Looking Forward to Lodi

I am honored to have been chosen as one of the teachers at this year's Finger Lakes Tatting Conference, to be held in Lodi, NY this April 12-14.  There are social get-togethers on Friday and classes on Saturday and Sunday.  See their website here for complete information:   http://www.fingerlakestatting.com/  Note that the early registration discount is in effect through February 1. 

Here are 3 versions of the Maltese Ring motif I will be teaching.  I'm just now noticing that I never blocked some of these squares. How embarrassing! But if I don't post today, it may be too long before my next chance.
 

Other teachers will be K Boniface, Bonnie Swank, Mary Anna Robinson, Kaye Judt, Sharon Fawns, Shawna Wachs, D'Amone Popp, Ruth Perry, and of course, Karey Solomon.  Doesn't that sound like a great time?

I Should Have Known Better

When choosing the thread/yarn for a project, I will pose the question, who's doing the work - the thread or the pattern?  Or to put it another way, the thread/yarn or the pattern may be busy, but not both.  Look at the socks in my previous post.  That yarn called for a very simple pattern.  I usually reserve variegated threads for edgings or small motifs, or alternate rounds with a solid color in a larger piece.  If there are several rounds of a variegated thread, the colors may pool or draw the eye away from the structure of the pattern.  Some people are better at this than I am and produce beautiful things with variegates.

Last summer, when I wanted to make Dora Young's Square Pinwheel, I had trouble finding a pair of threads I felt like working with.  There was a Lizbeth variegated ball (sorry, can't remember the number) with the colors all about the same strength.  I thought maybe I could pull it off, since Jane had made a very nice version of the same pattern with an ombre thread, but no, I just wasn't happy when it was done.  It's not horrible, but I don't think the pinwheel structure shows up as well as it should.  (The scan actually looks better than in real life.)  I switched to safer solid colors, sigh.

Incidentally, the technique Dora Young used in this pattern also appears in the Bath Tatting Book of 1865.  I've always wondered if she had a copy of that book, or independently recreated the technique.