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.