More Snowflakes

I guess I just can't help myself when ideas are working in my head. And these are what came out over a few days last week.


These measure between 2.5 inches to 3 inches, working with Flora 20.

And I have not written/drawn out the pattern for these yet. I've always wanted to make sure I write/draw out the pattern after each design is tatted, but I am afraid I will lose my train of thought for the new ideas that are running in my head if I stop to write each one as they are made.

Now I have these five snowflakes to write the patterns for, and the seven that I made earlier, and a few more that I made during my first outing in the 25 motif challenge. Help!!!!

23 January 2008

Thank you all for visiting and leaving your comments.

Looks like the one at the bottom right is the clear favourite .. and it is my favourite, too. This is the first one from this group that I made. I am not good at giving names to my designs but this one will now be called The Twirl.

And yes, I am working on documenting the instructions.

An Analysis of a Vintage Design

I have looked at this design a number of times when flipping through the book Tatting with Anne Orr, but never felt like I want to tat it. I guess I was also intimidated by the way the instructions was written.

As luck would have it, I have some thread left in a shuttle with a reasonable amount in a ball, but not a lot for any big project. So, why not just do it and get it over with. Anyway, Mrs John has got me interested in trying out old designs, :-)

Surprise, surprise! I think this is a brilliant design. It is like an endless tatting. I can go on and on and on and make it as big as I want without any cutting and tying. The only time time I need to cut and tie is when I want to add thread to the shuttle.

And the stitch count for the rings and chain are consistent throughout. There is no need to go back to the pattern to check whether the stitch count is correct or not. After the first few rings and chains, I can forget about looking at the instructions page and just refer to the picture to see where to join next. And after a while, there is no need for the picture, even! To borrow JaneEb's term, this one can be made on auto-pilot.

But, can it be more than a triangular motif? Yes it can! Pardon me if I'm grinning ear to ear but I think this is beautiful even if I am the only one to say so ;-) For greater effect I may want to try again with two colours.


By adding an extra chain at the corner, I repeat the pattern for the triangle on the other side and it becomes a square. Didn't I say this is a brilliant design!

I love a Tatting Challenge

.... well, not exactly a challenge, but I was piqued by Mrs John when she wrote about the supposedly easy medallion motif from the Priscilla Book 2.

As I have some free time, and I am looking for medallions to tat anyway, I gave the pattern a try. Here it is all done -


Looking at the original pattern, there are three rounds - the small centre ring, the middle round where the long chains are, and the outer round with the clovers.

And my challenge here was to tat it from beginning to end without any 'tie and cut' in between rounds. And I did!

Rather than starting wirh the centre ring, I began with the long chain. I used two shuttle, wound CTM and slide a paperclip on the thread in between the two shuttle to hold a mock picot and start on the chain.

When I reach the part where the chain joins to the centre motif, I changed shuttle and make the centre ring. To make sure that the picots in the centre ring is long, I leave a short length of thread before starting this centre ring. And the rests of the picots in the ring will take this size. Then I continue with the rest of the chain and the small ring at the top of the chain, and follow the pattern as written.

After I have made seven of the small rings, I made the last chain, joining the length of chain on both sides, i.e to the previous chain and to the first chain. Then, I took out the paperclip at the beginning of the first chain and join the last chain to the mock picot made by the paperclip. The last small ring in this round is made as a split ring.

The last round is followed as written in the pattern.

To Mrs John, give this another try. It is a beautiful motif.