Have I Forgotten All?

#19/100 Motif Challenge

Isdihara inspired this tat, here. 

The pattern is 

‘OldFashioned Heart’ 

designed by Etha Schuette

Thread: Valdani#12

The mistakes are 

ALL MINE! 

And, believe me, there were many!  Truckloads!  I cannot believe how many times I had to cut the thread - me -  who can un-tat any ring!  

The scissors flashed and my Paris vacation glow crumbled around my, as teeth gnashed and trucker-mouth erupted.  Not pretty.

The pattern is simple, but demands strict attention. 

Isn’t it a beauty, though, mistakes and all?  I will try it again in another of the new Valdani #12, which, to my surprises, I quite enjoyed this go-around.

p.s.  I just had a look at this post and am horrified to see the contribution Gian has made to the tatting!  What do you in Tat-land do, you who live with feline helpers?  How do you manage the hair?  I clean every day, every single day and mop and pick up hairs as I am finicky... but to look at this pic you might think I live in utter squalor!

Re-Validating Valdani

Seems to me I gave away my supply of Valdani not too long ago, after a long rant about its negative features. Figures.

I was waiting for my car to have its oil change and went for a little stroll yesterday when I stumbled across a yarn shop.

Since leaving knitting in the dust, I have not been inside a knit/crochet establishment for many, many months. But, as I was killing time, in I ambled and immediately spotted a tiny box of colour, tucked in a corner.

Yup. Figures. Valdani #12.

I just could NOT resist these.  They are so much brighter than the muddy Valdani colours I had before, so I just had to give them another chance.  What’s a tatter to do?

The pattern I picked out for the purple is lovely and I am very happy with the little motif so far.

I just had to have a break from my tat-one-at-a-time habit-hanky!

Progress to date:

Amnesia...

I forgot how deadly mind-numbing tatting a hankie border can be.  As with childbirth, I remember only the good bits, so I thought it would be great fun to tat this border.  Fun, no - pretty, yes!

The shuttle is one of LaCossette’s new ones.  It is the newer Aero that she is using and I really like it; it is very light and feels almost the same as the older ones, only for me even better.

♧♧♧♧♧♧♧♧♧♧♧♧♧♧♧♧♧♧♧♧

After a long wait for this: check out Julie Patterson’s wonderful books which are now available online!  Go to PayPal, send payment and you get the PDF books online. Here is the address you insert at PayPal.  I have downloaded two of the three and am delighted!  Thanks Jules!

Ten Toes Trump Tatting

No time for fingers last week. Instead, I walked for many, many miles and managed but a few meagre repeats of the pattern I had taken along.

Only this little bit of an edging was begun, in #80 variegated Lizbeth from Denise, following Jon's Crown of Thorns pattern, which I find to be a very pleasing design for a hankie border.  Thanks, Jon!

Before I left, I was able to get this finished.  

It is Karey’s Plain and Fancy Doily,  Jess’s HDT, #40
and Delica beads from Miranda.

                                                                                #18

En Vacance!

See you in about a week...  

I will be finishing this one, which I am loving...

HDT by Jess at Tat-ilicious

...and starting one of Jon’s that uses a daisy picot ring...  

Needing lots of practice!

Reject and Renew

  #17/100  Pattern by Lyn Morton  
#40 HDT Garden Afternoon, by Yarnplayer

I am getting smarter in my old age.  After beginning another of Lyn Morton’s patterns to use the last of the would-bobbin thread, I realized that the new pattern I have begun was not working out the way I had intended it to look:

So, off the shuttle came the black Cébélia #40, which is terribly fuzzy, which I will not use it again. I wound some Lizbeth to go with the HDT in yellow and greens, another HDT of Jess’s that I believe I won in a draw... I cannot seem to find reference to the name of this thread - sorry Jess!

The latest attempt. 

 Cébélia replaced with Lizbeth #40:

The pattern is a secret. (not my design!)
So far - so good!

Cavorting With Colour

I pulled out an old Lyn Morton book to find a pattern that did not use too much thread, wanting  to use up some already wound bobbins.

                                               #16

I am always amazed at how very different a pattern appears, depending upon whether  it is tatted in white, ecru, black or in colour.

This is a lovely book.  I have had it for a while and I seem to forget about it, but then I find it again, delighting in the patterns tatted from it's pages.

I Hear You! Bean Sprouts?

Your comments sent me to the steam iron, since obviously I have still not learned not to post too hastily; I just get so excited to show off my new creation!

Here it is again, (see last post for the BEFORE photo) after a bit of hasty blocking. With more time devoted to this aspect of my tatting, I think I could force even more of an improvement, but as I said, I get very excited, so here it is again.

A bit more sprout-like...  : ))

Snow Star

...in Spring!

  

I love this!  It is from Patterns and Tatting Designs, by Blomqvist and Persson. Seems as I have overcome my fear and loathing of this book - at last.  Seems I am gloating a tiny bit as well...   

