Lock Stitch Chain Fandango

If you've been following Jane's blog, you know she has been making lots of variations on her Fandango pattern.  Most recent was a little heart, excellent for a quick tat or emptying shuttles. The pattern is HERE.  Since Jane so often uses lock stitch chains to such good effect, I thought this little pattern was calling out for some, and I gave it a try.  They could use a little blocking to help with the symmetry, but over all, I am pleased.  I used 10 lock stitches for the chains at the bottom and omitted the joins to the bottom ring. Also, I began with SR2, since I don't like trying to work in ends in a lock stitch chain.  I think Jane is working up her own version of this idea, so keep an eye on her blog for further developments.

More Little Hearts

Time rushes on, and my blogging lags way behind real life.  Here is a group of hearts I made when I was still in "heart mode" even after Valentine's Day.  They are all in one scan together so you can judge the size.

The first is "The Heart Within" by Frivole, (also known as La Cosette).  This delightful pattern has several variations and is available through her Etsy Shop.  I do need to get around to doing the other versions.

The second is the "Basket Heart" by Rosemarie Peel.  I have admired this pattern for years, but somehow not gotten around to tatting it until now.  How many of you also have stacks of patterns printed out waiting to be worked someday?  The is worked in King Tut quilting thread that I got from Deb Arnold at DS9 Designs.  She says it is comparable to a size 100 cotton thread.  It is one of the thinnest threads I have ever used, but it tats wonderfully.

Number 3 is an old favorite I have done before, the Peacock Heart by Birgit Phelps.

The fourth one is the "Ruffled Heart" by Vicki Clarke.  I adore this pattern with its ruffled set stitches, though I have not done it justice here, with unequal tension in the long chains.  The thread is a Valdani perle cotton, probably also from DS9.

The final heart is another that I made for the first time, "Minnies Love" by Heather Johnston.  It's a very nice pattern, too, don't you think?

The threads not noted are are size 20, though I don't remember what kind.

There were more heart patterns in my stack, but I get diverted to something else after this many.  I'll get back to those someday.

More Hearts and Catherine Wheel Joins

 This is another of the variations of Karey's Heart from the current issue of Tatting Times that I talked about last time.  This is the asymmetric version.  That long coiled floating chain was a bit challenging.  I used a few Catherine Wheel Joins to hold it together.  I've been practicing those lately since I've been writing a pattern that uses them.

Have you noticed that all the tutorials for the CWJ show how to work it from the front side?  I need to work it from the back side on my pattern and adjust it so it blends in with the front side appearance. That should be easy enough, right? Just pull the first loop to the back instead of the front?  Sometimes it worked, and sometimes I had a twisty mess with no idea why.  Finally I decided that I got better results if I was careful to pull only on the thread coming from the previous stitch, instead of on both threads in front when I pulled to pop the loop to the other side.

I was using Frivole's delightful Happy Heart pattern to practice and try different strategies for making the join from the back side.  The turquoise example has mostly good joins, but only because I picked so many of them out and re-did them.  By the end of that one, I had decided how to do them.  On the peach one, the CWJs were easier, and looked better, but I was concentrating so much on the joins that I didn't watch the tension on the chains, so it's all lopsided.  On the screen, it looks better than it does in real life, for a change.  Anyway, I love the little pattern, and I'll be trying it again.

In Love with Karey's New Heart

The latest issue of Tatting Times from Karey Solomon is especially nice because it has this heart with four variations. I fell in love with it as soon as I saw it.  This is the last variation; trust me to always start with the hardest.

It still needs blocking, and I'm missing a couple of beads where I made a boo-boo, but I'm very happy with it.  I'll make some of the other variations later.

I tinkered a bit with the instructions, though not the stitches themselves.  Karey reminds us, rightly so, that post shuttles are better than bobbin shuttles for carrying lots of beads.  Her low stress approach to this pattern is to tell us to load a goodly number of beads on 2 shuttles and when one shuttle gets low on beads, do a SLT and switch shuttles. But you know I love my bobbin shuttles.  A careful analysis of the pattern showed most of the beads are on shuttle 2 if you don't switch.  Also, there are lots of lock joins, where a hook is so much better than the point of a post shuttle. So, I wound most of the thread and beads onto an oversized post shuttle (a SewMate was big enough) and used an Aero for shuttle 1 with just a few beads on it. I could have it both ways, happy dance.  Also, I noticed that most of the work is chains, or rings thrown off with the chain shuttle, so I began the first ring as though working on the back side, so that most of the time, I would be working on the front side.

I really recommend a subscription to Tatting Times, so you can find gems like this in your mailbox.  Many of the patterns eventually show up in her books later, so I'm looking forward to an exceptional future book as well.

Here are links to Karey's blog and her website.

Ta-tilicious Thread & etc

Jess! at Tat-ilicious has very generously sent me some of her HDT.

This is her "Harvest" colorway, with a nice mix of red/gold/brown in both size 20 and 80.

Here is some "Red Velvet," a very warm rich reddish brown. The other is a skein from a trial run that wasn't what she was looking for, but I like this one more each time I look at it. Sort of grey/yellow/fuschia. I will have to find good projects for all of these.

I am excited to hear that she will be coming to the Palmetto Tat Days this year. It is so much better shopping for thread in person since cameras and monitors don't always capture its true personality, especially for HDT.

The spinning adventure continues. Here is some very brown undyed Corriedale, and some bright hand dyed Blue Faced Leicester.  Before I started this, I thought wool was just, well, wool.  It turns out there are umpteen varieties of it, not to mention fiber from other animals.

