Motif is Yellow...Air is Blue!

Can You Guess What This Is?

 

Tatting this motif, I have been stuck on blipless joins and Catherine Wheel joins.  

I have been successful.  There are no blips.  No coloured bits where they should not be.  I am now very tired.  I may be now bald.  Frustrated beyond belief, I have spent  HOURS  un-tatting, since I seem to have forgotten EVERYTHING I KNOW!

What is crazy about all this is that I have been practising these methods where there is only one colour.  I was determined to learn the tricks and there was only one little part of the pattern where it counted for real.   Yes,  pig-headed Fox had to learn it RIGHT NOW,  using yellow thread everywhere....

Driven to searching YouTube for answers and  looking at videos on 'How-To', in my travels I stumbled onto a site by Karen. Just look at  those tatting nails!

This is a very informative place to look up a tons of tatting techniques.  She is very, very  good - at least for me.  Everyone has different learning methodology requirements.  Especially those of us who are dyslexic.  This site I like a lot!

However - no blipless joins on Karen's blog.  So, I plodded once again  - the thousandth time, through Jane's instructions and finally, FINALLY I got it!  Again.  I hope it is firmly implanted in my brain this time.

You know, they say,  if you throw enough of it at the wall, some of it will stick....

I Might Be A Blockhead...

 #11 Motif Challenge

Pattern from Kaye B. Judt's Oh My Stars!  

Oh yes. Margaret - this is your thread!  Altin Basak #50

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Check This Out!
Mini-Boss is now a ONE Year Old!

(Look at the SOCKS!)

Capital Clunies!

#9 Motif Challenge

Elisa's cluny pattern again, and yet again:

#9 Motif Challenge

 

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Inspired by Diane, who is tatting lots of pretties from Kaye B. Judt's Oh My Stars!, I decided to practice a few things from the book and began the process of review with this one:

 #10 Motif Challenge

This is the first attempt, so I am pretty pleased with myself.  It came out better than I expected it would, though there are a lot of stops and starts here and places where I had to cut out bits entirely!  Ah, the good with the bad, right?

There is a point in the pattern where it says:

L.J to the p of previous Ch, 3ds

Well, I kept seeing that what I was doing was wrong, wrong WRONG and I couldn't figure out why.  This at about midnight, when I badly wanted to go to sleep, but NOT before I figured out exactly where Kaye had made a dreadful mistake in the pattern!

Finally I saw what I was doing (after about four tries!).  I was tatting this:

L.J to the p of previous Ch, Ch 3ds

(I do apologize, Kaye!)

One of these days, I will learn to read the pattern as it is written!

Masochism In Miniature

 #7 Motif Challenge

The blue thread thread is Sweet Shop Forget-Me Not.  Tatskool's threads are wonderful. This one is a great blue, but #60 feels like #100 to me - especially after all that Cebelia #20!

I realized something about the Clunies.  I ENJOY making them!  What I do not enjoy is the constant experiment to wrap the thread in the beginning of the process.

§ Thank you, yet again, elisa, for your dynamite patterns!



 The tauter the wrap, the more nicely shaped the tally.  I realized I was not securing it properly (It has only been TWO years, after all!) So, I have had to re-think the wrap.

It is working more to my liking, but I do not have it down pat yet.

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The Fourth Finnish Motif 

 #8 Motif Challenge

Again, the picots got scrunched.  I think that Maureen was right: it is the beads that are messing up the original stitch count.  It is a pretty pattern though.

 The variegated thread is another of the Altin Basik #50 samples that I received last week  from Margaret and it is quite pale and delicate, so I matched it with some purple AB that I had in my stash.

I like this pattern, which is from the Finnish book that I downloaded and printed.  There are a lot of lovely motifs at the back of the book, but I have to scan them and blow them up as they are printed very small to get them all in the original book. 

It is tiresome to try and read the Finnish, but I did not realize that all the pattern diagrams are located on the last three pages of the book! I am going to take the time to get those copied - one of these days...  : )