Experiencing Designer's Block - so, old stuff to share

Have taken a break from tatting for over a week, went over to my in-laws for some festive celebrations. Since I came back, I have not been able to come up with new designs for the challenge. I was working on something while trying to use the onion ring join in the design, but all my attempts have come to nothing so far.

So here is an old piece that I made some time back. It is a star design made up of 3-ring clovers of various sizes This piece is made in one round, working each point one by one as I worked round it.

This is not part of the challenge. But I kind of missed posting to the blog, so I dug up some old stuff just to share with everyone. Am I getting addicted to the challenge or what? LOL!

No 14/25 - Daisy Star

This is what I managed to some up with last night, using the daisy picot instructions that Riet had given earlier. Thank you again Riet.

I am not really happy with it, I think it can be better. There are some uneveness in the size of the daisy picots which hopefully with improve with lots more practise. Also, since I am using two colours, there are lots of SLTs taking place which I think was not very neatly done. They may be quite obvious to some. Hey ... it was approaching midnight and I was still working on this! ... excuses, .. excuses :-)





October 30, 2006

I said I was not happy with my first attempt of the design using daisy picots, so I made it again. I think it looked better the 2nd time round. I have also modified the steps so that I have less SLT to make. Here it is in comparison to the 1st attempt.

No. 13/25 - Rings-Only Snowflake

.... well .. they all look like rings!

A beaded snowflake this time, made using the techniques of self-closing mock ring and split rings. Not sure whether I may have gone a bit too much with the beads though. It looks rather crowded - if you know what I mean.

This is a small piece, only about 2 inches or 5.5 cm across.

17 October, 06
Thank you to for commenting on my snowflake.

In response to your queries, this was tatted with Flora size 20 - don't know the beads size (not very good on that one, as long as I can fit the thread in, it's okay with me, LOL). And, I agree with Hope that it would look really nice in icy blue

I have not written up the instructions for this yet. It will have to be another visual pattern I guess, because I don't know the notation for SCMR.

Pattern for the Blue Heart

Thank you for your comments on my blue Heart design. And to be asked for the pattern is another compliment indeed. So, I am drawing up a pattern here for anyone who is interested, esp Donna. But I must warn you that this is the first time that I am putting up a visual pattern, drawn on a PC. Please excuse me if there are parts that may not come out right. I will try to clarify any points that you are not sure of.

Each daisy is made up of five rings with this count (3-4-4-3), and the next ring is (3+4-4-3) joined to the last picot of the previous ring.
The outline of the heart is made up of chains, shuttle-joined to the picots on the rings that are pointing outwards.
The numbers along the chains indicate the number of picots in the chain seperated by two ds and each chain section starts with one ds, i.e. 7 means (1-2-2-2-2-2-2-1). This count is repeated for the other half of the heart.

And, for the joining of the daisies, you may have to refer to tha actual photo, because I couldn't draw the daisies that well to show where they join to each other.

11 October, 06

Some clarification about the pattern above.
1. The heart is made in two rounds, Rnd 1 is making all the daisies and Rnd 2 is making the chains around it.
2. To make using the split ring method, start with the daisy in the middle, work up and around in clockwise direction, joining the daisies as you go. the final daisy is joined to the second daisy made.
3. To make the chain, join the thread to the shared picot (between two rings) in the top middle daisy, and work round it clockwise.

I hope this is clearer now.

No. 12/25 - The Heart is Blue

I got the idea for this from Barbara, when she mentioned that she uses the leftover threads on her shuttle to make the centres of motifs that she is planning to do next or in the near future.

This heart is made out of daisies joined together to form the heart-shape. It can be made entirely with split-rings as I have made here or individually, as and when there is some balance of the thread in the shuttle. The outline is made of chains, joining all the outer picots to emphasise the shape of the heart.

Then again, if I had done it in red or variegated red, it could easily be a strawberry!