We sold our house and have moved to Colorado! The library in town has a tatting group that meets once a week and we are making snowflakes for a fundraiser. This is my first attempt at Hearts in a Snowflake by Jon Yusoff. Please follow the link to see how it's supposed to look! This is absolutely a wretched piece of work, with gaps in the clovers, twisted joins and all sorts of other twists. Setting it down uncompleted for several weeks didn't help, either.
I started it again and already it's looking much better. I colored the picots that the second row needs to join to with a blue washout marker because when I started it, I joined to three rings in a row. That certainly didn't work, so I snipped it out and started the second row over.
Here it's completed, still not great, but better. I need to block it much better and stretch out the clovers so the insides look like hearts. They certainly don't now.
This is a snowflake from Rebecca Jones' book, The Complete Book of Tatting, which is a great resource for tatters. But I always thought that snowflakes were six sided, and not especially round. There are some in the book that are a little more pointy, so I'll try them. I made all of these with DMC Cebelia 20 thread, but after a few more I'll try a finer thread. I know the photos could be much better; I'm lighting challenged.
Now that I'm no longer a Californian, I've been asked if I'll change the name of the blog. Yes, but I still haven't settled on a new name, so please be patient.
About our move: We closed escrow on the house on July 20, the movers came the next day and Mr California Stitching and I took our 19 year old cat, Oscar, and left that afternoon. Oscar was surprisingly good on the trip, as long as we left his cage open so he could stretch out and sleep. We are now pretty much settled in an apartment waiting to start building our new home, which should start in a week or two. Later this week we travel back to California for my niece's baby shower and will be back in Colorado next week.
Wow I am impressed at your tatting improvement and that your cat is 19 years old! A new name for your blog this might be interesting keep us posted :)
ReplyDeleteA five-sided snowflake would certainly turn my mathematician husband speechless - but it's a very pretty motif, even so!
ReplyDeleteSuch a pretty snowflake. My grandmother used to tat with a shuttle. I wish I knew how!
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on your move!
ReplyDeleteI don't know anything about tatting - is it similar to crochet?
From what I can tell, being fairly new to it, is that tatting is usually grouped in with lacemaking. However, you can use the thinner crochet threads for tatting. It's basically making knots, pretty much one stitch with some variations.
DeleteFascinating! I've always wanted to try this.
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