versions though she was not fully satisfied with her working. Appreciate it, Vani!

She says, "My first attempt at using vapor picots, Mrs Mee picots and tuft picots. A little Not so perfect butterfly." 

She used a mix of double picots, "...layered picots and twisted picots."

 

For her 3rd version,  "I tried daisy picots as the highlight along with few double picots."

This motif has been the vehicle for a lot of first learnings and practice makes perfect.

28. Wanda Salmans - created 5 versions and blogged about each of them.

She says, "My first try at the Picot Me Endrucks April 2024 Game of the Month. The one on the left is the pattern adaption by Antonia Lai. I started it several times - it helps not to be tired or distracted when starting something new. For the second one, I played around with picots. I used HH20-126 Purple Splendor."

Her 2nd version has overlapping double picots and twisted picots. 

Her post - https://www.wandasknottythoughts.com/2024/04/playing-with-butterflies/

3rd version is decorated with chains on long picots, giving a scalloped edge to the wings. She has used several bits and pieces on her 'Safety Pin Brooch'.  

Read all about it here: https://www.wandasknottythoughts.com/2024/04/safety-pin-brooch/

Both 4th and 5th versions use what Mark Myers' called the Picot Lock Join. It is basically a lock join made with the 2nd shuttle to a picot and the basic join in inverted tatting. 

Read her posts here - https://www.wandasknottythoughts.com/2024/05/another-life-is-bliss-butterfly/ and here - https://www.wandasknottythoughts.com/2024/05/new-things/

29. Lou Bunker - made sure her butterflies fluttered around in June.

She says, "Fun little pattern works up fast, very addictive." 

Some of her cuties have beads and double picots.

30. Manju Talekar - has this beaded beauty to share, sent in June.

She says, "I tatted it with Lizbeth variegated thread #20 color 123. The transparent glass bead in the center reflects light but cannot be seen in the picture. Wings can move up and down by the side of glass bead. Enjoyed making it."

A tatted butterfly that can actually fly - wonderful!

UPDATE (Dec2025): 

31. Debbie L Fister - Sep2024

Debbie says - Question: if a pattern calls for a normal picot would substituting decorative picots change the pattern significantly? What modifications should I consider?
thank you very much. I am a bit surprised that the photo is so messy. I decided I am not a designer (yet). I have to say this was a challenge, but I really wanted to try Celtic rings. As for substitions: 3 graduated picots with 0 ds between adds 2 ds. Same with a double picot.
But what about interlocking or tufted? The rings don't seem to that different in size, but now I'm thinking the extra ds might affect the way the corner fits on the book page.

So this brings us to the end of the Picot Me Endrucks roundup. Ninetta and I are so grateful for this huge interest and the beauties that emerged from the game, besides the learning, exploration and experimentation. 

At final count we have an exciting 31 participants and 76 butterflies!!! Remember, if you have made any Endrucksian pattern you are free to send it to either Ninetta or to me at any time. Leave a comment in our respective blogs if you wish. (all relevant links on the right panel of this blog)

Many many thanks to all our participants for sharing your work and thoughts and brightening up the tatting skies with these lovely creations! 

Related Posts -

Lock Join with Shuttle 2 

Decorative Picots in shuttle tatting 

E32 Life is Bliss Butterfly pattern

Picot Me roundup 1  

Picot Me roundup 2