#15      Silk Zwicky thread in centre from Krystle, 

Pink #50 Altin Basak, #40 Lizbeth for the rest.

This gives an idea as to the size of the two patterns 

I have tatted from that book:

New Directions

There has been another shift in my tatting.  I am not sure exactly what has occurred; you know, when all of a sudden you are aware that you are doing something differently, but you are not certain when or how this change has happened.

I am excited to show you this recent motif that is not the sort of thing I usually have enjoyed. : )

Substitution Setbacks

    Fancy Fields ( so pretty!)      HDT by Jess at Tat-ilicious                 #14

Firstly, I tatted this small motif from this book:

It seemed to take forever because I was not using my usual LaCossette shuttles, but GR-8 Shuttles, which arrived this week - two of them to replace the ones that were lost in the fiasco last June, when all my shuttles in the red tin disappeared... Can it already be a whole year ago? Yikes!

Notice the little flowers - some of them roll at the end of the ring.  Half I tatted regularly. With the others I used the ‘posting’ method before closing the ring when tatting on the backside.  The latter rings are far superior. [ If you are reading, do you not agree, Suzanne? : ) ]

It has taken me this long to be able to order two of these and I am surprised at how long it is taking me to adjust to them.  

Anyone out there in Tat-land know what I mean?  My fingers are sore today from the manipulations I use to forward and reverse the thread.  I really hope that I will get used to them again, as it is nice to have a change once in a while. They are small and sturdy little tools and I love the colours I picked.  The other one is white with a hint of green.  Very pretty.

At any rate, I did finish the socks for Mini-Boss.  I will be seeing my daughter, her mom, at the end of the month, so I will give her the socks then rather than trust these beauties to the postal service!

Following Frivole’s F/S B/S Fabulosity

I saw this on Frivole’s blog and it is one of my favourite patterns by Mary Konior, so I tatted it F/S B/S, as I always do, but took a photo of both. Because it is in two colours, you can really see the stitches if you are inclined to wanting to compare the two sides.

The Josephine Rings were tatted on both sides with the second half of the stitch and the pattern increased by 2 ds.

The thread is Milford yellow, #40 and Altin Basak pink, #50.

                                                                                                                      #13

❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀

You must go and see this if you want to be able to tat an easy split chain.  

Thanks to Frivole’s video and Marie Smith’s method, this is now possible. 

 Thank you, clever tatting women!

Bloomin’ Blomqvist!

#12         
Sunflower’ pattern by Blomqvist and Persson, 
Tatting Patterns and Designs
Thread is 6-ply #40 Milford

Here it is!  

I did it!  I NEVER thought I could figure that pattern out.

The book no longer intimidates me, as I got really bored as I rounded the final ‘stitch.’ Really, I do not like to tat things this large - I usually pick much smaller projects. In my mind this is a ‘real’ doily because of the size; it measures about six inches in diameter.

♢♢♢♢♢♢♢♢♢♢♢♢♢♢

This work has been claimed by The Boss.

Said I: 

But Abby, it isn’t pink. 

These aren’t colours you usually pick.

Said Abby, nodding head up and down vigorously: 

But, I really like those colours.  

I like them a lot.

Best compliment I could ever ask for.

♢

Baring More Threads

Taking a break from the Sunflower, 

I enjoyed tatting this very much:

#11/100 Motif Challenge

Pretty, isn’t it?  I still have some work to do on getting the lengths of thread to be consistent, but this is one time I enjoyed the tatting process even though I could clearly see my mistakes!  I do like these vintage bare thread patterns of which there are quite a few in here:

Bursting With Pride

I was really wanting to save this till finished before I posted the photo, but I am so happy with myself for the progress I made with what I originally perceived as an impossible pattern for me to tat that I just had to share it with Tat-land right away!

I have also finished one of the socks...

#10/100

Such a pretty border - sewn on (with no nasty, needling events!)  

with #30 Cebelia, which works very well on sock edgings.

♒♒♒♒♒♒♒♒♒♒

Afterthought: I switched thread and am using Altin Basak #50 for the motif. Actually, only the pink is A.B., and the yellow is Milford #40, sent to me long ago (it seems) by typstatting. That is why I have used those colours - they are the only ones I have in thread which seems to be less twisty than Lizbeth #40 for this particular pattern.

Marvellous May Mandala

..well, maybe just a motif but I liked the sound of that!  Sort of Spring-like and happy - like this bit of vintage tatting from a pattern in an Anne Orr book.

#9   HDT is Fancy Fields #40 by Tat-ilicious

This pattern reminds me of Gina - I think she would have loved it. Remember her heart pattern, with mignonette tatting? It was my first attempt at a pattern with so many bare threads.    

Here is her motif that I tatted in 2010:
(Good grief!  I have been blogging long 
enough to refer to ‘early’ works!  Scary!)

That piece taught me to really appreciate some of the old books and vintage patterns that I had overlooked before.

I forget about them and then every so often am reminded of how pretty they can be.