Believe it or not, I actually do some tatting once in a while. I made several butterflies last week, but I've been too lazy busy to work in the ends and block them.

But I did find this picture of a piece I made a while back and never showed. This is Karey's Heart of the Rose from her Hearts Belong to Tatting, made with some her own HDT. Since it comes from a book, I can count it toward my own special rules 25 Motif Challenge. I think this comes to number 10 for this round of the challenge. I haven't been doing too well getting this round accomplished.

Tat Days Registration is Open

Registration for Palmetto Tat Days is now open. Click here for a link to their homepage.  You can click on the link there for Sneak Peaks to see the class projects an descriptions.  (The usual pages for teacher biographies and more detailed class descriptions are still in progress.)  I always have a wonderful time with lots of wonderful people.

And here are my completed projects from the classes I took at the Finger Lakes Tatting Convention earlier this year.  You should be impressed.   I have some other class project UFO's that are years old :)

This is Dani the Geek's Celtic Claddagh Heart.  Isn't that braided effect interesting?  If you look too close, you'll see I didn't get the second side exactly right.  Oops, shouldn't have tried doing that one while watching TV.  My colors are arranged a bit different from the pattern since I changed my mind midstream what I wanted to do.

This one is Carolyn Groves' Heart on a Wooden Ring.  When I first looked at it, I wondered how she got the tatting to go round and round the ring since the shuttle wouldn't fit through the hole.  The solution was simple and ingenious and something I would never have thought of.  I like her idea to use wooden rings. They are prettier than the plastic cabone rings and also lightweight.   I think she said they came from FireMountain Gems.

Please Stand By - Your Regularly Scheduled Tatting Will Resume Shortly

My internet connection has been up and down, mostly down, all month.  Finally a service tech seems to have solved the problem today.    In the meantime, I have been mostly checking email on my Nook via public wifi spots.  I seem to have accidentally deleted some of them, so if anyone is awaiting a long overdue reply please send again.

I've got soooo much catching up to do.

Here's one of the things I made since last time: Karey's Hidden Picture Heart in Lizbeth 145 Pink Parade. She taught this pattern at Lodi this year and it was also in the most recent issue of Tatting Times. Isn't this a great design?  Of course I fell for the the little bits of block tatting.

Heart Nouveau- Motif # 8

I actually made a motif from one of those unused books on the shelf! How did that happen? Probably because I have lots of other things I am supposed to be working on :)

This is "Heart Nouveau" from Karey's Hearts Belong to Tatting, and make in some of Karey's hand painted thread. I thought this pattern was interesting because of the way the long rings just below the center are made to curve.

Valentine Exchange from Marty

I recently participated in the Valentine's Day Exchange hosted by Karey Solomon through the Threads of a Tatting Goddess Yahoo group. I received my really nice package from Marty (Marlene Lewis) a few days ago. She sent a large heart that she designed herself and attached to a pretty card. Inside was an ornament, bookmark, and thread sample, as well as a copy of the pattern.

The ornament uses a section of Iris Niebach's Beatrice doily, and the bookmark is a pattern by Diana Stevens from her Animal Bookmark book. The thread sample is hand dyed thread done by Marty's sister, Bonnie, and is the same used to tat her heart.

Many thanks to Marty for the beautiful gifts.

Motif Four--Slippery Heart

Here is another entry for my "Exercise Your Stash Challenge". This is a large ball which looks like it lost its label long ago. Judging by the texture, I suppose it may be rayon. I got it from Sherry, who was about to put it on the free stuff table at Hector one year.

I don't recommend tatting with slippery slithery threads, but you may find yourself tempted (Oooh, shiny! shiny!) She didn't like it enough to keep it, but I liked the pink and purple shades.

When working with slippery thread consider:
1) Choose a small project because you will get sick of it.
2) Choose a motif with few decorative picots, because the tatting will tend to loosen up and absorb the picots. Tatting tightly helps a little. After you are finished, take a hook and pull all the picots back into shape.
3) While working, double check rings before proceeding to the next element. The thread will want to relax and let rings open just a little bit, so give them one more tug before moving on.
4) Avoid Josephine rings. I'm not sure if this goes for all rayon threads, but this one got twisty and cantankerous.
5) Leave extra long tails for sewing in because the thread will likely fray at the ends. I hardly every tie and glue, but I suspect rayon threads might not stay glued.
6) The better the quality the thread, the easier it will be to tat with. (Well obviously...) I seem to remember YLI Pearl Crown Rayon being more user friendly.



For my project, I chose Peaceable Heart from Make Many Merrily by Karey Solomon. This is a very nice pattern worked all in one pass thanks to the use of split rings. Working with the thread was a bit of a pain in the butt for all the reasons above, plus the plies wanted to separate, and then both my magic threads broke and it was hard to cleanly sew in the ends.

But in the end I had a serviceable heart, and I do like the shiny pink and purple. I guess I'll keep that ball.

Pamela's Hearts

I hope you all have been following Pamela's blog at http://tatsakoolchallenge.blogspot.com/

In the entries from Feb 11 - Feb 28, she has worked all of the hearts from my book, Tat's Amore', in luscious color schemes I wouldn't have thought of, (or didn't have the thread for). When Pamela makes one of my patterns, it looks better than when I did it, so I love looking at her work. The other great thing she has done is to list the amount of thread needed for each piece.

Please go take a look if you haven't already.